That's me fulfilling a dream right there! For the first time in an almost 30 year corporate entertainment career I got to do a big Oscar's style opening musical number for a conference gala dinner. And better than that - I had a choir as back-up! Thanks to Mike at Con-sol and the folks at Insurance AdviserNet I got to Hugh Jackman-lite for a night. And right there with me was what seems to be a constant companion in 2018 - the blue military tail-coat. Behold below a selection

Last year I was in drag for these guys as an air hostess - this year, much simpler. In case you couldn't pick it from the pic I'm a ringmaster and the theme is Carnival. Well, actually, the theme is a celebration of achievement. The guys at Z know how to recognise their frontline staff. Gathering a couple of hundred gas station staff together in one place makes for a great night out. These guys are usually too busy working to be partying but when they let their hair down it's

When you're on the Earnslaw why not claim to be its eponymous captain? I see no reason not to (or to casually drop in the word eponymous). Captain Earnslaw appeared as part of my work for the IPENZ Transportation Group Conference for this year. I've done more than a few of these now and they are always a nice mix of comedy characters and just me being me (or a conference friendly version of me). Captain Earnslaw appeared as part of a welcome breakfast which was a new addition

Seems lie a great idea to have a long term recurring character like Des Lawson, quizmaster for the Wellingtonian of the Year awards. And it is. I'm 12 years into playing Des. I've talked about the 2015 appearance and the 2016 one in this blog. And in the last post I talked about how important the ever changing costumes are for Des. But I may have reached the back of the wardrobe with this year's look. When next year rolls around I'll be in uncharted territory. There will need

Nowadays you can find me doing a different sort of creative job during the day - I'm a Creative director for a Sales and Marketing agency called Stun. How I ended up there is another blog post in itself but it's a great way to fill in the day, continues the sorts of things I like doing for a living - research, learning new things, meeting interesting people and coming up with creative and cool ways to get their message across. That job still gives me the flexibility to pursue

Those 2 pictures reflect the extremes of my role as an MC. On the left I am loud-mouthed beaver boy of English haute cuisine Heston Bloominghell and to the right it's me being pleasant, hopefully witty and wearing a suit. These pictures are both from the same gig for the IPENZ Transportation group, the smaller picture is also from the same conference where I also got to MC their Gala Dinner at Hobbiton as Gandalf. It's what keeps things interesting for me. And, I hope, the au

I like to think that among the classic roles for an actor (you know Lear, Willy Loman and the like) there is another one that even some of the greats haven't attempted - Santa. Although I haven't done King Lear or Death of a Salesman I have played Santa before. To the uninitiated Santa is just Santa but, to a veteran of the corporate entertainment game, Santa is a multi-faceted character. You have trad Santa, naughty Santa, Kiwi Santa and Satan Claws to name a few. I've done

It's that time of year once again - I become Des Lawson, quizmaster extraordinaire for the Wellingtonian of the Year Awards. There's not much that I haven't covered about this long-running gig in previous years' posts. So instead I'll talk about costumes. Des' look is something that I try to change up every year - within the narrow confines of the fact it needs to be gaudy, tasteless and flamboyant. Coming up with the costumes for characters is one of the really fun parts of

Being accessible and approachable is one thing from a senior leadership team but actually being able to poke fun at themselves is quite another. I often see management treated like tin gods by staff, even in this supposed age of horizontal management structures. People run around, going well beyond their job description, often just out of fear of management because they are aloof and unapproachable. This was not the case with the Z senior leaders this evening! Z and Caltex ha

That ornery looking fellow is Sheriff Rusty Buckets and he was one of 3 characters I unleashed on the unsuspecting folks of Insurance Advisernet in Queenstown over the last few days. This was another conference organised by the folks from HQNZ and they are always a great time. That's for a couple of reasons - HQNZ gigs are usually in Queenstown which is not too shabby a place to go and work for a couple of days. Secondly they always have clients who are up for a good time. Th

That's me wincing at how long it's taken me to actually post about this gig! Yes the date says 22 June - because that's when I actually MCed the job - but I'm writing this in January of 2017. Now this isn't because the gig itself wasn't memorable - just because I do a sporadically horrible job of keeping this blog updated! On the contrary - the gig in the picture above is me as Bruce Crutchley, sheep farmer for the NZVA Conference. These guys are one of Greg Ellis Creative's

Another long-term client required a few tweaks to keep things fresh this year. This time we were talking about the IPENZ Transportation Group who we have helped out in 2014 and 2015. In the past I've normally MCed their conference days as myself but this time we wanted to try something different to keep things fresh. So I appeared as per usual for the first day conferencing - suit, tie, the usual business as required by this particular conference. And then we changed it up...

Another year, another trip to Australia to work with Cleverfool and one of Patrick’s big clients Ford Australia. This time we headed for the Gold Coast to help out with a gathering of their Parts Managers. Working with Cleverfool always means lots of characters, which I love. This visit was no exception. I got to be David Hasselhoff in full “Baywatch” mode, alongside a security guard and a royal aide. This year we also managed to add some improvisation training into the mix.

How did we get to this point from what was supposed to be an innocent Christmas food challenge?! Simple - the power of creativity cannot be contained or predicted. There is always someone in a group who thinks outside the box and is able to take things in a direction that you never expected, with fantastic results! For my last job of the year the client requested a real mix of options provided to them: a kiwiana quizz, a bit of "Its In The Bag", some bingo and a food challeng

Its not often I get flown to Australia for one evening's entertainment and its not often that I get to play 3 quite elaborate characters in one evening. But thanks to Patrick at Cleverfool I got to do both. The setting was a Christmas party for Victorian car dealers and I became a renaissance artist, fashion designer and opera singer all in the same evening. Each of the characters had a a different mission: The artist, Giovanni Panini, mingled amongst the guests sketching the

Tonight, at the 2015 Wellys Awards (Wellingtonian of the Year), I brought up a decade of performances as a particular character and until it was announced in my introduction I nevber even realised it! Time flies when you are having fun and this is certainly the case with Des Lawson, the quizmaster for the annual Wellypedia Quiz which is held as part of the awards every year. This year Des wore a silver leisure suit but over the years he's worn sequins, suits and more sequins

That's me as Dr. Colin Scopy, world reknowned trauma surgeon and member of Doctors Without Borders. And I'm helping break the ice at the 2015 Nurse Managers' Conference dinner in Tauranga. On the night I did double duty. For pre-dinner drinks Colin did the rounds of the guests regaling them with his far-fetched tales of courage under fire in tent hospitals dotted all over the Horn of Africa. He was also busily trying to recruit new managers for his hospitals in Africa because

Mac is the gift that keeps on giving! This time I teamed up with the folk at Macs Function Centre to help Battery Town open their conference. The brief from Warren at Battery Town was that they wanted an opening function that was casual and informal but that was a bit different and made all the delegates want to come even though the conference proper wasn't kicking off until the next day. So we paired Mac, once again with a beer and food matching expert and let things go from