Review: Rent

Reviewed by Talia Carlisle Christ­mas has come ear­ly to Gryphon The­atre, with Kau­ri The­atre Company’s tin­selled up pro­duc­tion of Rent sell­ing out before open­ing to those beg­ging for a chance to see cre­ator Jonathan Larson’s icon­ic Win­ter-set musi­cal. I am grate­ful direc­tor Lox Dixon has tack­led such a huge artis­tic project to bring Rent back […]

Review: Ruthless

Reviewed by Talia Carlisle “Where does tal­ent come from?” This is the key ques­tion asked by char­ac­ter Sylvia St. Croix (Bea Lee-Smith) in Kau­ri Theatre’s tal­ent-full pro­duc­tion of Ruth­less at Gryphon The­atre on until Sat­ur­day. The show, direct­ed by Boni­ta Edwards is brim­ming with tal­ent from Bea Lee-Smith’s sequin cov­ered entrance. There’s cheer­ful dance num­bers, […]

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: Popcorn

Welling­ton Reper­to­ry The­atre’s newest offer­ing is Pop­corn, Ben Elton’s play. The dia­logue is wit­ty, the script­ing tight and the themes pre­scient despite being writ­ten in 1996. Set in the home of a exploita­tion cin­e­ma direc­tor, Bruce Delametri, Pop­corn takes place over one night as the leg­endary Mall Mur­der­ers invade Bruce’s house after he wins an […]

Review: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

There’s some­thing so delight­ful about going into a the­atre show com­plete­ly blind. I knew noth­ing about this play, had read noth­ing about it, all I knew was the charm­ing aes­thet­ic of the pub­lic­i­ty pho­tos and the fact that this was a New Zealand pre­miere. Cap­tain Corel­li’s Man­dolin is a true telling of the per­pe­tu­ity of love […]

Review: Yesterday, in space

The good space­ship Yes­ter­day is the first rock­et ship to launch from Aotearoa New Zealand and we get to come along for the ride! Her new crew are deter­mined to show us a good time. What a pity they’re stuck in the mid­dle of pro­fes­sion­al rival­ries, con­fus­ing per­son­al rela­tion­ships, and an aster­oid belt… All those […]

Review of Paying for it and Easy living

Pay­ing for it: an insider’s guide to the NZ sex indus­try The Pros­ti­tu­tion Reform Act was passed in 2003 but appar­ent­ly sex work is still a con­tro­ver­sial job choice. As one of the speak­ers says “It seems like nev­er is a good time to talk about sex work. “ So it’s real­ly neat that sev­er­al […]

NZ Fringe Festival reviews x 3

Reviews for three neat shows in the Fringe Fes­ti­val. See­ing the city: a tast­ing menu by Ania and Kim Upstill, at 17 Tory street, final show­ing 19 Feb­ru­ary 2016 We are greet­ed at the door by Ania Upstill and invit­ed to wash our hands. She directs us on to Pip­pi­a­j­na Tui who shows us to […]

Review: Vladimir the Crow: Whispering Ghoul

A bare stage greets us at the Gryphon The­atre.  It seems big­ger than usu­al with a sound­scape that hints at vast des­o­late spaces where the only thing alive is the whistling wind. Then noise! Lights! And a tat­tered crea­ture that stut­ters out from the wings as if glimpsed by light­ning flash­es. Vladimir the Crow is […]

Fringe Festival 2014 — Brooks & Brown in Literally Anything

We sent along intre­pid the­atre goer and Yarn Celebri­ty  Tash Barn­eveld to check out a new Fringe Show by Brooks & Brown. He’s what she thought.   ‘Brooks & Brown are a brand new transTas­man duo who have no idea what their show is going to be about.’ Chris­tine Brooks and Rik Brown have worked togeth­er only […]