She is bringing a stage show to southern towns this month. It's an amalgam of the many things she does - her witty, sometimes scandalous stories, readings from her books, including her latest, Beat till stiff, tales from her culinary tours and cooking school, cooking demonstrations, and, of course, singing. To this she is adding a live agony aunt section (she writes an agony aunt column for a newspaper) during which members of the audience can lie on her couch and ask her questions about their (real or invented) problems.
"We thought we'd start in the South," she explains. "It's so frustrating when I'm doing book tours and you can't talk the publishers into going below Christchurch. That drives me bats. I said to Jane [Avery] I want to start in the South because I always miss out on it."
Jane and Jeff Avery, her partners in Red Head Media Group, which films her tours to Morocco, France, India and now the Basque country, are producing the show. Jeff also accompanies her singing and Jane assists her with the cooking demonstration.
"I've had a portable cooktop designed for me in the shape of an ironing board which is completely ridiculous because I'm not remotely a domestic goddess, but the designers came up with the idea and I thought it was really funny," she said.
She describes it as an ironing board with a kauri top, a chopping board, a gas cooker, a hook for her handbag, a hole for her wineglass and another for a vase of flowers.
"It's quite heavy, which is not what my plan was, so I don't know how I'm going to be carrying [it] through airports. But it's solid and not going to slip over on stage," she said.
See it
• Peta Mathias is performing in Timaru on March 20, Oamaru on March 21, Wanaka on March 22, Invercargill on March 23, and in Dunedin at the Fortune Theatre studio on April 4 and 6.
For more info visit www.petamathias.com
