The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls
Reviewer: Analiese Jackson
Scheduled release date: 9th April 2009
Stars: 4 out of 5
The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls explores the lives of Jools and Lynda Topp: two sisters from Huntly who, through their dynamic and diverse style of entertainment, have managed to captivate New Zealanders, both on the road and on their television screens, for over 30 years. Known best of all for their characters of Camp Mother and Camp Leader (the overzealous pink-jumpsuit wearing matron and her knitted jumper wearing sidekick), the Topp’s are also loved for their other alter egos, which include a variety of caricatures of the types of people found all over this fine country: rural blokes Ken and Ken and bowling ladies, Mavis and Lorna are but four of them. The films director, Lynda Pooley, describes it as not only a film that documents the lives of two of New Zealand’s favourite entertainers, but as a coming of age story of the past 50 years of New Zealand history.
Paul Horan, a well respected comedy writer, says in the documentary that “On paper, they (the Topp Twins) shouldn’t work. On paper, they should be commercial death. But they totally deliver to the audience. Time and time again”. And deliver they do. Through interviews with both prominent New Zealanders such as John Clarke and the colourful characters conceived by the Topp Twins, the documentary explores the many displays of political anarchism that the Topp Twins have been involved with over the past few decades. From Bastion Point to Nuclear Free New Zealand and the Springbok tour of 1981 to the Homosexual Law Reforms of the late 80s, the Topp Twins have been an integral part of bringing all these issues into the New Zealand publics’ consciousness.