Sunday the 13th May saw the Wee folk club take a trip to the land of the long white cloud with an entertaining performance from Martin Curtis. Cobbled together support was provided by half-inebriated and and slightly out of tune Lords of the Bothy (on a borrowed guitar - Ed.) and the more finessed fiddle of Kirsty Linguard.

If you've ever wondered how appropriating the flatulence of livestock could prove to be a solution to climate change (hook up your local sheep's anus to your barbeque); what New Zealanders think of Aussies (they seem to hate them!); what antics the native Kia bird of New Zealand get up to (more irritating than a monkey in a Safari Park); the noise beach-loving yellow-eyed penguins make (the audience were roped into repeatedly singing "Ohoyo"); or just about anything rustic, rural or environmental about New Zealand, then Martin's your man.

Hailing from Cardrona in the majestic South Island of New Zealand Curtis describes himself as a "singer, songwriter, bush poet, mountaineer and barn dance caller" (I'm assuming that barn dance calling is just a side-line to pay the rent!). His finger-picking guitar style was mature yet the set would have benefitted from varying the style of playing (only once did he use the plectrum to provide a more percussive sound). His voice is probably best described as gentle and homely and you could not help but warm to him (despite my personal disturbing mental interjections of Rolf Harris, luckily I could remind myself that Curtis was, in fact, a New Zealander).

Nevertheless, the show was stolen for the reviewer by the lengthly and often comic introductions to the songs and the hilarious poems which added an entirley different genre of performance to the traditional folk music we have come to expect from the Wee Folk Club. Covering a range of wildlife antics, nature nostalgia, Maori lore, mountain pranks, bothy japes and historical reflection of gold prospecting, each intro was like having a wonderfully crafted bed-time story which placed the song in such an authentic context which meant that you could not help but listen to the atmospheric lyrics when the song eventually got started.

Knowledgeable and funny, (did you know that New Zealand was once populated only by birds until Westerners screwed with the ecosystem?), Curtis is the kind of salt of the earth bloke that I would like to go up a mountain and down a beer with, and who knows? Maybe one day I'll have the chance.