It’s almost Arts Festival season!

Wellingtonians rejoice for it is almost ARTS FESTIVAL SEASON! From the beginning of February through March we’ll be able to enjoy work in development, new and experimental acts, and some of the best stuff from around the world. First one to start is the Fringe Festival.  As they say on the website “Our festival is open access […]

Reviews of two Christmas themed shows in Wellington

This heading is not totally accurate as one of the shows consists of four different shows. You only need to buy one ticket to see the four shows, so for two tickets you can see five shows. Confused? Welcome to the reviews for Stages of Cheer  and A Christmas Karel Čapek at BATS Theatre! (Bring […]

Wellington Theatre Awards 2015

The Wellington Theatre Awards were held at Circa Theatre on Sunday night.  There were 191 shows in Wellington during 2015 – so much for this being a dying city. Hosted by James Nokise (angling to rename the awards the ‘Nokise’s’), with musical numbers by Carrie Green and Jack Buchanan it was an evening celebrating creativity, […]

Review: The last five years

Cathy is an actress. Jamie is a writer. Both of them are at the beginning of their careers when they meet. Five years later after success for both of them they are breaking up. Their individual stories are told from different point of the relationship. Cathy’s story starts at the end of the relationship and […]

Review: All our sons

World War I needs more men to fight and Maori from Mataira Mountain are being asked to go. Grandma Mataira is vehemently against their going. Her son Waru believes fighting alongside Pakeha will bring Maori equal rights in New Zealand. With his son Tai and Tai’s best Pakeha friend Alec Campbell, he volunteers. Their experience […]

Evita

If you suspect that I’m not an actual, fully qualified reviewer, you’d be correct. However, in this particular instance, I feel I have some expertise having watched the movie Evita, starring my pal Madonna. Armed with this extensive knowledge, and having wikipediaed Eva Peron (did you know Juan Peron popped her corpse in his dining room 20 years after […]

Review: Ache

A Man and a Woman meet. There’s definitely something between them that both would like to explore further… but his girlfriend shows up. They run into each other again. But she’s trying to make it work with someone and he’s got a different girlfriend. Through comedy and tragedy they keep meeting each other. Will they […]

Review: Dead Men’s Wars

Three high school students from Australia and New Zealand have won a competition to visit Gallipoli for the ANZAC day commemorations. They are escorted over by two company representatives. Everything is going according to the schedule when one of the students goes off script. The fallout affects them all. This is the 2015 STAB production […]

Reviews of The Angry Brigade and Gifted

Two wordy plays are currently showing in Wellington. Both are very good. The Angry Brigade by James Graham, directed by Samuel Phillips Four police officers are in a basement office in London trying to track down some terrorists. Threats have been made. Bombs have gone off. It’s not the IRA. In fact, they’re not like […]

Review: Bubblelands by Renee Liang

The clinking of cutlery and mumbled conversation greet us as we walk into the theatre. Blue glowing lines show the edges of the fishtank. It’s a sparse place but I guess the fish aren’t there to live. Blue Cod (Hweiling Ow) is preparing to be chosen. She is joined unexpectedly by Crayfish (Bemjamin Teh) who […]