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Who needs tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour? (Image: Archi Banal)
Who needs tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour? (Image: Archi Banal)

Pop CultureOctober 29, 2023

Review: The Eras Tour, live* in Christchurch

Who needs tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour? (Image: Archi Banal)
Who needs tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour? (Image: Archi Banal)

Life hack: Alex Casey gets front row seats to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour for just $25 – and a lot less stress.

Whether it’s selling bags of confetti for hundreds of dollars or adorning Nicole Kidman with armfuls of friendship bracelets she definitely didn’t want, Swifties are known for their entrepreneurship and enthusiasm when it comes to Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. And, as it turns out, the Swifties of Ōtautahi are no exception. At the very first screening of the Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour Film, one fan was overheard at Hoyts EntX negotiating with the cashier about the free refills that came with his plastic Eras Tour tumbler. 

“Can I get my free drink in another cup?” he asked confidently, clearly looking to preserve the integrity of the tumbler. The cashier looked perplexed, and said she would have to check. After pawing at her touchscreen for a moment and doing a spot of long division behind the eyes, we had an answer. “I think, yeah, that should be fine” she shrugged. The victorious fan returned to the candy bar to fill up his bonus paper cup, filming and narrating the whole experience on social media for what one can only assume is a global cabal of cup collectors. 

At this point, it’s worth pointing out how much more pleasant it was to purchase tickets for Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (in New Zealand cinemas 2023) than Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (in Australian stadiums 2024). After firewalking through hell on that loading page and having already watched the entire concert in grainy, shaky clips on YouTube, I figured I might as well see the show in slightly higher definition. Instead of dropping thousands on flights, accommodation and tickets, it was a lot easier to stomach the $24.89 entry price (also… Taylor was 24 when she made 1989… she never stops). 

I purchased my popcorn and got settled into a leather lounger in front of the giant Xtreme Screen, not a soul within a 10 metre radius (it was 12pm on a Thursday after all). With the trailer for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes providing a fitting opening act, the film began among the candy-floss Lover era clouds, high above the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. As Swift’s familiar “it’s been a… looong…. tiiime… coooom-ing” crooned and the clock onscreen struck midnight, I instantly got chills and felt a single pathetic tear in my eye. 

The film’s editors mercifully anticipated the loneliness of a 32-year-old crying over a pop concert on a Thursday afternoon, and kindly cut to many, many close-ups of other people clutching their hearts and sobbing throughout the opening numbers of ‘Miss Americana’ and ‘Cruel Summer’. Although I’m sure it’s not quite the same as being surrounded by 100,000 people screaming “HE LOOKS UP GRINNING LIKE A DEVIL”, the constant return to the emotion of the crowd was a good reminder that concerts are as much about the attendees as they are the stars. 

Great seats at the Eras Tour

Filmed with over 40 cameras over three nights, you get even closer to the action than a kid waiting stageside to receive a bowler hat. In close-up you can see the dancers’ dedication to their office worker roles in ‘The Man’, you can see the label on the bottle of wine Swift pours during ‘tolerate it’, you can see the fact that one of her guitarists is absolutely rocking a Sue Nicholson haircut. All details you’d never catch otherwise, all highlighting just how many people are involved in this enormous, historic, record-shattering production. 

The proximity of the camera also adds a superhuman dimension to Swift – where are the pores? – which gratefully erodes as the hours tick by, the sweat forms on her upper lip, and the curls fight their way through her sleek tresses. While much of the banter between songs and costume change breaks have been trimmed for time, there are still some dork flourishes which attempt to maintain some veneer of relatability. “What am I doing here?” Swift asks, staring at her own awkwardly splayed arms, as if seeing them for the first time in her life, “what is this?”

Whatever it was, I had a great time singing along to songs about being heartbroken at high school and ignoring the sad reality that I was actually an adult sitting in the dark, a stone’s throw away from the South Island’s only Holey Moley. It was a surprisingly emotional concert simulation, not dissimilar to an experience I had last month at ABBA Voyage in London. The multi-million dollar show combined motion capture, 65 million pixels, a purpose-built arena and literal witchcraft to make heyday ABBA appear as if they are performing live onstage.

