Shows

Presenting A Nightime Travesty in its international debut, one of Australia’s few First Nations independent theatre collectives explodes onto the Wellington stage as part of the Kia Mau Festival. Their “unique brand of Blak Brechtian, post-traumatic adventure theatre” is a brutal, passionate, and X-rated satire against toxic patriarchy, colonialism, environmental destruction, white supremacy, and the abuse of God to demonise and subjugate Indigenous peoples. Even the inequities and privations of the theatre world come under its savage spotlight.

Co-creators and committed performers Kamarra Bell-Wykes and Carly Sheppard play the lion’s share of the roles as the Last Fleet of privileged humans takes to the sky to escape a poisoned Earth burning below them. They’re bound for an uncertain fate, perhaps the afterlife they’ve dreamed of in church. The “last Aboriginal”, the naively hopeful and warrior-hearted Angel, is one of two flight attendants and a failed pilot, denied the chance to fulfil her potential simply by her race and sex. The actual pilot, Captain God’s Gift, is an over-sexed, hugely endowed man-beast who ravages any available female just because he can. Lurking on the fringes and occasionally joining the story is a bong-smoking, masturbating Death (Zach Blampied).

Helping deliver the often hilarious, occasionally heart-rending original songs are smallsound and Matthew Pana on guitar and drums. smallsound is also responsible for the easily portable set design that involves a desk, skulls, stuffed toys, a couple of small bins, a large gong, and various other bits and pieces that Death plays with and that become props used throughout the show, alongside the odd amputated limb and severed head. Gina Gascoigne’s pacy lighting design augments the garish, crazy action.

A Nightime Travesty thoroughly eviscerates its themes in 100 minutes of raw, eye-popping theatre. Sit in the front row and you’ll be offered bottles of urine and cat food to keep you going on this journey to Hell. Strap in for a wild ride!

As part of the Kia Mau Festival, this collection of three dance works traces the connections between vast ancestral landscapes and our bodies. It’s performed by Raven Spirit Dance hailing from Vancouver, Turtle Island, and the unceded ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-waututh) First Nations.

Frost Exploding Trees Moon follows the journey of a woman (Michelle Olson) travelling her trap line. She is simply outfitted in dress, head scarf, and soft leather boots and carries three tree branches. She moves sometimes joyfully, sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes fearfully while responding to the rhythms of ancestral music and song. Eventually, her branches become a modest teepee that she shelters under from the harsh mountain environment she previously revelled in.

The second piece, Spine of the Mother, began as a collaboration between Indigenous artists in Canada and Peru and explores their deep connection with the mountain ranges that join them geographically. Representing the spirits of North and South, Eagle and Condor, two women (Tasha Faye Evans and Marisa Gold) interact with stones while haunting music and the harsh sound of grinding rock guides their movements. Often twisted, painful, and frantic, their bodies echo the cracking freeze and thaw of the high mountains. They find peace and connection in each other as the two hemispheres come together in breath and spirit.

Finally, Confluence uses five flowing, playful bodies to trace the journey of a rushing river that speaks to the resilience and adaptability of Indigenous women. Dressed in bright colours, the five women (Michelle Olson, Starr Muranko, Jeanette Kotowich, Samantha Sutherland, and Emily Solstice) clap and move in time as they celebrate life together, then split and reform as water curves around rocks. A sweet echo of the first piece comes as Olson is briefly left solo on the stage glancing upwards at the sky.

Beautifully lit (John Carter and Jonathan Kim) and accompanied by a lush soundscape from a variety of artists, Braiding the Land is a contemplative and thought-provoking physical exploration of the ancient ties between people and land.

As director Izzy Rabey notes in the programme, For the Love of Spam is often “the first encounter audiences have with someone from Guam” and that was certainly true in my case. I’ve never knowingly met anyone from this small Micronesian island perched on the lip of the Marianas Trench and knew little about it apart from its bloody role as a Japan–US battleground in World War II. I also didn’t know that the canned meat made famous by a Monty Python song was so integral to the culture there.

