Hello, I am Amanda Palmer.

The Auckland Writers Festival was kind enough to invite me and Neil Gaiman

to do an evening together as part of the writers festival,

and so we asked our friend, our new Kiwi friend Lucy Lawless, to interview the two of us.

And when we announced that we were doing it, a lot of people asked 'Will you stream it?' Will you film it?'

And so we've hired a film crew.

It's all being funded by my patrons

so if you're one of my patrons, thank you.

It is your money that is paying for this.

And I hope you enjoy this long, strange, funny, weird, very personal, rollicking conversation between me, Neil, and Lucy Lawless.

The fact that Lucy is the one interviewing us is not random.

We invited her.

Or we asked the writers festival if they would invite her.

She's really nice!

(off-screen) We all are!

Yeah, most of you are! Most of you are!

I mean, the people yelling at me on Twitter

to go home to the Yankee-land from which I came are not so nice.

But most of the New Zealanders that I've actually met...

- Who doesn't get that? - Pretty nice.

Neil and I decided to do this for a reason.

We could have done all sorts of things in New Zealand,

but the fact that it's a writers festival, a literary festival,

and that we're both writers...

But this is almost like our debutante entrée into New Zealand society.

We've never been seen together.

Things got so horrible in the media when Neil left,

that I'm like, the best way to do this is to actually just go talk to everyone,

and like... show who we are.

Be with people.

That's always how I fix everything.

It doesn't always work! It usually works.

Interviewer: So what will success look like for you tonight?

Amanda: That's a good question.

I think success tonight would look like

Neil and I getting off that stage

and all 1200 people in the audience having a really good sense of who we are.

Who we really are.

Instead of whatever ideas they might have about us.

That's good and bad.

You also have to understand, Neil and I never do this.

No. We never sit down and just, as a couple, and do this.

I mean, we did a little bit of this way back in the early days,

we did a little tour together, and we would take questions from the audience,

but I don't think Neil and I have done something like this in ten years.

Where it's me and him, together, on a stage, with a friend, just...

Spilling our guts.

Welcome everybody, to a magical evening with Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman.

You're gonna have a lovely time, because these two people are the closest to unicorns you will ever meet.

I first met Neil and Amanda years apart.

I met Neil some years ago, and Amanda during the whole COVID...

the beginnings of the COVID pandemic.

And as I got to know them, I was really flummoxed as to how these two people

could exist in the same room.

Let alone in a marriage together.

And now I realise that you need a room the size of the Aotea Centre to hold these people.

They are very precious, and very dear.

Please welcome Amanda Palmer, and eventually Neil Gaiman.

(ukulele strumming)

Another bride

Another June

Another sunny honeymoon

Another season

Another reason

To make whoopee

A lot of shoes

A lot of rice