Review: Fatu na toto

There isn’t much of a descrip­tion for this show on either the Fringe or the BATS web­site. It rather enig­mat­ic­ally says ““Fatu na toto” (The Planted Seeds).  Expressed through the Lan­guage of Siva Sam­oa. “The sand at our feet will remain, we take pride mov­ing for­ward with every grain”.” Thank­fully the pro­gramme explains that “A […]

Review: The road that wasn’t there

Oliv­er de Rohan’s mother­’s neigh­bours think she is going mad. Oliv­er is pretty sure she’s always been mad. She’s always been fanci­ful any­way, telling him stor­ies of fair­ies and tani­wha.  Did she really meet his fath­er in a paper world? How did she get there? How did she get back? What is really going on? […]

Review: Perfectly wasted

Long Cloud Youth Theatre Sum­mer School have worked with A Slightly Isol­ated Dog to invest­ig­ate then recre­ate a night out. The show is fren­et­ic with lots of short scenes from a typ­ic­al night out. There’s a lot of drink­ing, some dan­cing. There are some ongo­ing stor­ies but most of the action and interest is in […]

Review: The mousetrap

Agatha Christie’s The mousetrap is now in its six­tieth year of con­tinu­ous pro­duc­tion. It opened in 1952 (1952!) and is quite pos­sibly more fam­ous for being fam­ous now, rather than the qual­ity of the work. As part of the cel­eb­ra­tions of the show’s longev­ity, 60 pro­fes­sion­al pro­duc­tions have been licensed around the world. The Aus­trali­an […]

Review: Paper Sky

Henry is a reclus­ive writer with a dead­line (and a sad secret). He’s being houn­ded by his boss, his new neigh­bour is dis­tract­ing, and to top it all off, his char­ac­ter, Lumina,  is fight­ing for her life.  Will his ima­gin­a­tion help him come to terms with his prob­lems in the real world? Red Leap Theatre’s […]

Review: The truth game

Frank Stone (Alan Lov­ell) is act­ing edit­or of a daily news­pa­per. He’s been away and is back in the office and on the job again much soon­er than his col­leagues expec­ted. There’s Ral­ph Jones (Bri­an Ser­gent),  long-serving journ­al­ist, Sam Hunter (Jes­sica Robin­son), well-regarded journ­al­ist, Jo Point­er (Acushla-Tara Sut­ton), new­bie journ­al­ist (who has come from blog­ging  […]

A fundraising benefit variety show for Wellington Rape Crisis

Wel­ling­ton Rape Crisis believes that edu­ca­tion is a vital tool in the pre­ven­tion of rape and sexu­al abuse. Earli­er this year they had to cut their ser­vices by 20% because of a lack of fund­ing.  The com­munity respon­ded by donat­ing money. Though they have met their cur­rent budget short­fall thanks to a huge com­munity response […]

WOW 2012

It was my first time at WOW. I knew that I could expect a spec­tacle along with fant­ast­ic wear­able art but I was unpre­pared for just how delighted I’d be. The sheer exuber­ance of the per­formers, the out­land­ish designs, and the joy of the win­ning design­ers made me clap my hands in child­ish glee sev­er­al […]

Review: Manawa

Jimmy King, one of New Zeal­and’s most notori­ous crim­in­als, is back in jail. He’s shar­ing a cell with Mau Vai­aga, a recent immig­rant to New Zea­l­and. Mau has com­mit­ted a crime so out­rageous that the New Zea­l­and pub­lic are out for his blood. They’re both being rep­res­en­ted by hot-shot law­yer Waimanea Huia…but is she as […]

Preview: The Keepers

Thread Theatre Com­pany’s phys­ic­al theatre work The Keep­ers  starts tomor­row night at BATS Theatre.   The story is that “two women inhab­it an isol­ated light­house on a small rocky island in the middle of an ocean. One arrived by row­boat, unan­nounced and unex­plained – the oth­er seems to have been here forever. The women are both […]