Preview: Still life with chickens

Still Life with Chick­ens is com­ing to Welling­ton this month after sea­sons in Auck­land and Palmer­ston North. A sim­ple sto­ry about an old­er woman dis­cov­er­ing a naughty chick­en invad­ing her gar­den it becomes a beau­ti­ful and fun­ny play about lone­li­ness and the resilience of com­mu­ni­ties. Actor & pup­peteer Haanz Fa’avae-Jackson answered some ques­tions about the show. […]

Toi Art at Te Papa — a first floor glimpse

When you’re step­ping into Te Papa’s new gallery space Toi Art, be pre­pared for some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent from your stan­dard gallery expe­ri­ence. Toi Art is a gallery space 20 years in the mak­ing, it takes over two floors of Te Papa and the new entrance gallery is larg­er than any space at Te Papa. I […]

Preview: Your heart looks like a vagina

After suc­cess at Lit­Crawl last year, Dominic Hoey  is return­ing to Welling­ton with Your Heart Looks Like A Vagi­na at BATS The­atre next week. It’s a one man show about being diag­nosed with Anky­los­ing spondyli­tis, a form of inflam­ma­to­ry arthri­tis that affects the spine and joints in the low­er back. Treat­ment aims to min­imise symp­toms and pre­vent […]

Chasing the Black Dog with beer

Last night we went to the open­ing of the new Black Dog brew­ery on Cuba Street, and, spoil­er alert, it was bloody delight­ful. All pics were sup­plied by the pub­li­cist because if you fol­low us on Twit­ter, you’ll know I can’t pho­to­graph for shit. A con­fes­sion: I had nev­er been to the old Black Dog […]

Review: Troll

Otto receives a pho­to on his phone one morn­ing. It’s of the house he and his fam­i­ly moved to when he was around 13. The house where some­thing nasty lived in the walls and came out to play… This is a myth­i­cal sto­ry about a troll (both def­i­n­i­tions) trans­plant­ed to New Zealand in the ear­ly […]

Review: At The Wake

Robert’s moth­er Olivia has died unex­pect­ed­ly and he’s returned from New York for her funer­al. His grand­moth­er Joan is pleased he’s back as she’s dev­as­tat­ed by her daughter’s death. Joan has been a big part of Robert’s life since his father Tofi walked out before he was born. A lit­tle bit of courage will get […]

What’s on this week Fringe?

It’s the last week of the Fringe Fes­ti­val *wails* Here is some pub­lic­i­ty for shows. How To ____ Us on at Gryphon The­atre to 21 March 2018 Teach. Hear. Pro­tect. Lead. Build. See. Break. Under­stand. Inspire. Crush. Reach. Raise. Frus­trate. Tell. Accept. Scare. Trust. Hurt. Annoy. Res­cue. Chal­lenge. Embar­rass. Approach. Sup­port. Pun­ish. Free. Change. Influ­ence. […]

Review: Dressing up with Margot

World famous fash­ion styl­ist Mar­got Von Dont has returned to New Zealand with life and style advice for us. We’re upstairs above Leroy’s Bar with a small stage that resem­bles a talk show set. There are clothes hung on racks and spilling out of suit­cas­es. The show starts with an announce­ment that’s not usu­al­ly heard […]

Review: Awkward Threesome

The frame for this impro­vised show is: expe­ri­enced impro­vi­sors Jen­nifer O’Sul­li­van and Matt Pow­ell are joined on stage by a mys­tery guest. (They real­ly have no idea who the guest is.) Once the guest arrives (on open­ing night it was Jon­ny Paul)  the audi­ence will pro­vide a word which will be the inspi­ra­tion for the […]

Review: The Travelling Sisters and The Nose

Lucy Fox, Lau­ra Tren­erry and Ell Sachs are The Trav­el­ling Sis­ters. 2017 win­ners of Best Com­e­dy and New Zealand Tour Ready Award at Mel­bourne Fringe they’re at BATS The­atre to make us snort laugh. (They don’t exact­ly put it like that but it’s def­i­nite­ly what I heard (and maybe did) at their open­ing night show.) […]