Review: The Saboteur

It’s improv. It’s a game show. It’s delight­ful chaos. It’s The Sabo­teur.  Off the back of sold-out sea­sons in the NZ Improv Fes­ti­val in 2019 and in Mel­bourne in 2020, The Sabo­teur is just over an hour’s worth of improv chaos as a part of this year’s Com­e­dy Fest. Five impro­vi­sors, one of which is try­ing to sab­o­tage […]

A Quick and Dirty Look at the Comedy Fest!

Ah, the NZ Inter­na­tion­al Com­e­dy Fest — remem­ber when we last had one? Two years ago. How­ev­er, it’s back, and we’re well into the three week pro­gramme now. If you’ve not got­ten along to any shows yet, here are some high­lights com­ing up in the next few days! Josh Davies — Look! I’m blind.  Nom­i­nat­ed […]

Review: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

There’s some­thing so delight­ful about going into a the­atre show com­plete­ly blind. I knew noth­ing about this play, had read noth­ing about it, all I knew was the charm­ing aes­thet­ic of the pub­lic­i­ty pho­tos and the fact that this was a New Zealand pre­miere. Cap­tain Corel­li’s Man­dolin is a true telling of the per­pe­tu­ity of love […]

Review: PLAY

It’s strange to be back in a place like BATS dur­ing times like these, but I’m very pleased I went along to see PLAY, a gay dat­ing dram­e­dy here from Auck­land. It’s a play with­in a play, of a sort — the first twen­ty min­utes or so being a form of a draw­ing-room com­e­dy, then the show […]

Review: PSA — Election 2020

Has it real­ly been a year since I last reviewed an inter­a­tion of Pub­lic Ser­vice Announce­ments? Appar­ent­ly so. The polit­i­cal satire is back, mix­ing COVID, con­tro­ver­sy, and Elec­tion Night into one wild and very time­ly show. Our actors take the stage with a par­o­dy of a well-known ABBA song, now rebrand­ed as “MMP”. This trend of […]

Interview Feature: Venus Rising

I sat down with Kather­ine Minor, a soloist with the Roy­al New Zealand Bal­let, to dis­cuss rehears­ing dur­ing COVID lock­down, what it’s like being back in the stu­dio, and the RNZB’s upcom­ing Venus Ris­ing tour.  The Roy­al New Zealand Bal­let will be one of the first dance com­pa­nies in the world to return to the […]

Review: Dungeoning and Dragoning

The show is exact­ly thus — four great actors play­ing Dun­geons and Drag­ons on stage, led by an emi­nent­ly like­able DM. I must admit I had my qualms when com­ing to this show, as I’ve always found play­ing D&D to be more fun than watch­ing it, but the cast is excel­lent, the mood appro­pri­ate, and the […]

A Definitive Ranking of Some of Wellington’s Most Cursed Locations

Cursed places. You might be famil­iar with them. Places you walk into and it feels like there’s ghosts, places that are a bit spooky or a bit weird or send a chill up your spine. To put it more col­lo­qui­al­ly — bad vibes. A place does­n’t have to be dilap­i­dat­ed to be cursed — I […]

Review: It’s Behind You!

We’ve all had ter­ri­ble Zoom calls over lock­down. Night­mar­ish ones, per­haps. How­ev­er, they’ve nev­er been quite as dead­ly as this. Trick of the Light The­atre’s (via Cir­ca The­atre) work It’s Behind You! is a piece of dig­i­tal the­atre born out of the COVID-19 lock­down. First per­formed live online on 28 May, and avail­able until 30 […]

Review: Bay’s Anatomy

I once again embarked on the odyssey that seems to be one of Kickin’ Rad/Soap Fac­to­ry’s Fringe schticks these days — an impro­vised soap opera, set in Welling­ton, with a cast of ten and new episodes on the hour every hour from 1–11pm. Hav­ing stum­bled exhaust­ed­ly but also with a great sense of excite­ment from […]