Review: Fifty Shades of Ray

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 […]

Review: Romeo & Juliet

Review: Romeo & Juliet

Image cred­it: Steph­en A’Court Reviewed by Talia Carl­isle What a magic­al place Wel­ling­ton is, when you can start your even­ing with gin and fresh sea­food at Cinderella’s for the Wel­ling­ton on a Plate Launch – and pop down to the St James Theatre, home of the Roy­al New Zea­l­and Bal­let for their open­ing night of […]

A photo of a man and woman, standing, smiling and gesturing wildly, in front of a woods backdrop.

Review: Into the Woods

Image cred­it: Maeve O’Con­nell. Reviewed by Talia Carl­isle Not dis­sim­il­ar to the high fash­ion of the Met Gala, I adorned my best tiara and lav­ender frock, ready to des­cend Te Auaha’s stairs to Witch Music Theatre’s Into The Woods. There isn’t a more magic­al stair­case to a fairytale full of laughter. If the eye-catch­ing advert­ising […]

Review: The Best is Yet to Come

Review: The Best is Yet to Come

Fea­tured Image Graph­ic design­er: Jared Pallesen  Fea­tured Image Pho­to­graph­er: Leoluchino Lin­u­mus    The per­form­ance style for The Best is Yet to Come has a little bit of everything auto­bi­o­graphy, ted talk, magic show and queer inspir­a­tion­al guid­ance. Adorned in won­der­fully spark­ling nails and gems across his fore­head, Jeremy Rol­ston opened the show with some guid­ance […]

Review: Concept for a Film

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: The Sensemaker

Review: The Sensemaker

Pro­duced by ‘Woman’s Move’ from Switzer­land and co-dir­ec­ted by cho­reo­graph­ers Elsa Couvreur and Iona D’Annunzio. The Sense­maker starts as a clev­er and under­stated com­edy that uses dance, move­ment and sound as its main devices. Theatre like this is at its best when min­im­al and per­fectly timed, which is a key strength of The Sense­maker. The […]

Review: The Culture

Review: The Culture

The Cul­ture, starts before the per­formers come on stage with a mont­age of video foot­age of news art­icles on sys­tem­ic and polit­ic­al miso­gyny. This sets the scene for the every­day ways women are dis­ad­vant­aged that are so embed­ded, that they often go unnoticed. The news­feed soon fades out, the lights come up, and Will and […]

Review: Best on Tap Stands Up

Review: Best on Tap Stands Up

The Fringe Bar is packed to the gills for Best on Tap Stands Up, a little out of the ordin­ary for a Sunday crowd, but this is a Fringe show and this is a Fringe crowd, and Best on Tap are an excel­lently well-estab­l­ished per­form­ance com­pany, so per­haps I should­n’t be sur­prised. More well-known as […]

Review: U R Here

Review: U R Here

Reviewed by Nadia Free­man U R Here is an invit­a­tion to take things a little less ser­i­ously, to for­get about the busi­ness of adult­hood and be play­ful. Set away from the day-to-day rhythm of urb­an liv­ing. Bar­bar­i­an Pro­duc­tions draws us out to Mar­tin Luck­ie Park in Ber­ham­pore. On arrival, my group is wel­comed by 80’s […]

Review: Access

Review: Access

Review by Nadia Free­man Read­ing the cues of human emo­tion is an inher­ent trait that we take for gran­ted. Some of us view emo­tion dif­fer­ently from oth­ers or can find it more chal­len­ging. Access, presents an oppor­tun­ity to ana­lyse this form of human expres­sion more closely. After col­lect­ing our tick­ets we are asked to wait […]