Fringe show reviews: Glittery Clittery, Dry & Damaged and Missing Lids

Today’s guest reviews of three fringe shows come cour­tesy of Tony Barnes. Thanks Tony! The Fringe Wives Club – Glit­tery Clit­tery A year ago, while tour­ing sev­er­al of her shows at the 2018 NZ Fringe Fest­iv­al, Tessa Waters men­tioned that she had anoth­er show in devel­op­ment that she would bring to the 2019 Fringe. Fringe […]

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: Side by Side by Sondheim

A revue of ‘most adven­tur­ous com­poser’ Steph­en Sondheim’s works. Ori­gin­ally per­formed in 1976 the music­als rep­res­en­ted in this revue are from the early part of his career. (Some of the music­als men­tioned in the show’s pro­mo­tion­al mater­i­al do not fea­ture.)  He explores the themes of love, rela­tion­ships, and mar­riage. Per­formed by Julie O’Brien, Mat­thew Pike, […]

Review: Hamlet (Summer Shakespeare 2019)

Sum­mer Shakespeare’s Ham­let has been a show I’ve been look­ing for­ward to for a very long time, and I can def­in­itely say that it did­n’t let me down. Dir­ec­ted by Dav­id O’Don­nell, and star­ring Stevie Han­­cox-Monk as a female Ham­let, the show brought Ham­let back to life for me in a very good way. Ham­let is a fant­ast­ic play but […]

Preview: WHY ARE WE STILL HERE?

You’ll remem­ber Emma from her reviews right here on the ‘ista. Turns out she’s put­ting her money where her mouth is, so I had a chat with her about it. Why are we still here? Feb­ru­ary 5–9pm Bats Theatre Emma! You’re doing a play! What’s it all about? Four women break into an aban­doned theatre […]

Review: A Slightly Isolated Dog’s Santa Claus

Santa Claus brings A Slightly Isol­ated Dog’s usu­al charm, wit and innu­endo to BATS’ Ran­dom Stage for the telling of a tale about a Santa Claus who is rather tired of put­ting up with naughty people’s bull­shit. I shall not go too far into the plot of this sixty-minute show – to save you all from […]

Review: Puss in Boots

Circa Theatre’s Christ­mas pan­to­mime this year is Puss in Boots. It’s a tale as old as time, if that tale were set in the wilds of Te Aro and Karori and fea­tured many dick jokes, jabs at Gareth Mor­gan and fant­ast­ic­al dance num­bers. It’s 2018. Or there abouts. Cam­illa Miller – a griev­ing wid­ow woman – […]

Review: Actual Fact

Reviewed by our fant­ast­ic guest review­er, Shan­non Gil­lies (@dashright­in) on Twit­ter! The audi­ence arrived warm and will­ing to be enter­tained – and they were. Actu­al Fact explored story telling. Not in a way that is gen­er­ally cel­eb­rated in our soci­ety – such as I’m an adven­turer, sportsper­son, a politi­cian – listen to or read of […]