WHO IS PENNY?
Take some Busty Rhymes, add a swirl of literature, a dollop of sass, a slurp of Ruby Wax, a pinch of glitter, a good splosh of silliness and a nice sturdy corset and voila, you have Ms Hot Pink; Poet, MC, Comedienne, Actor, Social Commentator, TV Presenter, Voice Over Artist, Improviser, Wedding Celebrant, Podcaster and all round show off.
Her Royal Pinkness harks from the Land of the Long White Cloud, Aka Aotearoa New Zealand, something that she thinks is pretty choice. Auckland is where she lays her corsets but she can often be found gallivanting around NZ and the world clutching a microphone and quite probably a flyer which she’ll happily wave in your face.
In order to keep her in white wines and sturdy underthings Ms Pashton has many strings to her bow and so can be found anywhere from the tele to the radio to the stage to the printed page, to joining you in matrimonial bliss as a wedding celebrant. Peruse these pretty pink pages to find out where and when all these momentous things will be happening.
Penny loves showing off for a living, so if you have any parties, festivals, articles or events you think could benefit from a touch of her Pink Bits, then don’t hesitate to ask.
THE HISTORY OF PINK
Penny Ashton has been performing since before she could walk. Her mother knew she was in for trouble from the moment Penny ate her first lipstick, pulled on her first tutu and declared herself a ballerina. Just some of her dance career highlights include playing Jeremy Fisher Frog, being a What Now Dancer and dancing as a mouse who inadvertently knocked over the mouse hole in the recital causing chaos and mayhem.
She briefly dabbled in shot put, winning a bronze medal at the Colgate Games in 1984, but gave that away as she thought she didn’t have the thighs for it… oh how wrong she was. Indeed Prima-ballerinhood was also eventually abandoned due to her pesky need to eat, and so Penny changed tack to completing a BA in Drama and Classics at Canterbury University. It was at University that Penny began performing comedy regularly and represented Canterbury at the NZ University Comedy Competitions in 93, 94 and 95. It was also at this point that her dad starting selling prophylactics from machines for “a buck a f**k.”
In Auckland Penny has become the full-time performer the little five-year-old in her always dreamed she’d be. She is a permanent member of the ConArtists Improv company, is a voice over artist, MC, poet, actor, comedienne, has played such illustrious roles as ‘tampon girl’ in various commercials, and has even been seen in Shortland St’s corridors.
In 2003 she started performing her own Comedy Poetry and a whole new world of touring solo shows and poverty in different countries followed. In 2007 she gestated and gave birth to her smash hit Hot Pink Bits which she has since performed all over the globe in excess of 200 times.
She has performed at The Edinburgh, Adelaide, Perth, Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Victoria, Ottawa, Regina, Saskatoon, Dunedin, Auckland and Wellington Fringes, at the Glastonbury Festival, at numerous festivals and memorial halls all over NZ, at The World Cup of Theatresports in Germany, represented NZ in a Poetry Slam tour of the UK, featured in a New York Poetry Club and won Best Performance by an International Poet at the London Farrago Poetry Awards.
In 2012 Penny also started back on NZ’s TV screens as a gossip monger on Good Morning, and also a host on TVNZ’s Heartland Channel, as both host of Kiwi Gold and presenter of North and South Myspace. She is also a regular on Radio New Zealand National’s The Panel, dishing out her two penny’s worth of opinions and social commentary.
Since 2013 Penny has been touring her literary solo shows; Promise and Promiscuity: A New Musical by Jane Austen and Penny Ashton, Olive Copperbottom: A Dickensian Tale of Love, Gin and the Pox, and The Tempestuous: A Shrew’d New Comedy by Will Shakespeare and Penny Ashton, gaining sold out houses, awards and air miles as she goes. She has presented them from Edinburgh to Stewart Island and loves pilfering the classics to bring new untold stories in the style of these literary giants to hilarious life.
WEDDING FEVER
In 2012 Penny achieved another long held ambition; to become a wedding celebrant, and since then she has joined numerous happy couples together for a life of love and laughter. She sees it as a great privilege to be the legal cement in the joyful day and writes a completely personal ceremony from scratch every time. Her wedding site can be viewed here.
“… without exception people said it was the best wedding they had ever been to. So many people commented on how brilliant you were.” Amanda and Deb 2014