From India with Love / Timor ODDyssey at the Herald Theatre / Silo

Te Radar must be a very tired man. Not only is he banging out weekly columns for the New Zealand Herald but he is also starring in his own show and directing a second show for the New Zealand International Comedy Festival.

Both feature live performance, interactive film segments and plenty of laughs, but the two shows have key points of difference.

One is a Bollywood-tinged fiction about a young couple who come to New Zealand to find a new life, while the other is a low-budget documentary about two young men who leave New Zealand to make their old life more interesting.

From India with Love stars Tarun Mohanbhai and Rajeev Varma in a story about a simple village girl, her sick father and a fisherman with nothing.

The fisherman and girl meet, fall in love and emigrate to New Zealand, where they open a dairy.

It's a simple enough tale that provides a platform for plenty of bro'Town-style observations about New Zealand culture, cultural interaction and racism. Tarun and Raj play multiple roles and shift through a dazzling array of Indian accents and costumes.

Raj proves the more charismatic performer, especially as the feisty heroine and a bored Indian deity who is scarily similar to Boy George. Tarun's straight-man style provides the perfect foil for Raj's diva-like antics.

The opening-night show ran about 20 minutes too long and there were some mistakes with props, sound effects and lines. But the Bollywood-style dancing and video clips featuring a cameo from Pio Terei were highlights.

If the pacing can be addressed, this is one not to be missed, as it offers a sweet and funny insight into life as an Indian New Zealander.

However, I would have liked subtitles or programme notes to explain some of the cultural references that passed monocultural me by but had my Indian New Zealand neighbours in fits of laughter.

No subtitles are needed for Timor ODDyssey because Te Radar is on hand to narrate the documentary of his trip to the war-torn but newly independent state.

The set-up is simple: a black stage, a big screen and Te Radar showing the documentary. The concept sounds boring but the reality is the opposite.

The show is like a live action, 3D director's cut on a DVD special programme, except the director is there to answer questions.

Te Radar and his cameraman friend travelled to Australia with no documentary-making experience and little money. They drove through Australia's desert heartland, which was flooded at the time, to hitch a ride on a United Nations plane to Timor.

There they filmed New Zealand troops working out to Barry White music and showing off their deluxe plywood and porcelain ablution blocks. As Te Radar himself says, it is hardly Pilgeresque journalism.

It's a very Kiwi doco in the best sense, driven by a stupid, we can-do-anything attitude, spiced with plenty of irreverent, "we're all the same and we don't take anything too seriously" humour.

On the face of it Te Radar seems most interested in where he is going to find his next beer, meal and bed.

But underneath his bumbling eccentric abroad persona is an intelligent man brave enough to show his reality of a situation and allow audiences enough room to make up their own minds.

It's a slick and funny show that succeeds in making you laugh and think at the same time. As a bonus the programme features Te Radar's short film The Journey.

A busy man indeed, but hopefully not too busy to knock out more funny documentaries and comedic stage shows.