La Fiesta show Please Adjust Your G-String to entertain Whanganui theatre-goers

Theatre performer Margaret Austin.

Margaret Austin comes to Whanganui to perform two shows especially for La Fiesta – New Zealand’s Best Women’s Fest.

The shows are perfectly timed in celebration of International Women’s Day.

Margaret (formerly Gay Davison) was born in Palmerston North in the 1940s and attended Palmerston North Girls’ High School and Victoria University of Wellington. She has worked as a celebrity interviewer for magazines in Paris, Amsterdam and London, written a memoir, Dancing Naked (published by Random House 1997), and published five collections of poetry.

Margaret currently reviews theatre, books and poetry. She is on the books of Celebrity Speakers, has had small parts in various films and most recently was featured in The Older the Better at Circa Theatre in Wellington. One could say she has almost always been on stage.

School and university plays were followed by a lengthy overseas experience (OE) in Amsterdam and Paris – where her time in the 1980s in show business gave Margaret the unique experiences that form the basis of her performance piece Please Adjust Your G-String.

Described as a hilarious romp through an OE with a difference, the performance takes you on a journey back in time to 1975, in which Margaret departed New Zealand with no idea of what lay ahead on the other side of the world. Blessed – or cursed – with a sense of adventure, she turned up her nose at London and went for Amsterdam, Athens and Paris, diving into experiences and situations not for the faint-hearted.

Some of them involved G-strings, one or two were downright dangerous, and they all added up to a life of unique discovery. Theatreview describes it as “an intriguing, amusing and heartfelt memoir”.

Margaret comes to Whanganui to perform two shows, especially for La Fiesta – New Zealand’s Best Women’s Fest. Please Adjust Your G-String plays over two evenings on Friday, March 8 and Saturday, March 9 in the intimate setting of the Ladies’ Rest Building.

Tickets are limited to 30 per performance, with bookings made via the Women’s Network. Cost is $15 for seniors and students and $20 for general adult admission. For booking information contact: womnet.whanganui@gmail.com.