Interview with Penny Ashton (MC Hot Pink)
Dressed in her MC Hot Pink / Busty Rhymes black t-shirt, mini-skirt, pink alligator-skin cowboy hat and pink sunglasses, Penny Ashton stands out as she flits through the beer tent of the Montreal Fringe Festival. We stole a few moments so she could tell us a bit about herself and her show. Her strong New Zealand accent punctuates every word.
« I started doing ballet when I was four; I was going to be a ballerina. But then puberty changed everything, so then I was going to be an actor. I started doing acting all the way through school and I did a drama degree in university, then I went to London for three years, just doing pub work and all that sort of thing. I was going mental as I hadn’t been doing any performance. I came back to New Zealand and immediately got a play. After that I was performing as much as possible, doing a lot of theatre sports – corporate improv, voiceovers, that sort of thing. Then I got really frustrated one day and wrote this poem in 2000. I thought that’s actually not bad, I wrote some more poetry for a couple of years and I did my first open mic in April 2002. I did a comedy gig in 2002, and then just kept going – I did the Edinburgh Fringe in 2004. I’ve never had a salary – I don’t do day-jobs very well – the last day-job I had was in 1999. »
« The fringe is like a double-edged sword; you have so much competition yet people know it’s on. It’s the best time to do things. It’s really hard in Edinburgh – last year there were 2,500 shows. Not many shows make money, because it costs so much to put on a show. The cheapest ad in the program are a thousand pounds. I did the L.A. fringe in 2006 and that’s only 500 shows. And that’s definitely easier. In 2004 I was on the street in Edinburgh talking to Jem Rolls, this poet that I met, and he was like ‘Oh, there’s this great tour in Canada, you go and you get big houses, and you get 100% of the door and it’s amazing.’ And honestly, Canada is a utopia. It’s just so much cheaper and it’s easier – it takes longer, four months across the country, but it’s so much fun, and you make really good friends, you stay in peoples’ houses – Canada’s awesome. »
Penny has seen more of Canada than some Canadians, driving from Edmonton to Vancouver across the Rockies. She noted there are many similarities between Canada and New Zealand. « It’s just like the South Island to me. It was just like being home. But there are different – Montreal’s completely different. I don’t have to worry about my french when I’m speaking in New Zealand. Ma français est tres mauvais. I learned it for two years – what is it, j’ai étudié la français a l’école pour deux ans. Is it deux ans or deux années? Deux ans? Donc? Does that mean therefore? Would you say that? Donc, je suis tres mauvais. »
So will we be seeing some new things on stage? « It will be the first time I’ve done certain pieces, but most of it has been done before in various incarnations. All my shows have the words Hot Pink in them – ‘pink bits’ in New Zealand is slang for genitalia – clever at home, but I got over here and no one got it. And Busty Rhymes, it’s not really a hip-hop show, it’s a spoken-word show – I do a bit some rapping, but it’s a combination of things. It’s a cabaret piece, about my struggles as a single girl in an urban environment. Strangely I’m a single comedian. Whereas my show last year was nothing about me, this one is completely about me. It can be difficult to sell a spoken-word show; there is no worse art form than bad poetry. When it’s bad, it’s so bad, but when it’s good it’s really fabulous. »
Penny’s experiences form the inspiration for her shows. « Everything that I say is what I think. I don’t embellish anything. I hate hip-hop rap videos, they drive me crazy. There’s a piece about that. Someone told me to lose weight once when I was on stage, so one of my favourite poems has come out of that, putting a positive spin on it. And men. Relationships. One-night stands. One person wrote ‘she’s singing my life with her song,’ which I quite liked. The laugh of recognition is sometimes more powerful than the laugh of what the heck? »
The life of a fringe performer can be very rewarding, but it can also test one’s endurance. « Last year my life for two years was all sewn up, I was going to do Canada and L.A. and Melbourne and come back to Canada… and now I’m thinking I would actually like to spend a little time in New Zealand. Because I’ve been on the road six months for this year and last year and the year before, so that’s a long time to be away. And I do feel a little disconnected. I keep getting offered gigs which I can’t do because I’m away – I wasn’t getting gigs which is why I started this whole thing in the first place, and now I’m away. I haven’t had a full winter in New Zealand since 2002. So that doesn’t sound so appealing. Because we don’t get as cold as you, but you have proper heating. »
Busty Rhymes with MC Hot Pink plays in the Arts Court Library, June 23-29. For more information about Penny Ashton, check her website.
