REVIEW: Tessa Waters: Fully Sik (NZ International Comedy Festival)

May 3, 2018

[Came to Play] Who is Tessa Waters? Self-confessed bogan? The human equivalent of a giggling glitter explosion? Professional trained mime? Guess what. She’s all of these and more, and one thing’s for sure, she’s not to be missed this Comedy Festival! This isn’t your average stand up show; even though the show uses a relatively simple sketch format, there are […]

REVIEW: The Basement Theatre Preview Show (NZ International Comedy Festival)

April 30, 2018

[The Basement Theatre: For all your Comedy needs] Hosted by comedy duo Chris Parker & Thomas Sainsbury, the Basement Theatre Preview Show is, quite literally, a preview of the shows Basement Theatre is hosting for the 2018 NZ Comedy Festival. The goal of the evening is to engage prospective new audiences, and in that regard Leon Wadham is stand out of the night. His style and […]

REVIEW: Ashton Brown: Dying to Meet You (NZ International Comedy Festival)

April 29, 2018

[Death Becomes Him] Growth. That was my impression of Ashton Brown’s last show, Anxious To Meet You. In that show, Brown exposed himself in a highly autobiographical (and occasionally uncomfortable) meditation on mental illness and the importance of self-love. Well that, and stories about explosive diarrhoea, naked karaoke and irrefutable proof that powerpoint presentations are the embodiment of evil. Dying […]

REVIEW: Uther Dean: My Fat/Sad (NZ International Comedy Festival)

April 28, 2018

[2 for 1] A consummate craftsmen, Uther Dean’s writing glows with a self-awareness and wit that is rare in standup. It doesn’t always make for the most obviously funny jokes, but there’s a cleverness that is inarguable. Essentially two shows wrapped in one, Dean opens the first half with Fat and then finishes off with Sad. There’s a neatness to […]

REVIEW: Eamonn Marra: Dignity (NZ International Comedy Festival)

April 28, 2018

[Reaffirm] Eamonn Marra’s Respite was one of my theatrical highlights a few years back, a profoundly resonant hour of personal storytelling informed by depression and anxiety but often diffused with gentle, observational comedy. If the previous show was about his struggle with his mental health, Dignity concerns itself with the question of what happens next. But, while his life and […]

REVIEW: Alex Williamson: So Wrong, It’s Wrong (NZ International Comedy Festival)

April 28, 2018

[The King ‘Cnut’ of Comedy] Alex Williamson is crude, vulgar, perverted, sick and disgusting – perfect fodder for hilarious comedy. No holds are barred, literally. In fact, the less socially acceptable a subject is, the more likely for him to talk about it on stage. In a strange way his relaxed, laconic delivery almost sanitses this foul-mouthed show – making everything […]

REVIEW: Parker & Sainsbury: Giggly Gerties (NZ International Comedy Festival)

April 28, 2018

[Heavy Metal Camp] Giggly Gerties is the latest joint from the team of Chris Parker & Thomas Sainsbury. Following the ensemble of their last opus Camping, Giggly Gerties is the team distilled to their essence – two men in leotards on a bare stage jabbering nonsense for 50 minutes. Resting snuggly on the imaginary border between the head spaces of […]

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