Review: The Big Show
The Big Show is a 100-minute extravaganza with three UK comedians who you may or may not have heard of. (The comedy world is big, okay?) Despite my utter obliviousness to whom two out of three of them were, this three-act show was a whole lot of fun. Ian Smith Acting as our MC for […]
Review: Andrew Maxwell – Showtime
Andrew Maxwell is baffled by New Zealand. And fair enough too. As he so lovingly puts it, our news cycle is a mad mess of fallen trees and cats on buses. We spend far too much time caring about things that aren’t global political conflicts and Trump. Why should we worry about global politics when […]
Review: Uther Dean – My Fat/Sad
Guest review by Emma Maguire Uther Dean is sad and he wants you to know it. My Fat/Sad is a comedy and a tragedy, a balance between joy and seriousness, and a show with more of a duality to it than you might be expecting. In my desperate quest to avoid spoilers, I’ll leave the […]
Review: Wilson Dixon’s What a Country
Guest review by Emma Maguire When I glance around the theatre before What a Country and notice that I’m definitely the youngest person in the audience I realise that I might be slightly out of this show’s demographic. I also hate country music. But that’s alright, because Wilson Dixon’s What a Country manages to transcend […]
Review: You do you babes – Donna Brookbanks
Guest review by Emma Maguire We are welcomed into the BATS Studio by a woman dressed in a black cloak. Illuminated by the light of flickering (electric) candles, we’re baptised by water poured from a menstrual cup, and we recite the single person’s prayer. All the single ladies… now put your hands up! Donna Brookbanks’ […]
Review: Aunty
AUNTY is billed as a family BBQ, and it certainly delivers. Half the opening night crowd was clearly back again after the first season, which adds to the ‘new partner at family Christmas’ vibe for first timers. Who hasn’t met a boisterous relation and silently wondered, ‘can I laugh? Am I going to be next?’ […]
Review: Hudson and Halls Live
Hudson & Halls Live!‘s Wellington season at the Hannah Playhouse began with an usher welcoming crowds to the performance, assuring them the theatre had been certified quake-safe, and explaining that some years after the time in which the play was set, one of the protagonists would die of cancer and the other would take his own life. […]
Preview: Kia Mau Festival 2016
Eight companies perform eight productions over three weeks in the Kia Mau festival of theatre and dance. Matariki is the perfect time of the year to indulge your senses with world class theatre and dance hosted by BATS Theatre, Te Papa, and Circa Theatre. First up (tonight!) is Versions of Allah presented by contemporary indigenous theatre […]
Review: The Elephant Thief
An exuberant onstage cartoon, Indian Ink Theatre Company’s The Elephant Thief begins in a jail cell and ends in… space, or the afterlife, or some other such vague spoiler. It’s an outsized feast of imaginative staging and potential pachyderm puns, anchored by a winning performance by company newcomer Vanessa Kumar. The show’s setting is a […]
Review: The moa show
The Junction Hotel is pub in rural Thames. It’s fairly typical– a bar, a dart board, a smoking area, the regulars. There’s Henry Hikoi from Ngati Pukeko, Brian Tritt who’s in every day, and Carmichael. When the three of them start drinking together and talking about the moa in the hills they wake up in […]