Sierra Sevilla is a wonderfully engaging performer and has written this show, on in Wellington as part of the Kia Mau Festival, from her heart. With a few simple props and set pieces – most notably a cutout of Guam made from Astroturf and a cross constructed from piled-up Spam tins – she tells us the story of her waymaking in life as a 33-year-old CHamorou/Filipino/White woman and lover of Spam. Along the way, various audience members are brought into the story, including one brave young woman who becomes Problematic Roommate Number 5, who thinks Spam is gross and not something you should be eating in a Boston university dorm.

The CHamorou creation story of Guam, playing Quidditch to fit in, a hunky Spam Daddy who provides comfort while she’s homesick in London, and a conversation during sex with her husband about introducing their future kids to the tinned comestible all feature in a hilarious tale of finding her place in the world. Punctuated by song and dance, it’s all light-hearted and entertaining until the final kicker where 14 minutes take on a deadly significance and we find out how vital the presence of a foodstuff can be in someone’s life.

Sevilla and Rabey have beautifully achieved what they set out to do – making a work about colonialism and Indigenous people’s rights funny and engaging without alienating the audience. I left the theatre feeling enlightened in a way I never expected from a play ostensibly concerning spiced ham.

A Master of None: Brown Fala marks celebrated tenor Lila Crichton’s debut as writer, composer, and director. Created together with Woven Collective and presented as part of the Kia Mau Festival, the production melds artforms, influences, and modes of narrative into a cohesive aesthetic world that feels simultaneously radically creative and profoundly grounded.

The story is told through a plethora of techniques, but music is key, with all of the cast contributing voice talents and most also serving as musicians. The compositions celebrate Samoan roots and the influences of Māori and Black culture, and feature magnificent choral sections.

The narrative addresses the issue of violence against women and tamariki in Samoa through the fala, or woven mat. Fala are used by the cast as gathering places, sites for work, storytelling, intimacy, and violence. The action is structured around the communal activities required for making fala: harvesting pandanus leaves, boiling, drying, and finally weaving the strands together. The ensemble’s movements and choreography (Luchiano Tuioti) are deftly executed and enrich the worldbuilding.

Fala also feature in the practice of ifoga, when an offender covers themselves with a fine mat as an atonement for an offence. At one point a sobbing woman is confined under a mat by her partner, and the discomfort of the ensemble (and audience) is left to grow as she continues to cry, isolated in the dark from the rest of her community. The ifoga, and by extension the weight of shame, is then moved by the community onto the offending partner. The following sequence in which the woman is restored to her full dignity through community care, and the contrite offender is reintegrated, is perfectly paced and poignant.

A Master of None: Brown Fala is a superbly well-crafted show from a multi-talented virtuosic team. All elements of the production from wardrobe (Masi Smith) to videography (Inti Resende) deserve their own paragraph of praise. Grounded in pride and identity, this is powerful contemporary theatre that manages at the same time to be gentle, and to hold space for our human complexity.

Dial M for Murder, a play made famous by Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film adaptation, is a classic thriller that masterfully builds suspense and drama.

Chris O’Grady plays Tony Wendice, a former tennis champion who plans the murder of his wealthy wife Sheila (Sylvia McKenna). Sheila’s ex-lover Max (Ava Voci) is a vivacious American murder mystery writer, recently returned to London. Voci and McKenna are earnest and affectionate together, providing a counterpoint to the sinister undercurrents of the story.

O’Grady’s performance captures Tony’s duplicity, giving us his genial façade without ever quite letting us forget that there is a cold, calculating character beneath. He is especially brilliant when manipulating the quietly imperious Inspector Hubbard (Susannah Donovan), feigning distress and outrage in supposed defence of his wife.

Kevin Hastings gives an astutely observed performance as the fatally unscrupulous Captain Lesgate, an old schoolmate of Tony’s whose past makes him vulnerable to coercion. Hastings shares one pivotal scene with O’Grady that establishes the central conceit of the story, and his convincingly shifty Captain Lesgate grounds the action that follows. Hastings precisely renders the Captain’s rising unease as he realises the dreadful situation he’s in, and both actors make the most of the brilliantly crafted writing.

