A new NZ On Screen collection celebrates Aotearoa icons Dames Jools and Lynda Topp, with over 40 titles that showcase the evolution of our trailblazing national treasures, plus backgrounders by the likes of Don McGlashan and Karen O’Leary. Amelia Berry details the wealth of historic content available to watch online now.
“There’s not a lot of funny politicians, are there?” says Dame Lynda Topp. “They’re usually technically brilliant,” says her twin sister, Dame Jools. “But what we wanted to be was emotionally fantastic.”
It’s a straight-from-the-heart appeal that goes a long way to explaining how the Topp Twins, a pair of yodelling country lesbians with outspoken views on everything from nuclear disarmament to homosexual law reform, have found themselves as two of New Zealand’s most beloved entertainers, with songs and characters embraced by a bewilderingly broad audience.
Just look at the crowd at a Topps gig at Pūhoi Town Hall in the ’80s, for instance, as described by Don McGlashan in his NZ On Screen backgrounder (additional backgrounders come from Karen O’Leary, current manager – and friend – Arani Cuthbert, previous manager Brian Sweeney, with Bianca Zander also contributing a brief overview of the Topp Twins on screen).
McGlashan recalls seeing “Militant-looking, denim-clad Māori women with tattoos, well-to-do white liberal hipsters, farmers and their wives. I’m pretty sure there are a couple of nuns up the front somewhere…”
So, it’s no exaggeration to say that there really is something for everybody in NZ On Screen’s extensive new Topp Twins Collection. From their early days down on the farm, through protests and performances, and on to damehoods and their cancer diagnoses, the collection celebrates the trailblazing pair with over forty titles—new stories, interviews, commercials, TV shows, even a few classic adverts.
“The music is the driving force of the Topp Twins,” Lynda has said, and, of course, that music gets a great showing in this collection. From 1985, the 6:30 News captures the duo performing their anti-nuclear classic ‘Radiation’ at the Beehive. A Radio With Pictures report from the next year catches them in Sydney, as part of their Australian tour. As one punter puts it, “it’s great to see dykes doing it well on stage.”
It’s a great opportunity to get in touch with the brilliant songwriting that’s always set the foundation for their comedy. “Beautiful, simple, strong songs; songs made to last, like good, straight fences that have been expertly built and finely tensioned,” Don McGlashan says. You can even catch them playing a couple, including the classic Untouchable Girls, in a 2018 excerpt from Shortland Street, where they appeared (as themselves) presiding over Dawn and Ali’s Wedding.
Another musical highlight from the collection is the hidden gem of a documentary Ten Guitars. Amongst a line-up of Aotearoa music royalty (Dalvanius, Bunny Walters, the Finn brothers), the twins discuss Engelbert Humperdinck’s unlikely kiwiana classic, and belt out their own gloriously countrified take on it—complete with soaring harmonies, yodelling, and a boot-scootin’ line dance extravaganza.
For a lot of people, though, the magic of the Topp Twins is tied up in their characters. Quintessential caravaners Camp Mother and Camp Leader, true-blue Kiwi blokes down the pub Ken and Ken, spoon-playing country duo The Gingham Sisters, and so many more. Rest assured, NZ On Screen has you covered.
Excerpts from their classic 90s TV shows The Topp Twins and Do Not Adjust Your Twin-Set see Camp Mother hawking shortbread at the Waipu Highland Games, Ken and Ken taking on the Western Springs Speedway, a trip to the Pasifika Festival and more. And for the Topp connoisseur, there are some real deep cuts, including an interview with Paul Holmes about Camp Mother’s 1998 run for Mayor of Auckland, Ken and Ken’s 1996 election night commentary, and Camp Mother, Camp Leader, and the Kens taking on Paris in Destination Planet Earth.
An unexpected highlight is Lynda’s solo outing, Ken’s Hunting and Fishing Show. A surprisingly earnest take on the homespun outdoor adventure show (think Outdoors with Geoff), seeing Ken just shopping for kit at the local fishing store really drives home how deeply the twins are able to embody their characters, giddy and ridiculous but with such a lived reality that they’re never so far from being someone your mum might bump into down the Bunnings.
Of course, the twins’ extraordinary personal lives are covered too. Going way back to 1982, a piece on Eyewitness News sees the pair chat feminism, their lesbian lifestyle, and incredible busking success on the streets of Auckland. Appearing in the 1994 documentary The People Next Door, Jools and Lynda are candid about what it means to be queer in the 90s, and the logistics of maintaining a romantic relationship when you’re already in one the country’s most well-known professional (and familial) partnerships.
The hit Topp Twins documentary Untouchable Girls is represented by seven excerpts with fascinating insights from the likes of John Clarke and Billy Bragg that are sure to have you seeking out the full film. An excerpt from Topp Country – For the Love of the Topps, introduces us to the Topp parents and gives us the low down on mum’s homemade gingernuts. On a more difficult note, the twins discuss their respective battles with cancer, in a truly heart-wrenching 2022 piece for Sunday.
Maybe the most exciting part of the collection for dedicated Topp Twins fans is the extended interview taken from the 2019 series Funny As. An hour and a half sit down with Jools and Lynda, it’s a testament to the sheer charm of the duo that the whole thing just flies by. It’s just packed full of wild anecdotes too—Billy Bragg joining them in full Gingham Sister drag to an audience of confused punks in London, Dalvanius showing up to Christmas in the Park with cricket bags full of chihuahuas, and some real insights into the heart of their creative process.
“We were never putting anything down, we were sending something up,” says Jools. “In order to put something down you don’t need to know how to do it, in order to send something up you have to be really good at it before you can send it up”
And that’s the thing about the Topp Twins: they’re really good at so many things. Living in New Zealand, it can be easy to take that for granted. They’ve achieved a legendary status usually reserved for lamingtons, commemorative teaspoons, or that one photo of Michael Joseph Savage. But diving into NZ On Screen’s new collection it’s quickly clear that Dame Lynda and Dame Jools Topp are two of the finest entertainers, two of the fiercest activists, two of the most emotionally fantastic performers this country has ever produced.
