Comedy duo/real-life-couple Laura Daniel and Joseph Moore are unleashing their own brand of super-woke, pop musical spectacular on Melbourne, fresh from rave reviews at the NZ International Comedy Festival.
The kiwi comedians are bringing their all-singing, all-dancing hit show Two Hearts to the Comedy Festival this year – a pop riot that is part parody, part tribute. Already killing it in New Zealand with the success of TV shows Funny Girls and Jono & Ben, this comedic power couple have taken their relationship to the stage in a spoof of a modern pop duo that Daniel describes as “confident, but misguided. We’re super woke, but we’re not,” she says.
The duo have been compared to Flight of the Conchords, but as Laura observes, the pop-spectacular thing “makes it very different to your usual sit-down with guitars; it has a lot more physical comedy.”
She says that punters can expect “a full pop-show experience, but in a much smaller venue. Everything they could experience in an arena kind of concert but it’ll be on our kind of touring budget,” she laughs. “It’s quite loud so if people try to heckle we probably won’t be able to hear them, and that’s fine. It’ll just be a noisy, fun party.”
With a name like Two Hearts, the show seems sure to hinge on an overly sentimental and hilarious romantic vibe between the two stars, but Laura says that when they started working on the show, she and Joseph weren’t dating.
“We worked on the TV shows back here [in New Zealand] so we’ve kind of been a collaboration for a while but we were friends, and – well, we may have slept together once,” she admits with a laugh. “Way back five years ago, and then I guess [the relationship] became inevitable. But that was our running gag, that we were just good friends who had slept together once, and we had to change a bit of the show.” Now, she says, their romance is “strongly a part of the comedy, there’s a tension between us on stage.”
Laura thinks that it works pretty well, taking the piss out of their relationship and each other. “It’s been part of our shtick. We’ve kind of owned it I guess.” Evidently, Two Hearts completes the parody/tribute with a real undercurrent of sexual tension, essential to any pop duo worth their sequins.
If you’re looking for a big expensive show, in a stadium, probably with fireworks and fancy lights, then this isn’t for you. But if you’re on a budget, Two Hearts promises confetti – lots of it. For all those who are into pop song bangers (i.e. everyone), but who want lyrics that make them laugh, Two Hearts seems like a winner. And an “arena sized spectacle in a non-arena sized venue” sounds like way more fun than the real thing.
