Author: Sophie

Review: Homemade Takeaways

I don’t think any­one will dis­agree with me that it’s been one hell of a year, and Christ­mas is descend­ing on us fast.  So it seemed com­plete­ly appro­pri­ate to be watch­ing a show about peo­ple who’ve had a hell of a year, too, drawn togeth­er at Christ­mas. Annie and Will have grav­i­tat­ed back to the […]

Review: Olive Copperbottom

Leav­ing Cir­ca on Wednes­day after the open­ing night of Olive Cop­per­bot­tom, one of the many things I was feel­ing was deep regret that it was the very first of Pen­ny Ash­ton’s shows that I’d seen, and I’d missed so many oth­ers.  Ash­ton is a bright light.  Her ener­gy, her wit, and her joy were incan­des­cent […]

Review: Macbeth

I went into Mac­beth at the St James com­plete­ly cold — I know Verdi’s lat­er operas, includ­ing his lat­er Shake­speare operas; Otel­lo and Fal­staff.  But I’ve some­how missed Mac­beth, and decid­ed to keep it that way, I guess because it’s so excit­ing to go into some­thing com­plete­ly fresh and new, even if it was writ­ten […]

Review: The Look Of Love

I’ve seen Ali Harp­er before, at Old St Paul’s in 2012, and I was struck by her humour and pro­fes­sion­al­ism then.  It was a fun night out with my Robot Mum and we both enjoyed hear­ing songs we knew, and some we did­n’t, per­formed by some­one who knew her craft and was super skilled. On […]

Review: The Human Voice (La Voix Humaine; NZO season)

TW:  Sui­cide, over­dose, trau­ma I reviewed a pro­duc­tion of La Voix Humaine in Feb­ru­ary.  It’s been a strange worm­hole of a year and it feels like a mil­lion years ago but also maybe yes­ter­day that I was sit­ting in Suite Gallery, expe­ri­enc­ing this piece for the first time.  Writ­ing this review with the last one […]

That’s All She Wrote — Review

I’ve  found myself in a very love­ly, very priv­i­leged, and deeply uncom­fort­able space.  I’ve seen three pre­vi­ous Red Scare The­atre Com­pa­ny shows, and I’ve gen­uine­ly loved them all.  I will have to enlist one of my ‘Ista com­rades to review their shows in future, to pre­clude claims of bias and shame­less fan­girling. Each of those […]

Review — Oddacity

Odd­ac­i­ty promised an “award-win­n­ing, best-of spec­tac­u­lar with a cast of inter­na­tion­al lumi­nar­ies per­form­ing styl­ish acts”, under the beau­ti­ful sky­light in Bats’ Hey­day Dome.   I was­n’t sure what to expect, know­ing the the­atre would­n’t suit aeri­als or acro­bat­ics, but I hoped  for clowns.  I was not dis­ap­point­ed in that sense. Odd­ac­i­ty is usu­al­ly Sachie Mikawa, Trent […]

Review: DND Live at the Fringe: When Dwarves Cry

I would­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly say that Dun­geons and Drag­ons has gone main­stream, but it’s become a lot more pop­u­lar in the last twen­ty years.  It prob­a­bly helps that there are so many TV shows these days with a fan­ta­sy ele­ment, as well as movies like the Lord of the Rings series mak­ing sword-and-sor­cery stuff cool­er. DnD […]

Review: Dr Drama Makes a Show

It was weird for me to go to a show at 93 Kel­burn Parade, hav­ing com­plet­ed my own hum­ble BA at Vic almost 20 years ago.  In fact, #93 was the site of at least one audi­tion and more than a few rehearsals for me.  It’s had a bit of a facelift, now being an […]

Review: Eight Songs for a Mad King

King George III, despite hav­ing been a learned and enthu­si­as­tic spon­sor of sci­en­tif­ic and indus­tri­al progress, a faith­ful hus­band and father, and in many ways very lib­er­al for his time (except pro-slav­ery, just say­ing), is basi­cal­ly famous for hav­ing gone mad. That mad­ness has been scru­ti­nized, diag­nosed, and mocked round­ly in mod­ern lit­er­a­ture, film, TV, […]