Why I want Winston Peters to star in my burlesque show

Monday, 22 June 2026

Every year I think of ideas to bring magic to the Christmas season. And I want Winnie dipped in glitter and dancing the can-can, writes Verity Johnson.

Verity Johnson is an Auckland-based writer and business owner.

OPINION: I’ve always wanted to cast Winston Peters in my burlesque show.

I’m being totally serious. I have a burlesque club, and every year I think of fun, chocolate dipped ideas to bring a little magic to my Christmas season. And I want Winnie.

What?! I can hear you splutter, Winnie? In spangles? Dipped in glitter and chocolate buttons and made to dance the can-can on stage, Verity?! You’d never sell that!!!

Oh please. Watch me. You’d line up to buy tickets. We’d have to do at least eight or nine curtain calls a night. Every time you think he’s finally said goodnight, he’d pop back up for another one.

And that’s actually what burlesque shows are supposed to do. They originally evolved as satirical shows that ripped the shizzle out of the middle classes’ attitudes to both sex and society. It was sex, with a side of political satire.

And Kiwis love it. Famously in 1986, Robert Muldoon starred in a Kiwi production of The Rocky Horror show. (Alongside, of all people, future Emperor of Rome, Russell Crowe.)

It was a huge hit. It sold out. Audiences loved seeing Piggy dance the Time Warp with Auckland’s prodigal grumpy son. Turns out, Kiwis really dig seeing the architect of failed industrial reform financed by crippling foreign loans in fishnets.

A mischievous photograph taken during The Rocky Horror Show in which Sir Robert Muldoon was the narrator in the 1986 stage production.

(Hey, I don’t write the rules of what turns you on, you do.)

But if I’m being honest, he’s not my first choice. See, in the pecking order of ‘guest stars’ for a Christmas show it goes: In third place, some washed up ex reality TV show influencer (eh, meh, I’ll pass.) Second place, someone universally loved and/or loathed who can pull off an outfit with a bit of panache. (Enter Winnie, stage left, although I’d take Judith too. She’d crush a can-can.)

And in first place, if you can get them, a National Sex Symbol.

Liz Hurley posed for a photo to celebrate her 60th birthday.

A Kiwi Cheryl Cole. Someone so universally beloved, and pined for, that she could bring a whole electorate to their knees. And we don’t have any.

If this was England, I’d be asking Cheryl, or Kate Beckinsdale or Liz Hurley. All of whom are firmly, joyfully, enthusiastically regarded as both national treasures - and national hall passes.

If this was Australia, I’d be on my knees in the Temple of Disco Balls, burning dry ice to summon the Goddess, Kylie Minogue. Or branching out to bad boys Toby Mitchell or Jay Malkoun. (Darkly handsome, heavily tattooed and wildly inappropriate men, the type that the Australians do well. The type you’d date briefly, for a good time not a long time, after winning Love Island.)

But here? In NZ? I’ve spent five years trying to think of someone. And I’ve got no one. The closest I’ve ever come is Robyn Malcolm. (But it still feels vaguely sacreligious….)

It seems that sex symbols are like electric cars and affordable, large scale infrastructure projects. We just can’t make them here.

But that’s not true. We can make them. We just choose not to.

Kiwis are just as hot, in pure genetics terms, as the Aussies. We’re just lazier. We don’t dress up like them, we don’t tan like them, we don’t train like them. We’re made from the same beautiful wood, we just don’t put any effort into staining and polishing ourselves.

We have a collective insistence on not standing out or seeming like a 'try-hard', and it is throwing a wet blanket over the nation writes Verity Johnson.

But still, you can work on all that. Provided you have a broader culture that lets sex symbols thrive. And that’s our real problem.

We have a collective insistence on not standing out. Not being a ‘try hard’. And not ever overtly flirting with anyone, including the nation, because we don’t flirt here. (You know, in case we offend them.) Plus, we’re all petrified of seeming ‘up ourselves’.

We can think ourselves cute. Sure. But hot enough to defrost the frozen lasagne soul of the nation? Who do you think you are, mate?

Moreover, if we do collectively find someone hot, we never tell them. Because then they’ll get a big head. So we can never choose someone collectively and ordain them a sex symbol - because then they’ll get too up themselves, and we’ll find them unattractive again.

So the whole lustless, lifeless, loveless, listless process grinds on. New Zealand’s purse lipped, clench assed, white knuckled attitude to sex continues to throw wet blankets over anything even slightly flirtatious. And it’s a crying shame.

Because aside from gracing burlesque shows, national sweethearts are there to cheer us up in our hour of need. Look at Dolly Parton, America’s eternal Tinkerbell, and this year found to be the most beloved global figure by American adults. She’s keeping that country together, spiritually speaking, which is precisely what we need right now.

We need the love child of Dolly, Suzy Cato, and Sonny Bill in his ripped shirt era. God knows, I certainly need that. I don’t want to go begging to Winnie this November. I’d feel like Christopher Luxon with a spray tan.

We take ourselves too seriously to have a sex symbol. How boring is that?

God knows we need something to cheer us up right now (it’s not the economy and it’s not the election).

We need something to cheer us up. We need our first, nationally agreed upon sweetheart. A mixture of Suzy Cato, Dolly Parton, and Kylie Minogue in the gold hot pants music video.