How to Cook a Kiwi: Laura Bruce's "N to Z" of Aotearoa
Cavern Club, 22 Allen St, Te Aro, Wellington
01/03/2022 - 02/03/2022
New Athenaeum Theatre, 24 The Octagon, Dunedin
23/06/2023 - 23/06/2023
Production Details
Written, directed, and produced by Laura Bruce
Original music by Jordan Turner.
Television cooking programme meets stand-up comedy in Canadian comedian Laura Bruce’s first solo show.
Award-winning Canadian comedian Laura Bruce is bringing her solo show to Dunedin. Bruce takes an irreverent poke at Kiwi culture in How to Cook a Kiwi: Laura Bruce’s N to Z of Aotearoa. Proposing, among other things, to roast our national icon, Bruce’s show will be at the New Athenaeum Theatre on Friday, June 23rd.
A resident of Wellington and a familiar face on the national comedy scene, Bruce emigrated to New Zealand in 2019. She’ll share her observations, insights and frustrations as an immigrant to Aotearoa — together with some outrageous cooking tips. In “How to Cook a Kiwi”, ‘stand-up comedy’ collides with ‘television cooking programme’.
New Athenaeum Theatre, 23 the Octogon, Dunedin
Friday, June 23rd at 7:30 pm. One night only.
$20 p.p.
Ticket link: https://www.trybooking.co.nz/OAF
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LauratheBruce/
Performed by Laura Bruce
Comedy , Theatre ,
55 minutes
Laura Bruce has a Recipe for Laughter
Review by Reuben Crimp 26th Jun 2023
The heat pump is on at the New Athenaeum Theatre as Laura Bruce, the jovial Canadian comedian, performs her show: “How to Cook a Kiwi: Laura Bruce’s N to Z of Aotearoa”. With the room buzzing in anticipation and the scent of gin wafting from the foyer, Laura crafts an extraordinary evening of clean, sharp, and highly entertaining comedy.
Donning the persona and outfit of a pompous TV chef, Laura cooks up a veritable smorgasbord of comedy. Her anecdotes are marinated with witticisms from her experience as a Canadian living in New Zealand, and peppered with loving jabs at NZ’s quirks from the Kiwi bird to the Pavlova debate. Laura’s refreshingly intellectual humour, wrapped in a relatable tapestry of cultural exchanges, has everyone laughing from beginning to end.
Laura plays a character throughout her show, a high-status TV chef who ironically lacks basic cooking know-how. Perfectly deploying the rhetorical technique of ironic condescension, speaking down to the audience about culinary techniques while mispronouncing every possible French word. This hilarious dichotomy, combined with her sophisticated wit, creates the perfect comedy character.
Laura’s wit is sharp, deftly slicing and dicing through topics as varied as the exorbitant cost of living in Queenstown, the ironic charm of Dunedin’s historic home (Olveston House), and the apparent ubiquity of vaping. No topic is too trivial or too grand for her to blend into her comedic stew, be it Sausage Sizzles or New Zealand’s recent referendum.
She may not always do this but, after the show in Dunedin, Laura invited the audience to sample some gin in the foyer. She shared a batch of her own gin that she distils back home in Wellington. A lovely way to end the evening.
“How to Cook a Kiwi: Laura Bruce’s N to Z of Aotearoa” is an uproarious comedy banquet, masterfully seasoning and searing local culture into a deliciously funny feast. A dish best savoured live as you will leave with an elevated mood, an elevated blood alcohol level, and an elevated appreciation for the world of Aotearoa.
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