You pos­sibly couldn’t get more Wel­ling­ton than head­ing to the theatre, regard­less of the weath­er, to watch a music­al about polit­ics. Last week, I went along to Des­tin­a­tion Bee­hive: 2017, writ­ten by the clev­er and witty duo of Lor­ae Parry and Pinky Agnew.

The seat of Tinakori Heights is highly con­ten­ded this elec­tion as every party has a can­did­ate stand­ing, but who will take it out? With MPs try­ing to appeal to the youths, swoon­ing over Sey­mour, caus­ing a ker­fuffle over coali­tions and feel­ing weak­en by Winston’s swag­ger… you’ll be in fits of laughter as you get to know each can­did­ate through song and dance.

There are plenty of famil­i­ar faces too –  you’ll be tak­ing a second glace as the act­ors and act­resses pull off some extremely con­vin­cing impres­sions. I per­son­ally was the most con­vinced by the Helen Clark and Grant Robertson impres­sions.

The show has slick scene and cos­tume changes, simple and effect­ive light­ing, fant­ast­ic one-liners, unex­pec­ted plot twists, and catchy, toe-tap­ping tunes. I was keen to get my hands on a script – mainly so I could learn the Sey­mour ser­en­ade song and the Nation­al Party rap. Obvi­ously.

If you feel like you need some reprieve from the cur­rent goings on in polit­ics, Des­tin­a­tion Bee­hive: 2017 prob­ably won’t give you that. But you’ll walk out of the theatre still laugh­ing and pos­sibly wish­ing that some of the geni­us script does actu­ally come true this elec­tion. Go see it!

Des­tin­a­tion Beehive:2017

On until 5 August at Circa Theatre

By Lor­ae Parry and Pinky Agnew

Dir­ec­ted by: Jan Bol­well