Review: Homemade Takeaways

I don’t think any­one will dis­agree with me that it’s been one hell of a year, and Christ­mas is des­cend­ing on us fast.  So it seemed com­pletely appro­pri­ate to be watch­ing a show about people who’ve had a hell of a year, too, drawn togeth­er at Christ­mas. Annie and Will have grav­it­ated back to the […]

Fringe show reviews: Glittery Clittery, Dry & Damaged and Missing Lids

Today’s guest reviews of three fringe shows come cour­tesy of Tony Barnes. Thanks Tony! The Fringe Wives Club – Glit­tery Clit­tery A year ago, while tour­ing sev­er­al of her shows at the 2018 NZ Fringe Fest­iv­al, Tessa Waters men­tioned that she had anoth­er show in devel­op­ment that she would bring to the 2019 Fringe. Fringe […]

Review: Uther Dean – My Fat/Sad

Guest review by Emma Maguire Uth­er Dean is sad and he wants you to know it. My Fat/Sad is a com­edy and a tragedy, a bal­ance between joy and ser­i­ous­ness, and a show with more of a dual­ity to it than you might be expect­ing. In my des­per­ate quest to avoid spoil­ers, I’ll leave the […]

Review: You do you babes – Donna Brookbanks

Guest review by Emma Maguire We are wel­comed into the BATS Stu­dio by a woman dressed in a black cloak. Illu­min­ated by the light of flick­er­ing (elec­tric) candles, we’re bap­tised by water poured from a men­stru­al cup, and we recite the single person’s pray­er. All the single ladies… now put your hands up! Donna Brook­banks’ […]

Preview: Some shows and a party

Wow this week is FULL of shows and there’s a party at the end of it. Let’s go! Hud­son & Halls is still going strong at the Han­nah Play­house. I loved it, Mr Goulter loved it, the Wel­ling­ton Theatre Awards judges loved it. Don’t miss it. Across the road at BATS Theatre Musique Romantique, Stand […]

Should they stay or should they go?

We receive a lot of press releases here at the Wel­ling­tonista, but few are as charm­ing as this one: Brad and Nancy are act­ors who are also a couple, and they’re try­ing to decide if they should live in Eng­land or New Zea­l­and. Nat­ur­ally, they’ve decided to do a show in the Wel­ling­ton Fringe Fest­iv­al […]

The Hollow Men at BATS

Hollow Men imageJust a quick note to recom­mend Dean Parker’s the­at­ric­al adapt­a­tion of The Hol­low Men, which is on now at BATS. My pos­i­tion in the theatre industry pre­vents me from doing a prop­er review which means I can­’t tell you how funny and poin­ted it is, nor how expertly dir­ec­ted it is (by Jonath­an Hendry) or how good many of the per­form­ances are (par­tic­u­larly Steph­en Papps as Brash).

Sev­er­al reviews are online at John Smythe’s excel­lent Theatre­view resource so you can get the full down-low from there.

The Hol­low Men plays at BATS until Thursday 11 Octo­ber and then travels to Centre­point in Palmer­ston North for a sea­son.

Young and Hungry 2006

young and hungry. students, eh?The Young and Hungry 2006 sea­son is about to get under way, with three plays pro­duced and per­formed by ‘yoof’ start­ing their two week run down at Bats from this Fri­day night.

This year we’ve got How to Live in a World Full of Ter­ror­ists, Gen­er­at­or, and, win­ner of best title award, Butt Ugly, which also sounds like it has the most enter­tain­ing (if famil­i­ar) plot: “What hap­pens when all the odd-ball freaks band togeth­er and set out for revenge?”

The Y&H plays are always good fun, and have spawned many a renowned thespi­an over the years – be sure to pop along and spot new theatre tal­ent in the mak­ing. Book at Bats.

Stories Told to Me by Girls

Well, after a well-earned hol­i­day, the staff of Wel­ling­tonista Towers are start­ing to retake their respect­ive blog­ging places around the spa­cious and freshly dec­or­ated open plan office. First up in our ‘recom­men­ded things to do in the even­ing now that your days have returned to the daily work­ing grind’ is “Stor­ies Told to Me by […]

Young and Hungry

The latest Young and Hungry sea­son gets under­way this week at Bats, with three new plays being staged by crews of (mostly) young and aspir­ing thespi­ans. This play – The Many Faces of Kelly J Loko – par­tic­u­larly caught the eye. From the blurb… Laptops, i‑pods, chat rooms and text mes­saging – wel­come to the […]