tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36622997.post1382517567524163567..comments2024-03-14T04:35:06.209+13:00Comments on Beattie's Book Blog - unofficial homepage of the New Zealand book community: Happy Bloomsday !Beattie's Book Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01505389626725979100noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36622997.post-82621500799366942462016-06-17T08:49:26.277+12:002016-06-17T08:49:26.277+12:00Auckland’s annual Bloomsday celebration took place...Auckland’s annual Bloomsday celebration took place last night at the Thirsty Dog on Karangahape Road, a three-hour show with a four-piece band and a theatrical line-up that made it the hottest item in town.<br />Appearing again this year were international performers Lucy Lawless and Michael Hurst from the epic sandals & skirts TV soap Xena, Warrior Princess. <br />They were joined by Geraldine Brophy, one of NZ’s foremost TV and movie stars, and Bruce Hopkins – Gamling in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.<br />Lucy Lawless played Gerty MacDowell, lonely seaside siren of Sandymount Rocks. <br />Michael Hurst turned the broody, abstract Stephen Dedalus into a song & dance man. <br />Geraldine Brophy was absolutely sensational reading the really unrestrained parts of Molly Bloom’s unrestrained soliloquy. <br />Bruce Hopkins appeared once more as the fearful and fearsome transvestite dominatrix Bella Cohen, transmogrifying this year into Helen of Mt Albert, imperious Queen of the World, the face that lunched a thousand countries.<br />As always the place was full as a bull, all come to witness Auckland’s most famous literary cabaret.<br />Japanese mezzo-soprano Yuko Takahashi sang from Mozart, aided by Balmoral’s Farrell Cleary.<br />Dublin actor Brian Keegan read excerpts from Ulysses. <br />Unite Union organiser Joe Carolan was the one-eyed Cyclops of the public bar, while tenor and political commentator Chris Trotter sang of Irish socialist and revolutionary James Connolly. And sang The Foggy Dew.<br />Linn Lorkin and the Jews Brothers’ Band, augmented by Jean McAllister, provided a fabulous range of music: Motown, Mozart, ABBA, The Doors, klezmer, Edith Piaf, Marian hymns, Broadway musicals… <br />And, as always, Leopold Bloom, sad, cuckolded, melancholic was played by well-known Grey Lynn/Brooklyn musical impresario and man-about-town Hershal Herscher. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com