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 […]

Introducing the House of Boom

When I opened up anoth­er branch of Wanda Har­land, Joanna inter­viewed me all about it, so I figured with House of Boom about to launch, it was time for me to return the favour. Okay what’s going on? You’re launch­ing your own cloth­ing label? Yes! I got fed up with the lack of eth­­ic­ally-made options […]

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 […]

“Slow down you bastards”

Tom’s been walk­ing again. Fol­low his latest tramp­ing adven­ture from tra­vers­ing the Hutt Val­ley to Kāpiti via the Akatar­awa Road here.

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 […]

Review/s: New Zealand Improv Fest Bonanza

I saw four improv shows last night as part of the New Zea­l­and Improv Fest­iv­al. In the interests of brev­ity, here’s a joint review of all four. Aus­ten Found  Penny Ashton’s Aus­ten Found is a per­am­bu­la­tion into the world of one of Jane Aus­ten’s lost music­als – in this case, the story of one Vic­tor­ia Sandy­bot­tom, who […]

Review: Space Patrol 5 (NZ Improv Festival)

I leaned over to my theatre-going com­pan­ion just before the start of this show and poin­ted at one of the audi­ence-made space­ships lying on the floor of BATS’ Ran­dom Stage. “That space­ship looks a lot like a dildo,” I remarked, pres­ci­ently as always, and he agreed. The audi­ence, in an ode to pre­dict­ab­il­ity, chose it. […]

Public transport nirvana

<rant> Ima­gine if you could down­load an app and tap a few onscreen but­tons to cre­ate a Tap and Go pub­lic trans­port pay­ment card that lived inside your phone. Then ima­gine that you could add some dol­lars to this card with a couple more taps. Now you’re using it on buses, trains, in con­veni­ence stores, […]

Review: Uneasy Dreams and Other Things

Dir­ec­ted by Sara Brod­ie. Writ­ten by Lori Leigh. Uneasy Dreams and Oth­er Things is a glor­i­ous, hil­ari­ous (in some places) piece of theatre, inspired by Franz Kafka’s The Meta­morph­os­is.  How­ever, instead of turn­ing into a giant bug overnight, our reluct­ant heroine, Sam­antha (Lydia Peck­ham), grows a penis. She spends the entirety of the play try­ing to deal […]