Hudson & Halls Live! (Silo Theatre)

This is an endearing and rather sweet show that contains a great portrayal of an established relationship (both professional and personal) without feeling the urge to break it up and/or start any new ones. It is also the only theatre I've seen with actual cooking on stage (I've seen a fair amount of eating, not least of which the sequence in Shopping and Fucking that means that one actor is now forever Noodle Boy to me and fellow attendees) and is also very, very New Zealand, in equal parts embarrassment and affectionate nostalgia.

Anyway. Hudson & Halls were a gay couple who had a cooking show on NZ television from the late 70s to early 80s. They were funny, flamboyant (and all those other related code words) and very popular. For context, the homosexual law reform bill, which decriminalised consensual sex between men aged 16 or over, finally passed in 1986. Hudson & Halls, and the Topp Twins (I'm glad they exist, although I don't usually like their material) managed to be acceptable enough to the mainstream while also creating acceptance and pulling the mainstream along with them.

There is, I think, only one episode of the show still extant - viewable on-line here.

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