Donna Brookbanks: Green Fingered

Desiree Green, keen gardener and horticultural aficionado, has suddenly found herself semi-world-famous in Aotearoa New Zealand, after a tik tok video she attempted went surprisingly viral. She’s been offered a TV show - bringing gardening and her knowledge to the masses. But does she have the ability to pull it off? Or will it all fall apart at the seams, crashing her back down to soil before her star can even properly rise?

Donna Brookbanks, (multi award winning, been on the telly, don’t worry you’re in safe hands) has been wowing audiences with her characters, stand-up, and silly little sketches since she was a toddler. If only we had iPhones then, we’d have a wealth of material to laugh along with. And now we, yes all of us (as long as you have a ticket), get to see her latest creation Desiree Green in Green Fingered.

To say Donna is an enthusiastic gardener would be an understatement, her love language is plants, and she brings all of that energy to this, her latest creation. It takes a different mind, and a different way of thinking to find the humor in battling with nature (albeit the carefully controlled nature of a back garden, don’t let the wildness of the outside cross into this well manicured – at times – garden). But Donna does it with ease.

As Desiree, she not only battles with the elements, Papatūānuku, snails and her own deep insecurities, but finds a way through. It’s not so much a journey as a wander around the garden in circles, less a story arc, more a pergola. But we do see development, we see Desiree go through a metamorphosis like the caterpillars on the swan plant. But god damn, if they get amongst the cabbage, they’ll regret it! With a healthy dose of nitrogen and phosphate, Desiree grows, metaphorically, into a mighty totara, if perhaps a bonsai version that proves the rule – from seeds, grow mighty pot plants.