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: PUSS (NZ International Comedy Festival)

April 28, 2018

[Here puss, puss, puss!!!] Opening night’s show was an absolute riot even before it began.  Some silly backstage antics were embraced with open arms by the warm audience that we were sitting amongst.  And while everything went swimmingly well throughout the show, we can’t help but wonder whether an audience sans family and friends will be as receptive. However, once […]

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: Inosi Colavanua: Guard Down (NZ International Comedy Festival)

April 28, 2018

[Billy T Nominee in the Making] 22-year-old Inosi Colavanua is a relative newcomer to the Auckland comedy scene, but a nomination for the 2015 NZ Comedy Guild Best Newcomer and runner-up for the 2016 Raw Comedy Quest indicates his immediate potential, and while a debut solo show during the NZ Comedy Festival in the Q Cellar at 10pm for two […]

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 […]

REVIEW: Here & Now 2018: Tender, You First & Alice (Auckland Theatre Company)

April 21, 2018

[All-Stars] Is the original Shrek (2001) film the ideal model of romance for our times? That’s the theory espoused by Murdoch Keane in Tender, the first of three plays in ATC’s Here & Now Festival playing until Monday. Shrek doesn’t go out looking for love. As an Ogre, it’s not something he ever thought he’d find, never thought he’d be […]

REVIEW: Beneath Skin and Bone (Te Pou)

April 21, 2018

[Mana Wahine] Beneath Skin and Bone (BSAB) is set in a world where waiata and music is shunned, and our protagonist Poto (played by Trae Te Wiki) finds herself in a new city, running away from the constant chatter of her whanau. With a little intervention from the spiritual world, Poto is forced to face her fears, her family’s past […]

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