AUCKLAND BLOOMSDAY FESTIVAL SUNDAY JUNE 16

GREY LYNN'S LEOPOLD BLOOM

Grey Lynn musical maestro and entertainer Hershal Herscher will be doing his Leopold Bloom number tomorrow. He’ll be appearing in the annual June

16 Bloomsday musical literary razzle dazzle at the Thirsty Dog on K Rd.

Leopold Bloom is the melancholic hero of James Joyce’s comic masterpiece Ulysses.

“He’s your basic schlemiel,” says Hershal.

“He’s a type I really understand.  For example, the world’s most famous schlemiel is Woody Allen, and people always tell me I remind them of him and that I talk just like him.  Actually we come from the same neighbourhood.

“You know how terrorised Woody is of the world?

“I was the one used to beat him up.”

Hershal is from Brooklyn in New York and landed up in Grey Lynn with partner Linn Lorkin in 1986.

“My grandparents were all from Europe, Jewish immigrants: Ukraine, Romania, Austria and Lithuania.  They came to New York city in the 19th century.

“Bloom is a very common Jewish name  . My family had good friends called Bloom, schoolteachers. When I went to London, I went directly to the famous London restaurant Bloom’s, in Whitechapel. As soon as I walked in they all greeted me, ‘Oh, it’s Hershal from Brooklyn!’ I ordered chopped liver and kishka.”

He and Linn Lorkin visited Dublin last year. “We went to the James Joyce museum, gave them a poster of the Auckland Bloomsday show. They asked us to sign it! It’s a happenin’ place!”

Joyce’s novel tells the story of Jewish Leopold Bloom as he wanders round Dublin on one day and one night, June 16, 1904, before finally returning home to his faithless wife Molly.

Here in New Zealand Bloomsday has been celebrated for the past dozen years in a unique Hibernian-Hebrew cabaret featuring Linn Lorkin and Hershal and the Jews Brothers Band.

Asked what he thinks the high point of the Auckland Bloomsday show, Hershal pauses then casually responds, “It’s usually when I’m on my knees and a six-foot bearded transvestite dominatrix straight off K Rd forces me to lace up her very long leather boots. I’m still holding my accordion and she is schlepping me around the floor. Oi vey…”

Playing the six-foot bearded dominatrix this year will be Michael Hurst.

Other performers include Irish radio presenter Noelle McCarthy, Grey Lynn’s Liesha Ward-Knox, blues singer Rick Bryant, mezzo soprano Yuko Takahashi, Joe Carolan, Chris Trotter, Farrell Cleary, and Dublin actor Brian Keegan reading from Ulysses.

“It’s a one-night show,” says Hershal. “It’s hardly an income. But you don’t so something like this for the gelt.”

AUCKLAND BLOOMSDAY FESTIVAL SUNDAY JUNE 16:

Dancing In The Wake, with Jane Belwell, Sacha Copland, John Smythe, Basement Theatre 4pm and 6pm; Jews Brothers’ Bloomsday, with Hershal Herscher, Thirsty Dog, Karangahape Rd, 7.30pm.

Picture above shows Hershal with Linn Lorkin and a visitor from Dublin.