Preview: New Zealand Improv Festival

The New Zea­l­and Improv Fest­iv­al is at BATS Theatre all this week. See some of the country’s best prac­ti­tion­ers and com­pan­ies in unscrip­ted theatre that’s devised before your face. That’s right – no scripts, no set plays. Here’s how it works – each show will have a frame for the show the impro­visers will cre­ate.  […]

WOAP: Burger, burger, bugger!

TL:DR: we ate two pretty decent bur­gers and will nev­er return to Fox­glove. Pig Mac at the Feath­er­ston On Fri­day at lunch­time I knew I had to eat some­thing WOAPy in order to keep up the reviews, but was crav­ing fresh­ness. I thought I might be able to get into Annam without a book­ing, because […]

Welly on a Plate 2016: it begins

So Wel­ling­ton on a Plate has been going for four days now, and I have three things to report back on so far. Good on me, let’s see if I can keep this pace up (I won’t be able to). The Suite Life at the Bolton Hotel Tapas and wine Dine Wel­ling­ton menu at Ster­ling […]

The Hour/Week of Beer is Upon Us

Beer­vana kicks off on Fri­day with four ses­sions over two days and there’s a LOT of beer related activ­it­ies on before then. The Road to Beer­vana began on Sunday and there are events tak­ing place in bars all over the city and even fur­ther afield in Auck­land and Christ­ch­urch. I’m not going to attempt to tell […]

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 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 […]

A journey around the Billiards Room (and tables)

Last week, Wel­ling­tonista’s ace lit­er­ary team was lucky enough to get invited along to the pre-launch Writers’ Week Wel­come, held with­in the Museum Art Hotel’s very swanky Bil­liards Room. Fol­low­ing on from last year’s sale of the Cour­tenay-dis­­trict land­mark (let’s not go bust­ing out the dreaded “icon­ic” just yet) to Sydney-based EVT (Event, Hos­pit­al­ity and […]

Review: Te Pō

Three men gath­er in a room. Detect­ive Inspect­or Brett is look­ing for Bruce Mason who has gone miss­ing. Rev­er­end Athol Sedgewick had din­ner with Mason the night before last and is pos­sibly the last per­son to see him before he dis­ap­peared. Werihe has an eight o’c­lock appoint­ment with the play­wright. No-one has any idea where he […]

NZ Fringe impressions

Real quick impres­sions of 3 NZ Fringe shows They’re all worth your money. A note on koha: Most of the shows I’ve seen are recom­mend­ing between $10-$20 for koha. BRING CHANGE. It’s just rude to reach into the koha box because you’ve only got a $20. If you’ve only got a $20 give the per­formers […]

Review: Hart

There is a ring of white in the middle of the stage. A man stands inside it, slightly to the side. In the dark we listen to politi­cians and radio hosts dis­cuss Indi­gen­ous Aus­trali­ans. Taken from their fam­il­ies ‘for their own good’, ‘to save them from them­selves’. A lone voice offers an apo­logy. The sober­ing […]