Booking into Hotel - the welcome breathing space for the glamour girl on tour, the call girl on the make, the proprietress on the gin, and the murderess on the run - cabaret divas Helen Medlyn and Penny Dodd are unpacking suitcases of strong, sophisticated, seedy and sexy songs, all imbued with a whiff of Europe, a touch of class and maybe just a glimpse of trash.
In Hotel, accompanied by Dodd on piano, Medlyn plays all four women, breathing life into their diverse existences, stripping them bare of their armour, uncovering what's hidden beneath.
Medlyn and Dodd have vibrant individual careers, but over the past 25 years they have made a habit of collaborating to present concerts and recitals throughout the country.
In the past 10 years they have presented eight highly acclaimed "hell" shows.
Hell Bent was enjoyed by Otago Festival audiences in 2002.
Helen Medlyn is an innate stage animal and musical storyteller who stamps her unique style on all she does - and she does a lot of different stuff!
Mixing her love of acting and singing, she loves to put her own slant on jazz standards, cabaret torch songs and Broadway show tunes as well as opera roles and classical concert-platform work.
Medlyn and Dodd acknowledge they have quite different personalities and are driven by different forces.
Medlyn says each respects the other's artistry.
"We have this sort of standing joke that as long as I get to wear the flash frock and she's dressed in black, I'm happy!!
"No, no ... it's not QUITE like that, but yes, we are different.
"I love being out there and Pen is very happy to be in the background and let me shine."
"I can honestly say when I'm performing with Penny, I don't give her a thought ... and I mean that in the best possible sense.
"Yes, I acknowledge her after every song because, without her, I'm custard, but while I'm in my story, in my song, she's part of me.
"She trusts me to do my job. She never doubts me.
"And when you have someone who believes in you as she does in me, it gives you great strength and great courage.
"I think it takes a special kind of person to share a stage with someone and let that happen.
"But I like to think it's because she knows that I know and honour the fact that without her, I'd be only half as good."
For Penny Dodd, a highly sought-after musical director and arranger, this kind of duet work with Medlyn is on a completely different scale for her and has its own appeal.
"My other work tends to be big - concerts in the park, symphonic writing, large-scale musicals.
"I have no idea how this collaboration happened! I love the intimate stage, the elemental aspect of two women and one piano.
"Music and story-telling stripped to the basics. It's very powerful.
"And I am reassured by the audience that sometimes they even watch me, but don't tell Helen that.
"I'm a subversive, she's an upfront gal.
"There's the opportunity to shut down the conscious and operate entirely ... on ESP, on instinct, and in the moment.
"Sometimes neither of us knows what we're doing but our collective conscious makes decisions for us.
"We often come up with new ideas without knowing how it happened.
"This can happen in performance, and is very exciting. I suppose it's because we are listening to each other in a very particular way.
"Like any partnership there's give and take. Try to give more than you take and you're already ahead."
The give and take applies when they build a show together.
They both say that no decision is made about a song without the nod from the other; both have to be fully behind the choices.
Medlyn says, "We have a long-running gag about two songs called Quality Time and Funny How Things Turn Out, which have GREAT words, but the music for both are just not up to snuff in Penny's books ... so, if we're caught short with a song, I say 'Oh, let's do ... and then we both roar with laughter!'"
Both agree their mutual respect is founded on a solid friendship.
Dodd says, "We always have a lot of laughs - even though we are very different sorts of people.
"Even after 20-something years of working together we still look forward to getting together for rehearsals and a chat.
"Sometimes we just chat and forget to rehearse.
"The only thing we squabble about is whether the piano lid is up or down!"
Helen is typically more explicit about their relationship, "Penny's a great mate ... there's nothing she doesn't know about the men in my life, my search for the meaning of life and how I live my life!
"I've never felt we've had to work at the partnership. The collaborations we do - the cabaret shows - are a kind of indulgence for us both.
"We like each other's company, so spending time together is a huge amount of fun and what we create out of our mutual musings, we treasure and nurture."
And mutual musings inspired their latest show Hotel at a time when they both thought their cabaret days might be over, as Helen explains, "After doing Hell, Man in which we had explored love from a bloke's point of view, we felt that we'd gone as far as we could in hell.
"We thought we might leave cabaret, but not only did both of us miss it like crazy, so did fans! We kept getting being accosted with 'When are you doing another show'.
"So last year, Hotel was built.
"It came out of Penny and I chatting one time when we were on tour somewhere.
"We got to talking about how we'd been in the lift and looked around and seen this diverse group of people and how we had no idea why they were here, what they did, what their lives were like.
"We got to thinking that there was a show in that lift somewhere."
For Hotel, Dodd says she was keen to concentrate on what Paul Barrett called "classical Eurotrash" - basically cabaret songs, or art songs, of the early 20th century.
"All but one song in the show comes from either the pre-WW2 period or the last 40 years.
"I think we need to sing songs of our time - good, thoughtful, well-crafted songs about subjects and preoccupations we have direct experience of, from our own zeitgeist.
"But, as usual, we do not differentiate between vocal styles.
"If it's a good song, we'll do it - from pop to musical theatre to cabaret and art song, and with one operatic aria just for fun."
The repertoire for Hotel allows Helen Medlyn to indulge in revealing the heated passions that lie under the cool exteriors of the glamour girl, the call girl, the proprietress and the murderess.
She is passionate about performing the show.
" I think it's because of that indulgence factor.
"I guess it's not TRUE cabaret, it's more of a concert with a bit of chat, but I love being up close and personal with the audience, I love having the chance to sing a great array of songs all in one hit, I love having a laugh, I love having a cry, I love sharing the stage with Penny.
"What more could an old diva want?"
Catch it
Hotel is on at 8pm on October 14-16, Glenroy Auditorium.
