Sunday Arts Magazine

10 Oct 2022

Ethel Mermaid

Arts, Performing Arts, Sunday Arts Magazine

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It’s showtime, and tonight the ocean’s biggest star, Ethel Mermaid, is set to make a splash!
With tails of a life in the spotlight – fame, fortune, love and loss – and the big songs that follow.
She’s Barbra meets Liza meets Patti meets Jaws. She does it all. Just underwater.

Amanda Buckley has been performing for over 20 years, working with the likes of Spontaneous Broadway, The Big Hoo Haa, Impromptunes and Murder Village, and on television in ABC’s Fires and The Newsreader and a series of popular sketches for Channel 10’s The Project.

Ethel Mermaid was a character that first surfaced at the 2017 New Zealand Improv Festival, who proved so popular, she clearly needed a stage of her own. “I have always loved singing big belty numbers and Ethel gives me the chance to delve into the Broadway songbook and live that fantasy. The show is an invitation for audiences to escape and enter the Underwater World of Neptune’s Palace (The Butterfly Club) and spend an hour with a legend of stage and screen.”

Amanda is delighted to be joined by Jamie Burgess as musical director, bringing Ethel to life in her first, scripted, solo show. She says the only goal she has is to give the audience a good time. “If people leave with a smile on their face and a tune stuck in their head, then myself and Ethel would be very happy”.