ScreenWize

“On paper,” declares a respected comedy writer early on in this very warm documentary, “yodeling lesbian twins don’t actually work.” Add to this the fact that they’re from New Zealand, gleeful as fruitcakes, and with a history of political activism, and you’d surely have the two most unlikely people to win the hearts of people around the world. Yet Jools and Linda Topp – born and bred on a farm in rural New Zealand – are utterly charming, wickedly funny and know how to work an audience from Auckland to Edinburgh. Even after 25 years on the road, they radiate and sparkle when they’re on stage, filling auditoriums night after night with their cheeky positive energy and often touching songs.

Highly respected documentary filmmaker Leanne Pooley has crafted a gorgeous and somewhat nostalgic film, capturing the real spirit of these two women who are never seen apart, nor gloomy, from their early days working on the farm to their never-ending appearances as a range of characters - as much loved as the performers themselves.

Declaring that they are not so much comedians who sing, as singers who are funny, the twins built their career around two extraordinarily similar voices that harmonise upbeat folk songs - mocking anything from nuclear disarmament to the local agricultural show. Their repertoire of colourful comic characters (many of whom appeared in a highly successful TV show) includes establishment farmers Ken and Ken, posh socialites Prue & Dilly Ransbottom, and their oldest characters The Gingham Sisters, who belt out a series of foot-stomping country & western numbers complete with spoons and yodeling.

Using file footage, photographs and interviews with well-known comedians and singers such as Billy Bragg and John Clarke, Pooley traces the twins’ rise to fame from busking in their home town to their wildly successful gypsy caravan tour across both islands of New Zealand, and then their subsequent international tours, digging increasingly deeper into their personal life. Funny, moving and always accompanied by irreverent or touching Topp Twins songs, the film lets us come to love these two as bubbly young street performers, activists, poster-girls for the gay and lesbian movement, and finally as just regular farm girls who have always rejected the world of showbiz for their own version of authenticity. “We don’t have to work at what we do,” says one of the twins, “it’s not a job – it’s a way of life.” And it’s an affectionate, genuine and very spirited way to live.

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Filed Under: Reviews by Simon