SCENE BY JAMES: 2021 – A Theatrical Year in Review [PANDEMIC EDITION YEAR TWO]

December 31, 2021

[Weathering the Storm] On the 20th April, 2021, the Prime Minister, the Deputy PM and Aotearoa’s leading epidemiologist converged at BATS Theatre to watch an uncanny mirror image of our country’s 2020 Covid-19 lockdown. The play was Transmission, created by Stuart McKenzie and Miranda Harcourt, which used verbatim extracts of interviews primarily with Jacinda Ardern, Grant Robertson and Professor Michael […]

CHRISTCHURCH REVIEW: Little Shop of Horrors (Court Theatre)

December 5, 2021

[Camp Confectionary] I’ve always had a strange relationship with musical theatre, a genre that demands a level of sentimentality I don’t always believe it earns. In a way a musical has to work a lot harder to move me, maybe because deep down I can feel the wheels turning. The emotional beats too easily replaced by songs, arcs rushed, etc.  […]

REVIEW: Break Bread (Silo Theatre)

December 2, 2021

[Knead to See it] I will take a basic understanding of the condition of theatre in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland as a given in discussing Silo Theatre’s enrapturing latest offering Break Bread.  (If you are not aware of the difficulties posed by the on-going lockdowns and now by the fast approaching traffic-light system to the theatre community in Aotearoa I suggest […]