Review: Messy

Reviewed by George Niven Step­ping into the Dome stage at Bats on Tues­day night felt almost like intrud­ing. Tak­ing my seat I felt I was brush­ing past Freya, the char­ac­ter played by writer Tara West­­on-Webb, as she sat cross-legged on the floor of her room fas­ti­di­ously paint­ing brightly col­oured icons in a small grid. The […]

Review: Everything That Happened at Number 68

Have you ever con­sidered flat­ting in Mel­bourne? Wondered what to look for in a flat­mate? What are the red flags, green flags, rain­bow flags to look for? Grab a tea and a blanket and cosy up for Nick Robertson’s Fringe Fest­iv­al adven­ture, Everything That Happened at Num­ber 68. As Nick shares with us, “Share­houses come […]

Review: Triple Double Trouble

Review by Nicole Win­ters Triple Double Trouble is a hil­ari­ous and enga­ging show,  and truly made us care about the char­ac­ters. With a rotat­ing cast of doubles – today’s show is made up of Jonath­an Mandeno & Thomas Bauer, Sarah Ash­ill & Tony Yuile – each night gives you some­thing dif­fer­ent. Dur­ing our show, each […]

Review: Hamlet – One Hour. Three Actors. Denmark Will Never Be the Same

As someone who’s nev­er read or seen a per­form­ance of Ham­let, I might seem like an unlikely review­er for TheJoMarsh’s adapt­a­tion at Bats Theatre. How­ever, if I, with my inex­per­i­ence, can eas­ily fol­low and enjoy ‘Ham­let – One Hour. Three Act­ors. Den­mark Will Nev­er Be the Same,’ then any­one can. In this high-tech, dysto­pi­an take […]

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 […]

Meet the creatives behind HINE-TE-RĒHIA

Presen­ted by Tuatara Col­lect­ive, HINE-TE-RĒHIA is a mul­ti­lin­gual theatre exper­i­ence com­ing to BATS Theatre in July. Devised, cre­ated and per­formed by an all-female BIPOC cast, this excit­ing show prom­ises to leave you gasp­ing in awe of their tal­ent. I had the chance to inter­view Jason Te Mete (pre­vi­ous deviser/director), Tāwera Ormsby (co-Kaiwhaka­haere of Tuatara Col­lect­ive) […]

Review: Femme Natale – The Queen Years

Reviewed by Talia Carl­isle The tal­en­ted team behind Femme Nat­ale have worked their butts off to bring a mag­ni­fi­cent sketch show­case of par­ents’ inner adult desires to BATS Theatre. After return­ing from Edin­burgh Fringe with a new lease on par­ent­hood, their new iter­a­tion of Femme Nat­ale is refresh­ingly hil­ari­ous and import­ant to share in a […]

Review: A Bit Dramatic

This show was incred­ibly pop­u­lar and got reviewed mul­tiple times dur­ing the Improv Fest! Check out a vari­ety of those reviews below. – Reviewed by Thalia Kehoe Rowden In an intense, mov­ing 60-minute show, the cast of four take inspir­a­tion from real-life journ­al entries – unseen until the per­form­ance – and invent and explore the […]

Review: NO SLEEP

Reviewed by Rebecca Stub­bing. Fri­day the 13th was the per­fect occa­sion for NO SLEEP, a joy­fully chaot­ic improv show presen­ted at this year’s New Zea­l­and Improv Fest­iv­al. The show began at 9:30pm on the won­der­ful Stage at BATS Theatre, and the slightly sleepy audi­ence were imme­di­ately reas­sured by the per­formers not to worry, we were […]

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 […]