Happiness review: super-cute Kiwi musical comedy sings

Putting the buoyant in flamboyant, Australian musical star Peter Allen’s bop ‘Everything New is Old Again’ pops up on the soundtrack of Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz, as Roy Schneider’s pushing-it choreographer Joe corrals his dancers.

An outstanding routine, it sprang to mind while watching Kip Chapman and Luke Di Somma’s kookily cute Kiwi comedy show, Happiness, which features another Antipodean interloper on Broadway – though granted, a far less successful one.

The perma-frosted nostalgic chintz of musical theatre’s very particular world rings through Happiness, which is streaming on HBO Max. Shortland Street alum Harry McNaughton stars as Charlie, an emerging director whose star was momentarily on the up in New York.

Until, that is, an unfortunate, NDA-locked incident involving Sally Fields, which forms a fabulously tart running joke in the program. Charlie’s been bundled back to Tauranga on Aotearoa’s North Island for what he thinks is a brief pit stop, but his US visa is rudely cancelled – which delights his effervescent, if permanently flip-flopping in the face of adversity, stage mum, Gaye (played by Australian-poached Kiwi, Rebecca Gibney). She’s desperate for Charlie to take the reins at local amateur musical theatre society Pizzazz, so much so that she stages a Backstreet Boys flashmob at the airport.

Only problem is, the gayer than Christmas Charlie crushed on NSYNC’s Justin Timberlake way back when…  Get your boy bands straight, mum!

Happiness: all that cast

It’s Gaye’s “oh my days” dream to have her peppy, if overly prissy, son back on home turf. Pizzazz’s artistic director, Adrian (The Hobbit’s Peter Hambleton), is less than impressed with the territorial incursion of ‘some ignorant little Nepo baby’, who he’ll later curse as ‘That little Brutus’.

Cue comedic sabre rattling as Charlie’s cajoled into directing the company’s latest musical, The Trojan Horse.

Working an overly familiar “little-big-company-of oddballs-that-could” vibe, what helps Happiness truly sing is that this Iliad-mining show within a show is genuinely magnificent. Sure, it may poke fun at the form with song titles including ‘Troy Boy’, but the music and lyrics are legit cooler than Hadestown.

And my gosh, the assorted cast of archetypal theatre kids with issues can really sing. Especially, excruciatingly shy and nervous crier Gloria (Marshayla Christie), the resident piano player who’s studiously hiding her light under a bushel. She wrote the original book for The Trojan Horse, though the J.K. Rowling-adoring, anti-woke Adrian has ridden roughshod over it while screeching, ‘Quiet in the cheap seats’.

Stage and screen star Jessie Lawrence is catnip as queen bee Jacqui James, the high-maintenance Wendy to childhood Charlie’s Peter Pan, though any mention of those teeny green short-wearing days triggers him.

Incapable of not slipping into Mary Poppins while playing the face that launched a thousand ships – “Helen’s a classical character, so she needs an English accent” – Jacqui has a permanent dressing room: ‘It’s just easier’. The champers on ice in there is as chilly as her not-so-secret envy of Charlie’s brief moment in the Broadway sun.  

Jacqui’s limelight-hogging pushes Helen hopeful Mia (Melody Lui-Webster) into the increasingly marginalised role of doomed prophet Cassandra. However, Gloria conceived of them as dual starring roles, getting the visionary’s curse by having Mia’s Cass sing ‘no one’s listening to me’ in a minor IV chord.

Mia’s also crushing on resident sparky, Connor (Henry Auva’a), who’s pressganged into chippy work, crafting the fabled wooden teachery-mobile and starring as Trojan prince Paris, thereby becoming the architect of his character’s doom. 

Also look out for Please Like Me’s Joel Granger as a prancing swing and a trio of tea ladies who make for a Furies-ous Greek chorus. Behind the scenes, there are plum roles for RV Quijano as adorable costumer Ezra, and Bronwyn Bradley as real estate agent Nicky, pressed into stage management.

Watch the Happiness trailer

Happiness: what’s in a name?

The endlessly entertaining ensemble with that effortlessly dry Kiwi style, swish through the gloriously silly six-part Happiness. Snappily directed by Robyn Grace (Sweet Tooth, Troppo), it’s co-written by a writers’ room including Chapman and Di Somma, who smash out one-liners like they’re going out of fashion. None beat ‘Our father, whose art is heaven, Sondheim be thy name’.

Leaning into the gossipy lols of am-dram, everyone dresses in that popping, pastels/primary colours blend so beloved of non-American teen shows that appear to take place in a parallel world where Hollywood’s Golden Age of musicals became a worldwide reality, a la Sex Education and Heartstopper.

Read: Crime Night! review: the real crime is the tired panel show format

Happiness is frothy and fun if entirely predictable, but that kinda works in its favour as you giggle ahead of the comic beats dropping. What is a shame is the show’s totally useless nothing of a name, shared with at least five other TV series/films this year alone, close to 100 in the last five, and a squillion more across the history of screen time.

Please, creators/marketing execs, quit it with generic one-word titles that won’t stand out from the crowd, let alone capture the gist of the series. Nobody should put the super-cute Happiness in the corner.

Happiness is streaming on HBO Max from 4 November 2025.

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