On the fringes

The Fringe Fest­iv­al is hap­pen­ing from now until March 9! This is excit­ing! There are approx­im­ately six zil­lion shows hap­pen­ing, and while the ‘ista is cov­er­ing as many as it can (and thank you for your invites, pro­du­cers, we appre­ci­ate them!), we do all have day jobs and are all only human, except for Tom […]

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? […]

Zinefest 2012

Wel­ling­ton Zine­fest annu­al zine mar­ket and fest­iv­al returns to Mighty Mighty this Sat­urday, Novem­ber 17th. Now in its 6th year, Wel­ling­ton Zine­fest is New Zeal­and’s longest run­ning fest­iv­al of zines. ‘Zines’ or ‘fan­zines’ are self-pub­­l­ished magazines cre­ated to high­light music scenes, fan­doms, act­iv­ism, craft, cre­at­ive writ­ing or simply the zinemaker’s own oddball obses­sions. Zine­fest brings […]

Beer what you want to beer

It’s Choice Beer Week here in Wel­ling­ton and last night The Sut­ton Group Brew­ers Guild of New Zea­l­and Awards took place at the Michael Fowl­er Centre. Har­ring­ton’s Brew­er­ies of Christ­ch­urch took out the top hon­ours and were named Cham­pi­on Brew­ery in New Zea­l­and for 2012. Wel­ling­ton, being the self-claimed and now gen­er­ally accep­ted Craft Beer […]

Wellington on a Plate so far

Wel­ling­ton on a Plate opened on Fri­day. How’s it been for you so far? We’ve been try­ing to share people’s microreviews on Twit­ter, and of course @wellyonaplate will be even more inform­at­ive,  but I thought I’d do some prop­er writeups for you about what I’ve been eat­ing. So, in chro­no­lo­gic­al order: Dine menu at The […]

Brancott all dressed up and ready to WOW you

We’ve really enjoyed going to  the Bran­cott Estate World of Wear­ableArt Awards Show over the past couple of years, back from when the nam­ing rights spon­sor had a dif­fer­ent name. We’ve also really enjoyed wine over the past twenty years or so as well. Nat­ur­ally, some­thing that mixes the two is going to make us happy.  Bran­cott […]

Ladies & gentlemen, start your salivating

The Visa Wel­ling­ton On A Plate fest­iv­al was launched last night at the Saint James, in amidst lash­ings of Ruth Pretty’s whipped but­ter, ginger beer-battered fish and Whit­taker­’s chocol­ate creme bru­lee. Oh lordy, we ate like roy­alty and were still made even more hungry by read­ing about some of the events on offer. Tick­ets go […]

Wellington Fashion Week is coming.

The first Wel­ling­ton Fash­ion Week takes place 18th-26th April. There will be a vari­ety of events includ­ing dif­fer­ent shows, pop-ups, a high tea and of course lots of deeply hip people. We’re pretty excited and will be report­ing from vari­ous events. You can find a timetable and info here. The design­ers show­ing are Star­fish, Nic­ola […]

Review: Michael James Manaia

This solo show starts with a wel­come and karakia. After a ser­i­ous start it flips into a mad­cap story.  As the action pro­gresses we hear a man telling us the story of his life –  what his par­ents were like, why he went to Viet­nam, what happened there, and what happened when he came back […]