Is NZ ready for its first musical sitcom? The makers of Happiness think so

When composer Luke Di Somma came up with That Bloody Woman, his rock musical about suffragette Kate Sheppard, he tapped actor-writer Kip Chapman to direct it. The 2015 Christchurch debut season became a national tour seen by thousands. Late the same year, Chapman’s Hudson & Halls Live! also debuted, quickly becoming a phenomenon and playing throughout the country.

Now the pair have reunited for a musical comedy that may become their most widely seen work. It harks back, not to New Zealand political or cooking show history, but to the siege of Troy. Well, the story of Paris, Helen, that wooden horse and the rest, set to music and performed by Pizzazz, a drama society from the musical theatre mecca of Tauranga.

It’s called Happiness. It’s a television show, and possibly the most ambitious half-hour sitcom in Kiwi television history. After all, there is singing and dancing involving almost a dozen characters. There are Di Somma’s original songs (sample title Troy Boy) which are performed in the show-within-a-show.

And there is a story about Charlie (Harry McNaughton), who has graduated from precocious child star of Pizzazz productions to a directing career on Broadway. Only, he’s had to come home to mum Gaye (Rebecca Gibney) due to visa problems. Gaye thinks he should help out with the show. But Pizzazz’s overbearing, talent-challenged resident director Adrian (Peter Hambleton) thinks otherwise.

You get the feeling that both Di Somma and Chapman must have dealt with a few Adrians in their am-dram days. Is he based on anyone?

“No comment!” shouts Di Somma with a laugh on Zoom from Melbourne. “Don’t touch that, Kip.”

Chapman, at home in Warkworth, adds: “I’ll just say what every person who’s worked on the show has said about Adrian Templeton and that is ‘we know an Adrian Templeton’.”

Having hit it off on That Bloody Woman, the duo worked on some projects afterwards, but none came to fruition. But during the Covid lockdowns, they spent every Tuesday morning for six weeks brainstorming. Initially leaning towards a film, the basis of Happiness was formed quickly.

But with a funding application turned down, the idea went to the bottom drawer. But when Harriet Crampton, head of drama at production company Greenstone TV, asked Chapman what ideas he had, he showed her Happiness.