A Slice of Banana Cake with Helen Brown and Terry Crayford, Speirs Centre
Janine Rankin, Manawatu Evening Standard
July 20 2006

FOR a newspaper columnist to step out from behind the security of a keyboard and stand in the spotlight takes some nerve.

Hospices in eight North Island centres provided some of the motivation for Helen Brown to step on to the stage, and she had her fans fully engaged during a 100-minute performance.

From a tacky red sofa, bedecked in a fantastic purple construction, she told her life story, and yes, the banana cake recipe metaphor extended to herself as the ageing banana.

A hungry audience devoured the ingredients. From an upbringing in Taranaki that often made her wish she had a normal family (which would have been much less interesting), through a romance by correspondence, early motherhood, the death of a child, the breakup of a marriage and a second chance at love, the audience hung on every well enunciated word.

It could have been, perhaps, that the promotional poster of a presumably naked Helen surrounded in fresh green bananas was a mistake. There was fun and innuendo, but the only things she took off were her shoes, and an accidental earring. The most embarrassing life choice was attributed to her friend Maureen, who succumbed to more than the culinary interests of a chef.

Throughout, Brown was supported by the silvery pianist Terry Crayford, with artfully chosen pieces of musical illustration carefully woven into the recipe book story.

You don't have to be an actress to tell your own story. Those who ventured out in the cold to half fill the Speirs Centre appreciate the rebirth of story-telling as an art form.