REVIEW: Exes (Basement Theatre)

March 6, 2019

[A Thin Line Between Love and Hate… and laughter?] A decade ago, Eli Matthewson and Brynley Stent were boyfriend and girlfriend. In the present day, they look back on how they got to together, and how they went their separate ways. Taking in improv games, role-play and a shattering of the space-time continuum, Exes is by a turns funny, sad and – […]

REVIEW: Brynley Stent & Rhiannon McCall: “Why Does This Feel So Good?” (NZ International Comedy Festival)

May 17, 2018

[Bad Education] Playing exaggerated versions of themselves, Brynley Stent and Rhiannon McCall use high school sexual education as the subject of their comedy show. Treating us as a high school students, the evening is structured simply but effectively (Puberty, Sex, Birth, Sexuality and Gender Equality), though often derailing itself with comedic asides and character drama to great effect. While the […]

REVIEW: Brynley Stent: Escape from Gloriavale (NZ International Comedy Festival)

May 3, 2017

[Running in Place] Following up her roles as the naïve bride in Camping and the naïve actress in The Opening Night Before Christmas, actress Brynley Stent completes a hat trick with her new solo show Escape from Gloriavale, in which she plays a naïve member of the secretive religious cult.After reading a copy of Women’s Weekly, Providence Gratitude (Stent) becomes possessed by a desire to […]

REVIEW: Camping: Parker and Sainsbury (NZ International Comedy Festival)

April 25, 2016

[Fantastic Foursome] Set in a holiday home where two couples double-book for a honeymoon and an anniversary, the drawing room comedy becomes the primary target for parody in Chris Parker and Thomas Sainsbury’s Camping. It’s like a raunchier version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf with the serious drama cut out. Even the characters feel like grotesque Kiwi versions of […]

REVIEW: Fun Run (Two Productions)

September 17, 2015

Ran Away [by Matt Baker] Accolades are a great way of publicising a show, and if you’re looking for a comedy, “written by 2015 Billy T Winner Hamish Parkinson” seems like a sure-fire bet. Parkinson has a genuinely unique comedic talent, which defies definition, but the trouble with Fun Run is that, as a play, it requires some sort of central […]