Review: Yesterday, in space

The good space­ship Yes­ter­day is the first rock­et ship to launch from Aotearoa New Zea­l­and and we get to come along for the ride! Her new crew are determ­ined to show us a good time. What a pity they’re stuck in the middle of pro­fes­sion­al rival­ries, con­fus­ing per­son­al rela­tion­ships, and an aster­oid belt… All those […]

Review: Coffee Bean-Queen Machine

Paja Neuho­fer­ova wears a blue flor­al pat­tern full skirt, a short navy jack­et with the blue flor­al fab­ric on the front, a head­band with small flowers. As we arrive she is sit­ting on the counter. The accor­di­on she plays is a deep glossy red. It sounds jaunty. Eight­een of us are tightly packed in to […]

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: Space Patrol 5 (NZ Improv Festival)

I leaned over to my theatre-going com­pan­ion just before the start of this show and poin­ted at one of the audi­ence-made space­ships lying on the floor of BATS’ Ran­dom Stage. “That space­ship looks a lot like a dildo,” I remarked, pres­ci­ently as always, and he agreed. The audi­ence, in an ode to pre­dict­ab­il­ity, chose it. […]

Budburst is here to celebrate natural wines – win a double pass

I like any event centered around wine, so I’m really excited about Bud­burst, com­ing up on Novem­ber 11 – the country’s only nat­ur­al wine fest­iv­al. Nat­ur­al wines, you say? What exactly does that mean? Well let’s cut’n paste from the press release His­tor­ic­ally, the term nat­ur­al wine is without a single defin­i­tion. For the Bud­burst […]

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 […]

Preview: Kia Mau Festival

The fourth Kia Mau Fest­iv­al is on from 1–16 June 2018. A con­tem­por­ary Indi­gen­ous theatre and dance exper­i­ence, the fest­iv­al cel­eb­rates Māori, Pasi­fika, First Nations artists and their com­pan­ies. Kia Mau Fest­iv­al is an innov­at­ive exper­i­ence for whānau and com­munit­ies through­out the Wel­ling­ton region to engage with Tangata When­ua and First Nations artists from across […]

What’s on this week Fringe?

It’s the last week of the Fringe Fest­iv­al *wails* Here is some pub­li­city for shows. How To ____ Us on at Gryphon Theatre to 21 March 2018 Teach. Hear. Pro­tect. Lead. Build. See. Break. Under­stand. Inspire. Crush. Reach. Raise. Frus­trate. Tell. Accept. Scare. Trust. Hurt. Annoy. Res­cue. Chal­lenge. Embar­rass. Approach. Sup­port. Pun­ish. Free. Change. Influ­ence. […]

Review: Dressing up with Margot

World fam­ous fash­ion styl­ist Mar­got Von Dont has returned to New Zea­l­and with life and style advice for us. We’re upstairs above Leroy’s Bar with a small stage that resembles a talk show set. There are clothes hung on racks and spill­ing out of suit­cases. The show starts with an announce­ment that’s not usu­ally heard […]

Review: The Travelling Sisters and The Nose

Lucy Fox, Laura Trenerry and Ell Sachs are The Trav­el­ling Sis­ters. 2017 win­ners of Best Com­edy and New Zea­l­and Tour Ready Award at Mel­bourne Fringe they’re at BATS Theatre to make us snort laugh. (They don’t exactly put it like that but it’s def­in­itely what I heard (and maybe did) at their open­ing night show.) […]