I’m not entirely sure how to describe this show.

Part cos­tumed-won­der, part avant-garde art piece, (A Smidge of) Pidge is a black com­edy about iden­tity and anxi­ety and pigeons.

I think.

Sherilee Kahui dances about BATS’ Pro­peller Stage for an hour dressed in an elab­or­ate pigeon cos­tume. She drinks wine, shares ginger­nuts, and recre­ates an icon­ic scene from Love Actu­ally with twice the heart­break, and sig­ni­fic­antly more pigeons.

It’s bizarre, con­fus­ing at points, but ulti­mately glor­i­ous.

Kahui is fant­ast­ic to watch, thor­oughly emotive and hil­ari­ous. Although the dia­logue in this piece is fairly min­im­al, her facial expres­sions and spe­cificity in her move­ments is more than enough to make up for it.

While it may be impossible to divine the exact final point of the piece, there is no lack of joy and intro­spec­tion with­in it. Are we just scrag­gly pigeons try­ing to fly high with the wings of life and ulti­mately fail­ing? Is the mean­ing of life just wait­ing at the bot­tom of an aban­doned box of chips?

I’m not totally sure, but in the end it does­n’t really mat­ter. (A Smidge of) Pidge is very fun and well worth your time.

(A Smidge of) Pidge is being per­formed at BATS Theatre in Wel­ling­ton from now until the 1st of Septem­ber. Grab your tick­ets here!