REVIEW: Hayley Sproull: Just a Phase (NZ International Comedy Festival)

May 11, 2018

[Growing into It] Diversification in the arts can be integral to survival. The transition to a new medium, however, also allows artists to explore other modes of creativity. Such is the case for actress Hayley Sproull, a Toi Whakaari graduate who continues to turn her musical and theatrical talents to the comedy scene with her second NZ Comedy Festival solo show, Just a Phase. […]

REVIEW: Vanilla Miraka (The Basement)

September 23, 2016

[Awkward Appropriation] Cultural appropriation is always uncomfortable to witness, whether you’re at an exotically-themed dress-up party or your friend gets an unfortunate tribal tattoo. A much trickier grey area explored in Hayley Sproull’s Vanilla Miraka is when the lines between cultures are blurred, when you share the blood of the coloniser and the colonised. Is it still cultural appropriation if […]

REVIEW: Milky Bits (The Basement)

June 15, 2016

[Vision Boards A go-go] Three friends (Chris Parker, Hayley Sproull and Leon Wadham) are lost on a windy heath. After finding each other, they declare their mutual devotion and vow to return on the anniversary of their ordeal to celebrate their enduring bond. And that about does it for plot. When I first heard the title ‘Milky Bits’, I was […]

REVIEW: Chris Parker and Hayley Sproull in Outsiders’ Guide (Comedy Festival)

April 28, 2013

Its cooler outside [by James Wenley] Everyone is an outsider somewhere. Hayley Sproull and Chris Parker know this well, and find fertile ground for comedy, and laughs of identification, in their Outsiders’ Guide: A whirlwind guide to life and reasons yours doesn’t work. The thespianic-comedians are the insiders on the outside, who promise, in beatnik poetry at the top of […]