Devon Heaphy’s lighting design supports the shifting moods of this one-room drama, especially when lights are switched off in the flat and the glowing fireplace casts strange shadows. The action of the first act is perfectly paced, with pauses and quiet moments held just long enough to agonising effect. When Sheila is left alone in the flat for a quiet evening, pasting pictures in a scrapbook before turning off the lights and going to bed, the audience is intensely still, hardly daring to breathe as we anticipate what might happen next.

This Wellington Repertory Theatre production celebrates a classic play and captures the essence of a thriller. This is an evening of theatre that feels like curling up with a murder mystery by the fire, perfect for a winter night away from Wellington's dark and windy streets.

Sameena Zehra’s Homicidal Pacifist – Dust Off Your Guillotines is a one-hour, rage-filled, self-professed ‘unhinged rant’ premiering as part of the NZ International Comedy Festival. A charismatic and engaging performer, Zehra is at her strongest and most breathtaking when she intersperses her own stories and experiences through the show, which explores New Zealand and world politics, racism, humanity, and war, primarily the Gaza war.  

What starts as assured stand-up morphs into what feels more like a TED Talk than a comedy show. I mean this with no disrespect, and believe Homicidal Pacifist – Dust Off Your Guillotines has the potential to open up the conversation on what comedy can and should do. When it comes to the big stuff – and there is no bigger stuff than war, than senseless slaughter – I think comedy’s power lies in its ability to break down our barriers with laughter. In a past interview, comedian Pax Assadi put it to me that when someone’s mouth falls open to laugh, that’s when you can slip your message in. It’s like once those hard exterior walls come down, the interior softens. This show is anything but a softening. Let’s call it a reckoning!

From the ‘mmm’s murmuring through the gallery, it seems most of the audience are receptive to Zehra’s message and onboard with the political takes at play. While every person on this Earth can stand to learn and grow, if we already agree and no Wellingtonian here is likely to change their mind, does that make us the target audience or the opposite?

I do note that our laughter, at first exuberant, bubbles over into a subdued simmer by the second half – as if we know how we feel but not what to do about it or how to react. We’ve been softened by the gags, the brilliant personal anecdotes, the hilarious audience asides, the silly little songs (shout out to Spider-Man’s hand parkour) of the well-crafted first half. But as the second half builds in intensity to boiling point, it feels like there’s nowhere left to go. It’s a lot to take in, to experience, individually and collectively. Despite the show ending with a brief call to action and a moment of respite in the shape of a great joke (the gay thread is *chef’s kiss), I’m left with a sort of hopelessness. That, of course, may well be the point.

Having studied political science at university, Guy Williams has made his name as a comedian with a strong political bent. So, it was no surprise that his set for the NZ International Comedy Festival, If you mildly criticise me I’ll say it’s cancel culture and turn to the alt right, focused heavily on white privilege – including his own – and the hypocrisy of those with right-wing views.

Beginning with a story about his own ‘undiagnosed ADHD’ excuse getting him off a speeding ticket, Williams leaned into the confidence of the mediocre white man. Leading on from this, the ACT Party’s disingenuous cover-up of Tim Jago’s charges of indecently assaulting two teenage boys in the 1990s quickly came under the spotlight before Williams contrasted this with the way his ex-partner Green MP Golriz Ghahraman was treated by the media and politicians following her relatively mild crime of shoplifting.

The dire state of New Zealand journalism, the suicidal grimness of Quest hotels, his mum’s anti-trans and weirdly racist views on immigrants (she’s Canadian), and his dad’s emotional reticence all get Williams’ scathing comedy treatment. The latter topic becomes a running thread throughout the show as Williams plays recorded video calls with his dad. The denouement from Williams’ ongoing project to cajole his dad into saying “I love you” is the emotional goal kick of the show.

