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.  !!