Review: Spyfinger! A show about spies

My Accom­plice tack­les the spy film in their lat­est pro­duc­tion which is part of the Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val. We fol­low glo­be­trot­ting Agent Spy­man Fin­ger (Alex Greig) around the globe in his efforts to bring the bad guy to jus­tice. He is accom­pa­nied by var­i­ous (in)appropriately named team mem­bers (played by Han­nah Banks and Paul Wag­gott). The […]

Review: Triumphs and other alternatives

The lights go up on a most­ly bare stage. In the back half of the stage there is a sheet of plas­tic being used as a cur­tain. It’s snagged on a table. As it ris­es a fig­ure becomes vis­i­ble over a minia­ture cityscape. The light bright­ens to reveal not a cityscape but a mess of […]

Review: The showgirl

A NZ writ­ten dis­co noir set in Harlem, 1979. Dancer Fontel­la Pen­davis (Deb­o­rah Eve Rea) has been mur­dered at Stu­dio Soul and Detec­tive Gon­za­les (Jor­dan Rivers) has been sent to inves­ti­gate. There are plen­ty of pos­si­ble sus­pects – Luz Cruz (Brit­tany Goss), who has inher­it­ed Fontella’s job; Ari Sug­ar­man (Ed Blun­den), the own­er of the […]

Review: Tiny Deaths

A series of 11 mono­logues about love and sex writ­ten by Uther Dean. It’s per­formed by 6 women — Alice May Con­nol­ly, Bri­anne Kerr, Han­nah Banks, Freya Daly Sad­grove, Hilary Pen­war­den, and Kegan Carr Fran­sch. From the start we’re invit­ed into a sur­re­al world where the object of love and/or sex might not be human. […]

Theatre review: Brave

One of the few shows on in Welling­ton that are not part of the Fringe Fes­ti­val, The Brave is show­ing at the Han­nah Play­house until the end of Feb­ru­ary. Auck­­­land-based Mas­sive Com­pa­ny have devised a show which explores the ques­tion “What is it to be a man in 2015?” Using the same cast that looked at […]

Review: The two farting sisters

Dad is vis­it­ing Chi­na. He leaves old­er sis­ter Stel­la in charge of the farm. This is a mis­take as she prompt­ly sells it, then scarpers off to Paris to spend the pro­ceeds, leav­ing lit­tle sis­ter Daisy the almost use­less black­ber­ry patch. How­ev­er Daisy is very resource­ful and hard­work­ing. She is deter­mined to buy the farm […]

New Zealand Fringe Festival

The New Zealand Fringe Fes­ti­val is com­ing at you with their 25th year of excit­ing, fright­en­ing, amaz­ing, and puz­zling works. As well as local artists there are 39 out-of-town acts bring­ing their stuff to Welling­ton. Prices are most­ly under the $25 mark but the smart choice is to buy an Addict card. It’s only $15 […]

Review: Richard III

Richard, Duke of Glouces­ter, is in the line for the throne if only the peo­ple before him would get out of his way. If they won’t — well, he can help with that… David Lawrence (Richard) is glee­ful­ly nasty. The audi­ence is made his con­spir­a­tors as he wreaks hav­oc through the lives of those around him. He […]

Review: Titus Andronicus

One of Shake­speare’s blood­i­est plays pre­sent­ed in a hair salon around Hal­loween? Excel­lent idea. Fresh Dada pre­sent­ed their take on Titus Andron­i­cus last week. . Titus (Julia Har­ris in the tra­di­tion­al­ly male lead role) has returned tri­umphant­ly from the war with pris­on­ers. One of them, Tamo­ra, Queen of the Goths, (Karen Anslow) pleads for the […]

Three shows in Wellington (until October 4)

There are three shows on in Welling­ton this week that are absolute­ly worth your time and mon­ey. An unsea­son­able fall of snow at Cir­ca The­atre, and God-Bel­­ly and Every­thing is sur­round­ed by water at BATS The­atre. I feel like An unsea­son­able fall of snow should come with a con­tent warn­ing how­ev­er that would give away […]