Whakatāne-born and raised musician Katrina McGuinness is bringing her stand-up comedy back to Mata Brewery at Gateway Crescent in Whakatāne this weekend.

Performing as The Singing Hobbit, McGuinness incorporates music into her comedy combining a powerhouse voice, relational humour and the sort of brutally honest storytelling that can only come from a woman with enough life experience to know better – and enough optimism to do it anyway.

Sex, Marriage and Other Disasters is a mix of stand-up comedy, cabaret and musical theatre that combines original songs, comedy, storytelling and McGuinness’ spectacularly imperfect adventures through love, marriage, divorce, dating, parenting and menopause and everything in between.

McGuinness has performed across the globe, directed youth productions around the world, headed performing arts departments internationally, written and released her own original music, and spent more than 18 years coaching other performers to find their voices.

In 2025, she was nominated for a Comedy Guild award and was a finalist in the National RAW Comedy Quest.

Sex, Marriage and Other Disasters is McGuinness’ first solo show, which is touring New Zealand after attracting sell-out crowds in the Hamilton, Tauranga and Cambridge.

■ What do you want the audience to take away from your show?

I want my audience to leave thinking, oh thank goodness, I thought that was just me. From parenthood, being a solo mum, to navigating menopause, giving your teenager, “the talk”, dating in your 40s and navigating Tinder in your 40s.

■ What is the show about?

Sex, Marriage and Other Disasters is basically life experience with the privacy settings turned off. It’s sex, marriage, divorce, Tinder, motherhood, ageing, menopause and all the other shit women are supposed to navigate while smiling and remembering everyone’s dental appointments.

It’s the stuff we normally only say in the group chat, or ponder late at night, thinking, am I crazy?

And I’ve just made the questionable decision to say it into a microphone. It’s raw, it’s a bit naughty, it’s very honest, and hopefully everyone (parents, women, anyone on Tinder, and those wonderful men who are alongside us women as we navigate menopause) in the room has at least one moment where they think … “it’s not just me”.

■ What’s your comedy style?

Very honest, a bit naughty, musical, occasionally inappropriate and talking about being extremely short. That’s also my Tinder bio.

n Why talk about menopause?

Because half the population potentially goes through it – for years. Yet, we still treated it for so long like a mysterious Victorian illness.

Suddenly you’re standing in the kitchen at 2am, sweating through your pyjamas, furiously stirring a cup of tea like it’s wronged you, thinking, “Surely somebody should have mentioned this”.

■ You talk about some quite personal things. Is that scary?

There’s always that moment before I say something incredibly personal where my brain goes, “Katrina, you could still just shut up.”

Unfortunately, that part of my brain has never had much authority.

■ How did you get into comedy?

I’ve always used humour as one of those amazing vehicles to make anything just that little bit better.

In theatre, I was regularly cast in roles in productions as the “funny one”. Then through a life of teaching and performing, and eventually I realised I had enough disastrous life experience to start charging admission.

Divorce, Tinder, teenagers, menopause … apparently trauma becomes comedy once you put a microphone in front of it.