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 […]