Williams was unwittingly aided on this journey by a backrow, ‘dropnuts’ heckler he quickly dubbed Shane, who made his presence felt early on and became a naïve foil for Williams’ humour. Williams dealt to Shane’s interjections with funny reposts until he started bagging the Green Party’s social policies, at which point Williams switched into a highly erudite and non-comedic explanation of neoliberal versus progressive policy. Shane’s pathetic whine about how the current government was treating him then got the biggest reaction of the night from both Williams and the audience and almost made me believe he was a plant. If you’re going to heckle a political comedian, especially if you’re a self-confessed millionaire National-voting car salesman from Stokes Valley among a majority left-leaning audience, at least be good at it!

Self-described spicy boy Barnie Duncan is back in the capital for the NZ International Comedy Festival with his unique brand of surreal humour blended with a driving emotional undercurrent, this time of guilt. The incident in question happened during an improvised show in 2017 when Duncan kissed an unsuspecting female audience member on the lips in the name of comedy. She seemed OK with it at the time, but over the course of Ooky Pooky, Duncan’s discomfort with the patriarchal power dynamic he created becomes clear. Employing his mum’s favourite phrase for “male-adjacent grubbiness”, Duncan exhibits his own ooky pookiness in delightfully weird and wacky ways. As in his last show Bunny, he is accompanied by his sidekick, an LED screen that adds occasional commentary of its own.

Duncan’s personal grossness seems to have been his destiny, at least according to a droning British astrologer who recorded his life’s course according to the stars on a cassette tape in 1980 when Duncan was just a toddler. The astrologer’s name was Michael Jackson, itself a deep vein of ooky pookiness that Duncan has no hesitation in exploiting. The Gaza genocide – ‘FREE PALESTINE’ beams the LED screen – Russell Brand (on over-decorated hand towel), and David Seymour (what you get when a human breeds with a pencil) also come under the ooky spotlight. Less humorous is the creepy Indian guru that Barnaby James Ganesh Duncan met as a child when he and his mum spent 18 months in an ashram.

It isn’t all about the grubbiness, though. Duncan’s charming obsession with animals reemerges in the form of a moth hooking up with a butterfly at an office party, an impression of a stingray who can only see out of the back of its head, and an extended sequence about ecstatic dust mites. Add in an old marionette of Goofy, teabags, and a snow machine and you have what his promotional flyer accurately describes as “the blending of the physical with the cerebral in profoundly stupid ways”.

In the state of delusion that comes from watching a show that starts at 9:45pm, we are presented with one of the most unhinged pieces of comedy I may ever witness. The comedy duo Ginge & Minge (Nina Hogg and Megan Connolly) open the doors to the House of Ick. Comprising a wide range of skits with outrageous yet relatable characters, this 50-minute sketch show is a rollicking good ride exploring all those things that give us ‘the ick’.

Hogg and Connolly play off each other’s energy excellently and are masters of physical comedy. They embody their zany characters with no holds barred. Not only are they great comedians, but they also show off many other talents – such as in their number featuring an interpretive tap dance to a poem simplified for the modern mind. Both are also strong vocalists.

Just when you think things have already reached the maximum level of mad, Hogg and Connolly push things even further. Not only does it get wilder, but it also gets messier. I have never seen such a messy show, and I do not envy whoever has to clean whatever ‘ick’ is left behind by this hilarious pair. This is a sensory experience – we see, smell, and hear many things that make us want to vomit (in the best way possible).

The set (designed by the duo themselves) also impresses. It provides a great backdrop for quick changes and houses the plethora of props used in the show for one comedic purpose or another. I’m still trying to process how these two manage to include so much comedy in such a short time.

As you exit the theatre a different person, House of Ick certainly leaves an impression. I mean that literally – the stamp they give the audience at the end of the show will stay on my hand for days. The ink is incredibly strong. See for yourself just what this crazy show can do for you.

Booth the Clown and Jak Darling’s Delightfool is an absurdist queer cabaret exploit, featuring stand-up, mime, musical comedy, magic, and flightless birds. Jak Darling is gorgeous, embodying the feminine in a series of elegant mid-century gowns and a Freddie Mercury-esque moustache. They bring sultry vulnerability, masterful storytelling, and piss gags. Booth presents as more of a crass uncle type, and their astonishing physical control and comedic precision allow them to make a meal out of simple jokes.

