I’m pret­ty excit­ed that Album Par­ty is the first show to ben­e­fit from BATS The­atre and The Base­ment The­atre (Auck­land) work­ing togeth­er to sup­port the best new emerg­ing shows to tour to both cities. A con­cert, a com­e­dy gig and a play all rolled into one, The Bet­ter Best Pos­si­ble Album Par­ty That Any­body Has Ever Been Two fol­lows TYLA and Deni$ through the highs and the lows of attempt­ing pop music world dom­i­na­tion.

It stars born and bred Welling­tons Kate McGill as TYLA and Frith Horan as Deni$ with sup­port from Tim Nut­tall. They’ve got a dance crew of Wellington’s fresh­est hip hop tal­ent from local sec­ondary schools. “We have 12 dancers Gab­bi, Grace, Ali, Made­line, Char­lie, Tim­on, Celia, Emi­ly, Meg, Mol­ly, Kate, Lara and Imo­gen — they form their own sub-crew ‘Spice Rack’ and each have cho­sen a spicy stage name, our cur­rent favourite being Garam Masala. We are over­joyed to have a strong range of actors, dancers and musi­cians join­ing us. They’re pret­ty freak­ing great.”

McGill and Horan met at Toi Whakaari NZ Dra­ma School, where they formed a desire to make engag­ing work with a strong pur­pose. “Pop music is infec­tious; it gives us lib­er­ties we might not oth­er­wise have with the char­ac­ters and the con­tent. We touch on a LOT of dif­fer­ent themes and ideas, but at a pop con­cert, the main idea is to have fun, to par­ty — so we’re enjoy­ing meld­ing the two and involv­ing the audi­ence in the enter­tain­ing may­hem. We were also inspired by a lot of 90s pop groups that are doing come­back tours at the moment (ie. Vengaboys, S Club 7 — now 3) and how they strike a bal­ance between being nos­tal­gic and trag­i­cal­ly fun­ny. ALBUM PARTY is the ulti­mate pre-Christ­mas show to get you in the spir­it. This is the show for peo­ple who want to dance, laugh, sing, and be walk out with that exhil­a­rat­ed feel­ing you get after a pop con­cert — strange­ly inspired and ready for more. We’ve added some Christ­mas flavour to the show to real­ly bring that fes­tive cheer, includ­ing a hit new sin­gle ‘Unwrap My Present’.”

You can have a lis­ten to one of their songs Gas in my ass o line (and get the same ear­worm I’ve had for the past week) or check out their Bet­ter Best Pos­si­ble Man­nequin Chal­lenge.

HOT TIP:  at 1pm this Sat­ur­day, icon­ic NZ Pop duo Tyla and Deni$ will be mak­ing their first pub­lic appear­ance togeth­er since 2009 in Cuba Mall at the lit­tle stage space by Left Bank Arcade.  !!