It’s a black winter’s day in 2006. Tragedy has struck an Australian family. On both sides of the Tasman, the nation has been sent into shock and mourning. The teenagers who make up the Stoge Chollonge Committee in the mythical rural Kiwi town of Shonnon share the pain, and they know how to pay tribute to the passing of an Aussie icon. It’s time to get up and dance! Badly! To loud music and hideous flashing lights! With passages of uncontextual sexuality! Yes, it’s welcome to – Stoge Chollonge 2006!

The first thing to say about Stoge Chollonge 2006 is that it is clever, and also very, very funny. One clever thing about it is the original decision to make a certain well-known Kiwi institution the inspiration for the play. This institution features music, spectacle, and “teens taking to the stage in their droves,” as some journo once put it. So there’s a natural start-to-finish narrative flow, with plenty of scope for human conflict, people tackling organisational and creative challenges together, and dancing to loud, loud music.

It’s also clever because the real life inspiration is not exactly renowned for delicacy of touch or high artistic achievement (ok, there’s bound to be exceptions). This makes it rich terrain for satire of all kinds. In fact, I have a sneaking feeling that the show’s hysterically funny grand finale might actually pass for the real thing if smuggled onto the right stage.

So the Stoge Chollonge 2006 team chose their theme well, but obviously they had to do their own organising, choreography, design, costumes and also plot and dialogue, not to mention performing; and how did they get on with all that? The short answer: really, really well.

The longer answer is that this is a show that doesn’t miss a trick. Characters are established. Relationships between the slightly dysfunctional members of the slightly dysfunctional committee begin to spark and move. Shonnon’s Stoge Chollonge 2006 entry staggers to its feet. This all takes place in a spirit of high drama, with plenty of offence taken and given, flashing eyes, tears, and flouncing out of the room.

Along the way, there are sight gags galore; the show’s devisers collectively have a keen eye for what looks funny, and they know how to get it on stage. There’s plenty of songs, including the specially composed ‘I’m High’ (Liam Kelly). And then there’s the dance. Your reviewer is an ex-choreographer himself and his old heart warms to see those clunky old moves, those ‘interpretive dance’ routines, brought back to life so accurately and so well.

Small-town New Zealand, teenagers at work and play, the real-life inspiration for Stoge Chollonge 2006, are all sent up, but it’s satire that aims for the funny bone, not the viscera or the jugular vein. Are some of the characters and relationships a bit sketchy? No matter – if one bit doesn’t quite work, there’s another one crowding at its heels which is likely to be a riot. The interactions between the characters are played with exemplary timing, pace, exuberance and invention.

This is a sharp-as-a-knife ensemble cast of consistently high quality, working together well and effectively. The only actor I’ll mention individually is Hilary Pennwarden, also director, who has replaced Aaron Pyke as Darren, for the opening night anyway. This is admirably ‘the show must go on’ of Ms Pennwarden; not only that, she’s great in the part.

Stoge Chollonge 2006 was devised by Alayne Dick (who also plays Alana), Alice May Connolly (Ally), Aaron Pyke (Darren), Harriet Hughes (Hattie), Hilary Pennwarden (director/Darren), Josephine Byrnes (Jess), Maria Williams (Maddie) and Sam Irwin (Zach).

Credit is also due to Lucas Neal for set design and graphic design, Isadora Lao for lighting (there are some nice lighting gags), Aaron Pyke for sound and music and Jake Brown for choreography.

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