REVIEW: Fallen Angels (Auckland Theatre Company)

February 18, 2014

Divine Inspiration [by James Wenley] Credit to the publicist who angled a ninety year old play into the Herald on Sunday Gossip pages. “Are age-defying celebrities Nicky Watson and Sally Ridge the inspiration for Fallen Angels…?” the paper breathlessly asks. It explains that the play “tells the story of two former BFFs who shared a lover when they were younger… Sound familiar?”, […]

REVIEW: The Motor Camp (Auckland Theatre Company)

February 12, 2012

Bringing back the cultural cringe [by James Wenley] Like many kiwis, I joined the yearly summer exodus from the cities, and went camping over New Years. The miserable rain-drenched ‘summer’ of 2012 had little to write home about of course, but it did provide me with one memorable experience: the family holiday train-wreck. Not my own, thank goodness. Evidently, the […]

REVIEW: The Wizard of Oz (Peach Theatre Company)

September 12, 2011

A Yellow Brick Road worth following [by James Wenley] We’re off to the see the Wizard. I’ll get you my pretties. Dorothy. Scarecrow. Lion. Tin Man. Toto. The songs, images, lines and characters from The Wizard of Oz are burned in technicolour into the memories of generations of people for over 70 years. While deviating wildly from L. Frank Baum’s 1900 original […]

REVIEW: Mike & Virginia (Comedy Festival)

May 4, 2011

When Mike met Virginia [by Sharu Delilkan] Everyone knows When Harry Met Sally so when the show opens using the movie as an example of a romantic comedy (or a romcom) it sets the stage perfectly for what’s to come. Mike & Virginia is written by veteran screenwriters Kathryn Burnett & Nick Ward, who are making their debut into the […]

PREVIEW: Mike & Virginia (Comedy Festival)

April 29, 2011

Back on the radar [by Sharu Delilkan] Most people know Te Radar as an award winning satirist, documentary maker, writer, failed gardener, and amateur historian. And more recently he’s been in our living rooms starring in TVNZ’s Radar’s Patch, Off the Radar, and Homegrown. But you’d be forgiven if you didn’t think of him as a stage director, especially since […]