Advocates of constitutional reform often argue that a key obstacle to political change is lack of public understanding about constitutional order and the absence of conditions necessary for promoting measured, dispassionate and rational reflection on existing constitutional arrangements, or what political theorists term ‘deliberative democracy’. These problems are even more pronounced in political systems based on the Westminster model of constitutional monarchy, where neither the constitution nor the Crown are concepts easy to grasp. In this chapter we critique the simplistic and rationalistic assumptions behind arguments for deliberative democracy. As we show, what constitutes public engagement in matters of constitutional importance is sometimes a matter of debate and often turns out, on closer analysis, to be more theatrical and performative than deliberative. In making our argument, we draw on examples from New Zealand, a country that has had three major constitutional deliberations since 2005, including an unsuccessful referendum on whether to change its national flag. These examples illustrate wider problems of how to engage the public in meaningful constitutional debates when the constitution itself is so opaque.