The Topp Twins are a well-loved comedic country music duo whose popularity has spread around the world. Spontaneity is a vital ingredient of the Topp Twins' magic on stage. Audience participation is almost a trademark. Their unique blend of seriously good original country music, comedy characters and some of the finest yodelling you'll hear anywhere, has won them many awards and accolades. Most recently their feature documentary film The Topp Twins, Untouchable Girls won Best Feature Film at the NZ Film & TV Awards (2009), as well as the Audience Award at last year's prestigious Toronto International Film Festival. It has since gone on to screen at more than 25 film festivals worldwide...
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The Topp Twins are a well-loved comedic country music duo whose popularity has spread around the world. Spontaneity is a vital ingredient of the Topp Twins' magic on stage. Audience participation is almost a trademark. Their unique blend of seriously good original country music, comedy characters and some of the finest yodelling you'll hear anywhere, has won them many awards and accolades. Most recently their feature documentary film The Topp Twins, Untouchable Girls won Best Feature Film at the NZ Film & TV Awards (2009), as well as the Audience Award at last year's prestigious Toronto International Film Festival. It has since gone on to screen at more than 25 film festivals worldwide and win a clutch of awards. The film has the honour of being the highest grossing Documentary ever released in New Zealand.
"It takes a very special documentary to deny Michael Moore a top festival prize, but to see the Topp Twins is to fall in love with it." Screen International
Twin sisters, Lynda and Jools Topp, grew up singing to the cows on their family's dairy farm in the Waikato. After a short stint in the Army, they began their careers busking on the streets of Auckland and came of age during the heady days of the political protest marches in the early 80s. They quickly joined the forefront of the progressive social change movement campaigning for a Nuclear-Free NZ, Maori Land Rights, a halt to the1981 Springbok Tour, and Homosexual Law Reform.
By 1998 only a decade later, Lynda Topp, as Camp Mother, came close to winning the mayoral elections in Auckland, and the Topp Twins were firmly entrenched in the bosom of Kiwi culture with their own prime time TV Series 'Do Not Adjust Your Twinset'. The series ran over 5 years and won Best Entertainment Series at the NZ TV Awards in 1997 & 99. It was also rated as one of TV3 (Can West) top 10 shows for 1997. In 2010 their TV Special ‘The Topp Twins and the APO' won the Best Entertainment Programme at the Qantas Film and Television Awards.
It has often been said that if the story of the Twins was fictional nobody would believe it. From rural backwaters to performances at the Rugby World Cup and London's West End stage, from support act to Split Enz, Billy Bragg, and Midnight Oil to headlining their own hugely successful tours in Australia, Canada, the USA and Britain, the Topp Twins appeal is infectious. They have morphed from radical activists into Kiwi 'national treasures', 'cultural ambassadors', and finally, according to the Glasgow Herald, into New Zealand's 'finest artistic export since lamb cutlets!'
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