a topp idea

“Would you like to go and see the Topp Twins?” asked TO.

“Errrm…” sez I, “If you’d like to go…”

“Haven’t you ever seen them?!” TO was incredulous.

The Topp Twins – two identical lesbian twins from New Zealand - have been performing around the traps for more than 36 years. Their highly successful TV series ran in NZ for 3 series, and they’ve won a swag of awards.

I’d never seen them before because, to be honest, I was over the whole “lesbian” entertainment thing decades ago and found images like this even more off-putting than the lesbian tag:

If I had to nominate two types of music I struggle to tolerate, I would have to say “country”, and “western”. But, even matches made in heaven sometimes require compromise and the Topp Twins sounded more appealing than the alternative - a night of “Sing-a-long to the Sound of Music”.

The twins are polished comics and polished musicians. Yodelling is not easy but, by gum, Linda has got what it takes. Better yet, Linda played a mean harmonica which she demonstrated during a fantastic blues number.

They appeared as several different characters during the show, and worked the crowd brilliantly. For the first time in my life I didn’t cringe when it was audience participation time, but happily stood up and joined in. Funny is one thing – fun is quite another altogether and the twins do it well.

As “Camp Leader” and “Camp Mother” they set a few audience members busy making rum-balls which they then shared around.
“Where are you from?”. When people gave answers like Hong Kong or Southern California, they were expertly thrown a rum ball. When someone finally said Australia they “threw” them a rum-ball Trevor Chappell style.

For overseas guests:
The "great underarm bowling incident of 1981" was a shameful day for Australian Sport. Instead of bowling overarm as cricketers normally do, they resorted to this to defeat New Zealand:

Yep, the Topp Twins are political animals. Although they shared some lesbian jokes it wasn’t a lesbian show at all.

Tony Abbott
Australia's Prime Minister and Minister for Women

Another great Australian sport is hanging shit on the way Kiwis [i.e. New Zealanders] love to strangle vowels; their efforts to say our Prime Minister Tony Abbott is a speedo wearing winker were well received.

TO’s suggestion for our day out was indeed a Topp one.