Review: The Mournmoor Murders

As The Wel­ling­tonista’s res­id­ent super-fan of after­noon murder mys­tery tele­vi­sion for old people, I was unbe­liev­ably excited to get the chance to see The Mourn­moor Murders, Maria Wil­li­ams and Alice May Con­nolly’s excel­lent satire of that whole genre. And it was fant­ast­ic! Detect­ive Thompson (Wil­li­ams) and Detect­ive Con­stable Detect­ive Agent Cooper (Con­nolly) must unearth dark […]

Fringe show reviews: Glittery Clittery, Dry & Damaged and Missing Lids

Today’s guest reviews of three fringe shows come cour­tesy of Tony Barnes. Thanks Tony! The Fringe Wives Club – Glit­tery Clit­tery A year ago, while tour­ing sev­er­al of her shows at the 2018 NZ Fringe Fest­iv­al, Tessa Waters men­tioned that she had anoth­er show in devel­op­ment that she would bring to the 2019 Fringe. Fringe […]

Review: Blonde Mountain Wolf Man

Craig Geenty comes from a large and exten­ded fam­ily. They’re gregari­ous. They like a bit of a drink. They’ve been whis­per­ing about a fam­ily secret for years. Great-grand­­fath­er Joseph is still offi­cially miss­ing after dis­ap­pear­ing on his way back home after mak­ing a deliv­ery in town in 1921. Did he crash? Did he run away? […]

Review: A Slightly Isolated Dog’s Santa Claus

Santa Claus brings A Slightly Isol­ated Dog’s usu­al charm, wit and innu­endo to BATS’ Ran­dom Stage for the telling of a tale about a Santa Claus who is rather tired of put­ting up with naughty people’s bull­shit. I shall not go too far into the plot of this sixty-minute show – to save you all from […]

Review/s: New Zealand Improv Fest Bonanza

I saw four improv shows last night as part of the New Zea­l­and Improv Fest­iv­al. In the interests of brev­ity, here’s a joint review of all four. Aus­ten Found  Penny Ashton’s Aus­ten Found is a per­am­bu­la­tion into the world of one of Jane Aus­ten’s lost music­als – in this case, the story of one Vic­tor­ia Sandy­bot­tom, who […]

Review: The Dinner

  Take one part absurd com­edy, one part awk­ward din­ner with your par­ents, and a dash of glor­i­ous man­i­cism, and you have The Din­ner, a unique improv show cur­rently being played at Circa Theatre. Being per­formed for the first time out­side of Europe, this play brings togeth­er five din­ner guests (four friends, and a new […]

Preview: The Loneliest Whale in the World

This isn’t a break up show. It’s about mar­ine sci­ence. So begins the blurb for this pro­duc­tion com­ing up at Bats Theatre from July 10–14. A play about whales seems to be very very timely for Wel­ling­ton right now, but this one has been in the mak­ing for a long time. “Four years ago, my friend […]

Review: The Elixir of Love

Friends, plough­men and coun­try­men, you’re invited to the Elixir of Love, NZ Opera’s utterly mad­cap new cre­ation. Though my com­pan­ion and I were likely the young­est and the poorest in the audi­ence (opera con­tin­ues to be an art form seem­ingly gran­ted to those above a cer­tain age), it was a show that could be enjoyed […]

Review: The Blender (Sundays with BaseJump Improv)

With a dash of insan­ity, a smidge of ridicu­lous­ness, and a lot of Wel­ling­to­ni­an wit, Base­Jump Improv’s new show The Blender is a wild ride for your Sunday even­ing. We don’t tend to see Sundays as a ‘going to theatre day’ but with a show run­ning at roughly forty-five minutes long, this piece is eas­ily man­age­able between […]

Naked girls. Reading. In Wellington.

In advance of Naked Girls Read­ing; the moth­er­hood edi­tion this Sat­urday at the Fringe Bar, I put a few ques­tions to its pro­du­cer, Hugo Grrrl. Okay, first off. Naked girls read­ing – what in the heck is this? And who are you? Naked Girls Read­ing is exactly what it sounds like – it’s com­pletely naked […]