Review: Manawa

Jimmy King, one of New Zeal­and’s most notori­ous crim­in­als, is back in jail. He’s shar­ing a cell with Mau Vai­aga, a recent immig­rant to New Zea­l­and. Mau has com­mit­ted a crime so out­rageous that the New Zea­l­and pub­lic are out for his blood. They’re both being rep­res­en­ted by hot-shot law­yer Waimanea Huia…but is she as […]

Preview: The Keepers

Thread Theatre Com­pany’s phys­ic­al theatre work The Keep­ers  starts tomor­row night at BATS Theatre.   The story is that “two women inhab­it an isol­ated light­house on a small rocky island in the middle of an ocean. One arrived by row­boat, unan­nounced and unex­plained – the oth­er seems to have been here forever. The women are both […]

Review: Flowers from my mother’s garden

Two women talk about their lives. Their child­hoods. Their rela­tion­ship with their par­ents. Their OE’s. Their, erm,  escapades. Their uncles and aunts. They are moth­er and daugh­ter. A table, a couple of stools, a slideshow pro­ject­or, and a screen with pho­tos pro­jec­ted onto it provide the back­drop for Kate and Mir­anda Har­court to tell the […]

Review: Clybourne Park

In 1959 a couple sell their house. At 3pm on a Sat­urday after­noon, their neigh­bours cas­u­ally call in to see how pack­ing is going. Dur­ing the friendly dis­cus­sion inform­a­tion about the buy­ers is revealed and tem­pers flare.  In 2009 mem­bers of a com­munity meet at 3pm on a Sat­urday after­noon to dis­cuss neigh­bor­hood cov­en­ants before […]

Review: West End Girls

The first job artist Bar­bara Tate had in Soho was in a bar.  Soon she was charmed into work­ing as a maid for Mae,  a ‘glam­or­ous West End Girl ‘. Ken Duncum has adap­ted Tate’s mem­oir about her time work­ing for a pros­ti­tute in Soho. It’s fun and fizzy in the first half before things […]

FixTV: people in Wellington doing cool things

The first epis­ode of Fix­TV has gone live on their FB page. It’s filmed at Down­stage in front of an audi­ence. I don’t think they’ve quite got the mix right in terms of what they want for the web chat show versus what I want from a show when I’m in a theatre. There are […]

Review: Sunset Road

Lucia and Luka are twins, liv­ing in Rotorua. They can­’t wait to turn 21 and leave town for a dif­fer­ent life. Their Mum and Dad brought them to New Zea­l­and from the Cook Islands. Rotorua is their dif­fer­ent life. Mum and Dad have expect­a­tions and dreams for their chil­dren. But as they get closer to […]

I like the St James theatre but not what was on stage

Last night we – along with a range of oth­er fancy media types were invited by Pos­it­ively Wel­ling­ton Ven­ues to have drinks & canapes and watch Rock the Bal­let at the Saint James Theatre last night .  Based on the lovely people we met, and the amaz­ing food and ser­vice we were offered (Lightly seared tuna on wonton crisps! Veget­ari­an […]

Review: All my sons

Joe and Kate Keller are liv­ing a ver­sion of the Amer­ic­an Dream. They have a com­fort­able life­style, a lov­ing son, nice new neigh­bours. How­ever there is a dark event in their past involving their old neigh­bours which will impact on their future. Arthur Miller­’s Tony Award win­ning play was first per­formed in 1947.  It’s an […]

Review: Chekhov in Hell

Ant­on Chek­hov wakes up in Lon­don after being in a coma for 100 years.  He explores Lon­don – going places,  meet­ing people.  Jason Whyte, as Chek­hov, does­n’t get to say much. How­ever, he is the centre of the play, with the oth­er char­ac­ters using him as a mir­ror to reflect them­selves. Dir­ect­or Elean­or Bish­op keeps […]