REVIEW: The 5 Star Comedy Preview (NZ International Comedy Festival)

April 30, 2017

[Fest Promises to be a Corker] The New Zealand International Comedy Festival is back with a bang! The three-week festival started on Wednesday evening at the Sky City Theatre with the hilarious 5 Star Comedy Preview. Nine international comedians were packed into a two and half hour show, providing us with a sneak peek at what is to come from this […]

SCENE BY JAMES: The Battle for Shakespeare, or, is the Pop-up Globe as you like it?

April 30, 2017

[Pop-up Globe 2017 Season] At Auckland’s Pop-up Globe, Shakespeare is enjoying a 400-year-old career resurgence. Shattering any lingering perceptions that Shakespeare might be elitist or alienating, this year 80,000 people have paid paying anywhere from $1 to stand as a ‘groundling’ in the yard, to $299 for a royal room at the side of the stage. The atmosphere in the […]

REVIEW: Weave – Yarns with New Zealanders (The Basement)

April 12, 2017

[Kiwi As?] How well do really know your neighbours? Your work colleagues? The mum of two who you see at the local shop? The person sitting beside you on the bus?  Do you know their story? After interviewing a wide range of people throughout New Zealand, Kiwi theatre-maker Kate McGill shares with us the stories of twenty strangers in her […]

REVIEW: Anzac Eve (Armstrong Creative)

April 1, 2017

[Turkish Delight] Written by Dave Armstrong, Anzac Cove is a dramedy that puts our mutual emphasis on Anzac Day under the microscope. Four young people, two Kiwis and two Aussies, arrive at Anzac Cove for the annual commemorations. Maia (Trae Te Wiki) and Lizzie (Ruby Hansen) are longtime friends; Ben (Barnaby Olson) and Phil (Hayden Frost) used to go to […]

SCENE BY JAMES: The 2017 Auckland Arts Festival in Review

April 1, 2017

[Giving Auckland Something to Believe in] By the end of Eli Kent’s 3&1/2 hr epic Peer Gynt [recycled], we’ve crashed a wedding, attended a troll kink-party, seen the author give birth to a baby Henrik Ibsen, escaped from a spiritualist retreat, hung out with Milo Yiannopolous, given James Cameron a taste of his Titanic medicine, and confirmed that onions, like […]

REVIEW: Flaps Retouched (Bits and Pieces Ensemble)

April 1, 2017

[Flaptastic] If you didn’t get to experience the laugh out loud and fiercely proud all female show Flaps last year then thank your lucky stars because the ladies are back again, clad in all pink, and raising the roof once more. Flaps: Retouched offers Auckland theatregoers another look into the squirm inducing hush-hush reality of living with vagina as a […]