I attend­ed Saman­tha Hannah’s show on Tues­day night with high expec­ta­tions, and she did not dis­ap­point.

For those who don’t know her, Saman­tha Han­nah is a Bil­ly T Award nom­i­nee who’s been turn­ing life’s odd­i­ties into com­e­dy for years. In 2018, she gar­nered a lot of atten­tion with her show How to Find a Hus­band in a Year, a con­cept born from her real-life attempt to find a part­ner. By 2019, she had fol­lowed it up with How to Find Hap­pi­ness (in a Year), a wit­ty and self-aware explo­ration of reclaim­ing hap­pi­ness after grief that earned her a spot in the top 10 for the Fun­ny Women Best Show award. Now, sev­en months preg­nant and bal­anc­ing moth­er­hood, work, and stand-up, she brings her lat­est show, Peek­a­boo!, to the NZ Inter­na­tion­al Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val, and it’s a sol­id hit.

The premise for this show is that Saman­tha is rein­vent­ing her­self as a tour­ing children’s enter­tain­er. In keep­ing with the theme, the stage is set like an inter­ac­tive children’s TV pro­gramme. Her easy­go­ing charm made it com­fort­able for us to join her on a chaot­ic inter­pre­ta­tion of children’s enter­tain­ment for adults, com­plete with props, toys, and sto­ry­telling that nev­er quite worked out as intend­ed, even putting out a New Zealand icon to roast.

Saman­tha is excep­tion­al­ly tal­ent­ed at comedic sto­ry­telling. She has a way of draw­ing you into the nar­ra­tive with a real gift for craft­ing imagery that pulls you into the moment. For this rea­son, I would say she didn’t real­ly need to sup­ple­ment it with the pho­tos to com­ple­ment the sto­ry­telling, as we were already with her. How­ev­er, I did very much enjoy the videos of her baby Char­lie and clips from the home secu­ri­ty sys­tem, which brought hilar­i­ty to the sweet and mun­dane of every­day life on mater­ni­ty leave.

While the show cen­tres on par­ent­hood, it’s far from exclu­sive. Non-par­ents (like me) will still have a great time. Han­nah has an impres­sive way of being relat­able to any­one in her audi­ence through raw hon­esty, with punch­lines that deliv­er dark and out­ra­geous twists.

Saman­tha Hannah’s Peek­a­boo! is well-craft­ed and engag­ing, weav­ing per­son­al expe­ri­ences into a broad­er com­men­tary on par­ent­hood, work, and iden­ti­ty with­out ever feel­ing heavy-hand­ed. She tack­led the chaos of bal­anc­ing moth­er­hood, a full-time job, and stand-up with humour that felt authen­tic and relat­able.

Make sure you get your tick­ets! This is a show that you’ll be guar­an­teed to leave with a smile on your face.

 

 

Review by Nadia Free­man