Capping Show is back this week for its 129th year. Critic Te Ārohi chatted with Tucker, one of the four directors of this year’s show.
For those who don’t know, the Capping Show is the longest running student review in the world (allegedly). “It’s gone through both World Wars, it’s gone through Covid,” said Tucker. He described it as a student-led and run show “that has a whole lot of heart.”
According to Tucker, this year’s show is a “real melting pot” of pop culture references, including Star Wars, Rick and Morty, and Back to the Future. “There’s really something in here for every flavour of nerd. And even if you’re not, it’s just well-written.”
Tucker first got involved in the show in 2019 upon arriving in Dunedin. He arrived at an odd time in the year, meaning that he had “nowhere to sleep” until he was taken in by a mate who he’d met overseas under the condition that he audition for the show. “And here I am five years later.”
At a rough estimate, Tucker said the cast consists of around 20-or-so students, not including light and sound. “We’ve got law students, we’ve got archaeology students, we’ve got business and commerce students, we’ve got teaching students,” he said. “And it’s all student-led.”
While auditions are typically held in the second week of the semester (probably around the same time you stopped attending lectures in person), for the directors the process leading up to show-day has been a lot longer. The theme for this year, ‘Back to the Flat’, was chosen “maybe a month or two after the last show.”
Tucker said that it’s been a handful juggling his director duties with teaching placements for his degree, “but I guess who isn’t juggling things.” He also said, “At this point I’m going slightly insane.” Mood. All worth it in the end, though. “It's amazing seeing the audience's reaction to all of the hard work that we put in,” said Tucker. “It's months and months of work and it really shows.”
There will be seven shows in all at $20 a ticket. Opening night is this Thursday, May 19, and the final night will be on the 24th. For anyone tossing up which night to go, “final night is when the most memorable moments happen,” he said, with actors given full creative licence to switch up the skits. One such moment last year was when in a Wiggles skit, rather than saying “wake up, Jeff”, Jeff was in fact the recently deceased Queen Lizzy. Lol.