In the moments after the digital “ABBA-tars” first appeared, I turned back to look at the 3000-strong crowd. Women in platinum blonde wigs had their mouths agape and men in shiny metallic shirts held their hands to their cheeks as digital Anna-Frid, straight out of 1979, twirled under the spotlight in her shimmering red sequin cape. “Hello London” waved digital Bjorn. “This is so fucked up” my partner shrieked involuntarily. The gushing reviews had all been right, the breathless pull quotes no exaggeration – it really, truly, was like they were right in front of us. Especially when I took my glasses off. 

Even though we all spent the night clapping and cheering at what was essentially a giant fancy television screen, all the emotions were still very real. Boogying to ‘Dancing Queen’ with some of my oldest friends, just as we had done when we were young, sweet, only 17 etc, left me teary. Even the most stock-still of middle-aged men couldn’t resist the stormer chorus of ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme’. Everyone was in ribbons for ‘Thank You For the Music’ by the end of the night. “WE LOVE YOU” a man in a shiny shirt shouted at what was essentially a series of 1s and 0s. 

Just like watching the Eras Tour film, it was strange to feel so palpably moved by a concert experience that wasn’t strictly… real. Even though Christchurch didn’t quite deliver the singing and dancing of other screenings, nothing was realer than the Swift superfan protecting his coveted collectors cup, or the little girl in the bathroom belting out the hits of 1989, or the eager beavers grasping their Eras popcorn buckets awaiting the next session, grinning expectantly as we walked out bleary-eyed. “Wasn’t it great?” said a woman while drying her hands in the toilet afterwards. “I think it’s better than actually being there.” 

The Eras Tour is in cinemas nationwide now.

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Alice Neville
— Deputy editor
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Robyn Malcolm’s life in TV (Image: Archi Banal)
Robyn Malcolm’s life in TV (Image: Archi Banal)

Pop CultureOctober 28, 2023

‘I still get called Mrs West’: Robyn Malcolm on the role that changed her life

Robyn Malcolm’s life in TV (Image: Archi Banal)
Robyn Malcolm’s life in TV (Image: Archi Banal)

The New Zealand television legend reflects on the legacy of Cheryl West, working with Jane Campion, and why she’s still haunted by banana skins.

Just like her Far North co-star (and fellow My Life in TV contributor) Temuera Morrison, Robyn Malcom is someone who has truly earned the right to the (extremely overused) word “icon”. She first made red cardigans cool as nurse Ellen Crozier on Shortland Street in the 1990s, where her character burnt down her house with a cigarette, thwarted murder attempts by her own sister and survived the dramatic sinking of a harbour cruise in the 1998 Christmas cliffhanger. 

While we’ve never forgotten that crisp Crozier uniform, it was the laced-lined leopard print of Cheryl West in Outrageous Fortune in the mid 2000s that would become her most recognisable onscreen role. The foul-mouthed, hardass Westie matriarch quickly became one of the most beloved local characters of all time, winning Malcolm a slew of awards and even spawning a nationwide search to cast Young Cheryl in the prequel series Westside.  

Robyn Malcolm as, from left to right, Cheryl West, Pam in This Town, and Ellen Crozier (Image: Tina Tiller)

As if the longest-running soap opera and drama series wasn’t quite enough, she’s also starred in Top of the Lake, Agent Anna, Upper Middle Bogan, Blackbird, Rake, This Town, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Far North. Her latest project is scripted series After the Party, which we recently called “the best New Zealand drama in years”. Malcolm plays Penny, a high school teacher and grandmother whose life implodes after she accuses her husband of sexual assault. 

After the Party begins five years after the horrific incident, with Penny living and working in a community that either doesn’t believe her or simply wants to move on. It’s a beautifully made, layered series that’s full of ambiguity and unresolved tension, and as the drama unfolds and viewers try to piece together what really happened that night, Malcolm hopes the audience will be pulled right into Penny’s complex, uneasy world. 

