Review: Mamma Mia!
Te Auaha’s Musical Theatre cohort for 2023 is bringing Mamma Mia! to our shores this September, and we are all better for it. A spellbinding, fabulous version of Catherine Johnson/ABBA’s jukebox musical knocked my absolute socks off last night, and I’m seriously considering going back to see it again. You might have seen the 2008 […]
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: Music To Die For
Noted Wellington improv troupe Best on Tap is back performing this month with a new iteration of their grounded and clever improv in a show using your music suggestions! Music To Die For takes six songs that you (the audience) would play at your funeral and uses them to inspire layered, complex scenes about the […]
Review: Dirty Work
By Talia Carlisle An ode to joy! For the first time recently I joined a choir, and as we joined together as strangers to sing, holding our music and raising our voices in harmony, I could feel such joy and togetherness lifting everyone up, and connecting us together while also creating a melodic story told […]
Review: Lightscapes
Imagery by Stephen A’Court. The Royal New Zealand Ballet is back with another series of four ballets to warm you up this winter. Celebrating the power and possibility of dance, these four ballets range from the classic to the experimental, a wonderful tableau that accurately sums up the RZNB’s 70th anniversary. Opening the show is […]
Review: Prima Facie
By Nadia Freeman Prima Facie shares an authentic story of a woman’s experience of assault and navigating the judicial system to seek justice. The nearly sell-out season demonstrates that despite the raw and challenging subject, there is a strong calling for stories like this. Rape is a word people don’t want to say, and for […]
Review: 35mm
By Talia Carlisle Everyone is talking about 35mm, and it’s not a measurement, but a movement it seems, from the sound of new fans I’ve talked to. 35mm is a musical written by Ryan Scott Oliver on at Gryphon Theatre until Saturday, which incorporates music, original choreography and a live band led by musical director […]
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: The Coven on Grey Street
The first thing that grips me as soon as I walk into Circa Two is Lucas Neal’s gorgeous set design for this show – a huge pohutakawa that stretches up and across the entire stage, a white picket fence, and the outside edge of a traditional weatherboard kiwi house. Cicadas chirp (beautiful sound design by […]
Review: Fifty Shades of Ray
Reviewed by Talia Carlisle. On a rain-splattered Wellington evening, I find myself refuge in BATS Theatre’s Studio space where paper “worries” are hung on string across the small stage. An eager smattering of audience members buzz in excitement, waiting for Ray Shipley to enter, fresh from a popular Christchurch season with a well-crafted set ready […]