Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Delve into the sub­lime, sur­re­al and a lit­tle bit sexy this Hal­loween with the Roy­al New Zealand Bal­let’s rebirth of their icon­ic bal­let A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream. A co-pro­­duc­­tion with the Queens­land Bal­let and first per­formed in 2015, this stun­ning per­for­mance com­bines the late Liam Scar­let­t’s chore­og­ra­phy with Felix Mendelssohn’s A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream score […]

Review: Hine Te Rēhia

It’s a chilly win­ter day in Pōneke, but the joy from the audi­ence sur­round­ing me and my the­a­tre-going com­pan­ion could warm the most cyn­i­cal of souls. We’re here to see Hine Te Rēhia, a gor­geous piece of the­atre by Auck­­­land-based Tutatara Col­lec­tive, and the mood in the room is unbe­liev­ably high. For­give my lack of […]

Actress dressed in furcoat looks into the eyes of a human sized guinea pig

Review: I Want To Be Happy

I must con­fess, I’ve always been a fan of Joel Tobeck, so when I saw his name in the cast for ‘I Want To Be Hap­py,’ I was keen to check it out. Cou­pled with the promise of a sur­re­al­ist premise explor­ing the par­al­lel lives of a lab sci­en­tist and his guinea pig, I could­n’t […]

Review: Female Lady Women Comedians

Review by Talia Carlisle Is it a bird, is it a plane, no it’s Saman­tha Han­nah lead­ing a super all-female all-fun­ny line-up of come­di­ans that share a strik­ing resem­blance… but def­i­nite­ly aren’t all the same per­son… *wink!* Hav­ing been nom­i­nat­ed for both Best Come­di­an, and Best MC at last year’s Welling­ton Com­e­dy Awards, it makes […]

Review: Concept for a Film

A Beau­ti­ful Har­mo­ny of The­atre, Music and So Mush Spore.   I loved the nov­el for­mat of sto­ry­telling that ‘Con­cept for a Film’ deliv­ered. The scene opens with Max Bar­ton, sit­ting at a desk that faces the audi­ence, read­ing out the script for a film. These read­ings are inter­mit­tent­ly dis­persed with many dis­rup­tions includ­ing phone calls […]

Review: Jingle Elves: The Musical

Reviewed by Talia Carlisle. The tin­sel is untan­gled, the star per­fect­ly in place at the top of the tree. The only thing left is to make your way to BATS the­atre to watch Pōneke’s own Pāua Bal­lads total­ly f*ck Christ­mas up — their word not mine! There are naughty elves and a secre­tive San­ta, squab­bling […]

Review: Celestial Nobodies

Before I even start this review, let me just stress how well the cast of Celes­tial Nobod­ies per­formed under pres­sure last night, the audi­ence space was quite chal­leng­ing for mul­ti­ple rea­sons and they held the show well with com­po­sure and poise — no mean feat con­sid­er­ing it was open­ing night as well! Celes­tial Nobod­ies sold out dur­ing the […]

Preview: Ubu sux

It’s cit­i­zen ver­sus every­thing in this total­ly orig­i­nal, entire­ly reimag­ined adap­ta­tion of Alfred Jar­ry’s clas­sic avant-garde satire Ubu Rex. Grotesque, ridicu­lous and deeply pro­found, this irrev­er­ent adap­ta­tion of Ubu Rex draws from a huge range of source mate­r­i­al to ampli­fy the mes­sages from Jarry’s orig­i­nal nar­ra­tive. The live show is mul­ti­me­dia in every respect, with […]

Preview: Girl in the loft

Girl in the loft is a solo show by Kather­ine Wyeth. It’s the sto­ry of a child­hood grow­ing up at The King’s Head The­atre, Lon­don. “My life began as a the­atre kid grow­ing up at the world-renowned King’s Head The­atre in Lon­don. I was lucky to expe­ri­ence a unique child­hood grow­ing up in the the­atre… […]

Preview: Routine Magic-Magic Routine

Rou­tine mag­ic — Will Aloy­sius aban­don rit­u­al­is­tic pow­ers acquired dur­ing his 10 year social iso­la­tion? Mag­ic rou­tine — Can YouTube Influ­encer Ant Hill find suf­fi­cient inner har­mo­ny to open a life-chang­ing enve­lope? This pair of plays, util­is­ing the same set and actors, tell two time­ly and com­pelling sto­ries. Rou­tine Mag­ic, short­list­ed for the Adam NZ Play […]