Peter Mullan as Phil and Robyn Malcolm as Penny in After the Party (Image: Supplied)

“I hope they feel like they’ve been through six hours of incredibly entertaining and involving drama,” she says. “You feel quite wrung out, but it’s very satisfying. It’s like you’ve had a really, really good meal.” Ahead of After the Party’s premiere on TVNZ1, Malcolm spoke with us about her favourite TV moments, including the legacy of Cheryl West, working with Jane Campion and how Get Smart taught her to never trust a banana. 

My earliest TV memory is… The moon landing. I would have been three, and I was sitting on my potty in our living room in Motueka. I remember the black and white, and the image on our little TV and the heater on, knowing there was something major going on.

My earliest TV crush was… Lindsay Wagner, the Bionic Woman. I was obsessed with the Bionic Woman. I was inconsolable when she died, my life fell apart. I couldn’t think straight for ages. This woman could do anything. I mean, Steve Austin was fine, but she was a total girl crush. Years later I had the same kind of crush on Sigourney Weaver in Alien, and it was like “this is the woman I want to be when I grow up”. 

The TV moment that haunts me to this day is… There was an episode of Get Smart when one of the criminals dressed up as a gorilla, and every time they killed somebody, they left a banana skin. I hid behind the couch, it was one of the scariest things I’d ever seen. I never looked at banana skins quite the same way for a long time.

The TV ad I can’t stop thinking about is… a Tabu by Dana perfume ad. Again, I must have been quite young because I remember thinking “what’s all this about?” It was kind of early 70s, kind of Farrah Fawcett, Vaseline on the lens, and she was looking very desirous of a man with his shirt off, chopping wood. I remember as a kid being quite, “ooh, is this about chopping wood?”

My most defining TV role was… Cheryl West from Outrageous Fortune. It turned my career in a completely different direction. I loved the fact she could be villain and hero, I loved that she was an absolute dick and did so many terrible things, but did them for the right reasons. She was equally comedic and equally dramatic and I got to play such a massive range of human experiences through her journey.

Cheryl got to drive fast cars, smoke, drink, shag lots of men, yell at her kids, love everybody and do terribly illegal things at times, and be whole. Of course, because the show was so popular with New Zealanders, I still get called Mrs. West and her nickname was Slutty Pants, so I still get that a bit, which is really funny. I don’t mind it. 

Robyn Malcolm as Cheryl West in Outrageous Fortune (Photo: Supplied)

My TV guilty pleasure is… The Super Models. When I was a little kid, I was obsessed with the idea of the beautiful woman, because I was short and round and played the cello. They seemed like an animal that was so far away from me, you know? 

My favourite TV project that I’ve ever been involved with is… I really loved Top of the Lake. Jane [Campion] is a master, and that collection of actors was just heaven to work with every day. 

The thing I wish people knew about being an actor is… It’s not for the faint-hearted, and the primary experience of most actors is rejection, which no one knows about. When we were auditioning for After the Party and I was watching all my colleagues come in, and every single one, I knew the journey they’d gone through. You spend two or three days with the script, you think about the character, you think about what you’re going to wear, you throw yourself into the emotional place of the character. Most of the time you hear nothing back, and most actors experience that 20 times a year. The reason we do it is because when we do, it’s amazing. It’s a real privilege to do it. 

Robyn Malcolm and Temuera Morrison as Heather and Ed in Far North (Photo: South Pacific Pictures)

The TV show that defined my lockdown was… I watched a lot of reruns, like Deadwood. I was obsessed with Deadwood.  I’ve watched that show three or four times. 

My most controversial TV opinion is… Sex and the City was a piece of shit. Do you know one of the reasons why we ended Outrageous Fortune the way we did? Having just seen the last episode of Sex and the City where they made all the women hook up with a bloke, I was like, “fuck that, let’s have Cheryl on her own”. 

The last show I binge-watched was… A Norwegian comedy called Norsemen. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. It’s a pisstake of Vikings, and they pillage and kill and sacrifice and do all those things, but they have these really mundane conversations about life as they’re doing it. It’s on Netflix, and I don’t know why it didn’t get much traction. Honestly, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

After the Party screens on TVNZ1 on Sundays at 8.30pm and streams on TVNZ+. 

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