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 […]