This is a show somewhat about the hit U2 song “Elevation” (which I still haven’t heard) and somewhat not at all about that song. From the Fast and the Furious films to fights in Burger King, new partners and the cinematic classic Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Dean spins a verbose tale of coincidence, ennui and […]
Absolute Monster, guest reviewed by Lena Beets. It’s quite hard to write a review for a comedy show that has a medium to large bombshell admission in the middle that changes the context of all the jokes told thus far, but I’ll try my best because Alice Snedden’s Absolute Monster was great. I’ve been a […]
Tim Batt and Disasteradio’s Space Couch is a synthwave Communist talkshow, and I don’t think those words have ever been uttered together in a sentence before. Things go like this. The titular pink Space Couch — sent into space by the Soviets in the mid-70s — has fallen back to earth and decided to host […]
It’s 1982 in New Zealand, a time of Olivia Newton-John, Lazy Susans and brick mobile phones, and the students of the Khandallah Academy of Performing Arts are growing their skills, making friends, and perhaps even finding love, all while they try to get a paying performing arts career. However, things are not quite that easy […]
It’s not very easy to review improv, because it changes every night, but Snort with Friends is a very good time. From a series of monologues based off audience prompts, the Snort cast (in our case, it was Kura Forrester, Chris Parker, Brynley Stent, Donna Brookbanks, Rhiannon McCall and Tom Sainsbury) plays out a bunch […]
Brynley Stent’s 2019 solo show Filthy Little Goblin is a bizarre and fantastic series of esoteric vignettes and I absolutely loved it. From birthday gifts to self-checkout machines, strange strip performances and word-based game shows, this absurdist show pushes the envelope in terms of comedy and is just very, very fun. Stent has an incredible […]
Mincing is a joy and I absolutely loved it. Jimini Jolly Snr (Tom Sainsbury) runs the best butchery in Timaru, alongside his wife Marge-Irine (Kura Forrester), their son Jimini Jnr (Chris Parker) and their daughter Nicole (Brynley Stent). Jimini Jnr is off to New York to go to tap school, Marge-Irine is on a jaunt […]
With a few little observations to warm up the crowd, Urzila, “doesn’t pick on people,” she says, and reinforces that she can’t see anyone in the crowd because of the raised seating at Te Auaha’s Tapere Nui theatre. She rolls into talking about Wellington, students, and how nobody in their right mind would ever continue […]
After a few minutes of technical issues — which may have been an actual ghost in the theatre, who knows! — we’re brought into this show by James Mustapic talking about being unemployed, to which several people in the audience cheer in unfortunate acknowledgement (myself included). Mustapic is going to do a “proper stand-up show”, […]