After pumping us up with the obligatory “Make some noise!!!” demand, Laura Daniel and Joseph Moore make a shock announcement (spoiler alert): they are disbanding their Two Hearts powerhouse-pop-duo! We are to be treated to their separate stand-up shows instead. Boo.

But (reprieve alert) they can’t get their acts together, or rather that’s exactly what they try to – you’ll have to be there to see what I mean – so, having dropped some classic clangers, they revert to Plan A. Hooray.

Is a clanger also a banger? It’s a word they use quite often, not only to mean a sausage, which it does for a literal freebie moment. (Urban Dictionary suggests a banger song is awesome but a banger person is a loser.)

Laura’s sparkly leotard totally eclipses Joseph’s plain white t-shirt with hand-drawn 2 Hearts logo. She’s the shining star and he moons in her reflected light; she’s strong and assertive and he is ever-conscious of not playing on his white male privilege – or when he does it’s swiftly put down; she claims her right to be sexy, to twerk, to come on physically to men in the audience and he wouldn’t dare venture anywhere near that given his much-vaunted respect for women.

This level of provocative commentary on the state of male-female relationships adds piquant head/heart spice to a show that’s high in energy and quite profound in its observations.

Choreographer/ dancer Zara Cormack also dances with unabashed sexiness but on this third night performance we are denied the counterpoint of Harry McNaughton’s dancing because he is in A&E with a broken foot! We can only guess at what parts of what follows are compensating for his absence but stage manager Patrick Barnes does get to come on as an octopus. Make of that what you will.

The powerhouse-pop-duo kick off their show proper with a ‘Sex Tape’ song that morphs ‘just porn’ (is porn ever just?) into ‘revenge porn’. When Joseph sets out to prove his enlightened respectfulness by regaling us with what he finds most sexually attractive in a woman, he receives is confronted by Rachael from HR. This edgy item comes with a twist and a lesson.  

The problem of evolving language is revealed with their now obsolete song of yesteryear, ‘Me Too’, about all things they realise they have both acquired and done, some of which are decidedly dodgy. Time’s up indeed.

Throughout the show they play the Left Side off the audience off against the Right Side, tapping into our innate competitiveness, not to mention our desire to please these charismatic performers. This segues into Laura exploring both sides of her cultural heritage – Rarotongan and NZ Pākehā – with her ‘Half White’ song, rendered in the obligatory American accent. It is simultaneously moving and satirical, tagged by a witty exchange with Zara.

Denied a chance to have his ‘full white boy’ opinions heard, Joseph goes dark with a summary of the terrible things that have happened recently, which cues their ‘The World is a Terrible Place’ duet, abetted by some brilliant AV imagery including lots of Alan Rickman pix. Then there’s a song about slut shaming, ‘Slutty Ghost’, in which Laura dispenses with black clothes to appear as “a real life ghost”. The lyrics really push boundaries here, to the great delight of the audience.  

Would you believe they attribute the surfeit of negativity in pop music right now to PMS? Red is now the dominant colour for Laura and Zara as ‘Did I Just Say That?’ plays out, accompanied by Joseph as the clueless put-upon boyfriend who just can’t do anything right. Achingly funny.

Reverting to the ‘Which Side is Better’ competition, and questioning it, brings the show to a heart-warming resolution – until ‘I Hope I Don’t Get Mugged When I’m Walking Home’ brings us back to reality, if that’s how we choose to see the world. 

The Two Hearts team are highly talented and Restart the Hearts is certainly a defibrillator for any jaded Festival punter.

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