There is plenty of raunchy, shock-value comedy. But the more dreamlike and bizarre acts are what I find most effective. Booth’s sailor vs seagulls mime features a sublime and surprisingly beautiful underwater sequence, during which the character comes close to drowning. Booth utilises the audience’s growing concern for maximum comedic payoff. Later, in an act of supreme silliness, Booth and Jak wrap themselves in sheets and transform into a pair of white emus lip-syncing Delibes’ Flower Duet.

There are subtle undercurrents of grimmer themes; the story is set against the backdrop of an impending storm. Radio newscasts repeatedly warn that the situation is deteriorating, a motif that resonates with climate catastrophe and rising queerphobic hostility. This sits nicely in an Isherwoodian understanding of cabaret as a queer artform, and bastion of genderplay and joy. Eventually the storm builds to a cacophony of wind and noise (composer Kodi Rasmussen) that threatens to destroy the theatre and imperil the final act.

But Booth and Jak manage to pitch a tent, creating an opportunity for shadow play as their figures are backlit against the tent fabric. Through the darkest hours of the storm, the audience spy on their vulnerable soul searching before they emerge to announce that the storm has passed, and the magic tricks can proceed as planned.

Delightfool is delightfully silly, well crafted, and brilliantly executed. Booth and Jak are darlings, and well deserving of their 2025 NZ International Comedy Festival Billy T Award nomination.

Lily Catastrophe, the multitalented comedian and cabaret aficionado, has gifted us with an encore season of her mesmerising one-woman show Bottom Surgery. From sultry stripteases to dramatic readings of diary entries, Lily uses every tool in her bedazzled box to keep the audience hooked as she shares the intimate, ridiculous, and poignant story of her medical transition and pursuit of bottom surgery in Aotearoa.

Lily’s outstanding crowd work has us eating out of her hand from the intro. Although mostly a solo show, Calum Redpath supports as stage manager, exuberant MC voiceover, and occasional reluctant side character. The show is a masterful blend of irreverence and earnestness, balancing humour with serious emotional punches. Lily navigates these contrasts through a series of cabaret numbers interspersed with skits, creating a dynamic piece with oodles of momentum. She doesn’t shy away from the more complex parts of her experiences – the times she felt doubt or the risks associated with the surgery – but she places this in a broader context and helps us to understand why trans healthcare is essential healthcare.

Lily’s use of props is fantastically funny and effective. The fundamentals of the surgical procedures are explained through the peeling and mushing of a banana, while the removal of gauze from a neo-vagina is demonstrated with endless red feather boas being drawn out of a heart-shaped box.

There are perfectly observed character acts too, such as when Lily takes on the persona of a rejection letter from the Ministry of Health. She nails the performatively caring and patronising tone, eliciting laughter and outraged gasps from the audience.

Towards the end of the performance, Lily makes an impassioned statement about the rising hostility towards trans folks, grounding the night’s absurdities with a sense of urgency and significance. Then she brings us home with a rousing singalong to Chapell Roan’s queer joy anthem Pink Pony Club.

Bottom Surgery is a testament to Lily Catastrophe’s talent, wit, and resilience. Her ability to blend humour, emotion, and social commentary makes for a powerful and unforgettable show.

A Māori builder named Reg, played by Regan Taylor, arrives to a house in Wadestown after being contracted to build a gate to keep the owners’ dog from getting onto the road. After some difficulty in communicating with Karen, one of the homeowners, Reg builds the fence while exploring his past, alcoholism, and identity.

Set design, also by Regan Taylor, is used creatively throughout the performance. Against a charming backdrop of panels engraved with pōhutukawa shapes are piles of loose wood and a mound of sand in a corner. We watch as the set is changed and constructed over the course of the play. As the gate is built, Taylor uses the pieces of the set inventively to depict a variety of objects and scenes, such as a moving car or a prison-like fence he becomes stuck behind. A particularly delightful moment occurs when Taylor transforms into a convincing moa with nothing but a sheet wrapped around him, arm extended for the neck and beak.

Reg’s narration takes the audience on a wide-ranging journey through space and time. An imagined conversation with a therapist, played in voiceover by Mycah Keall, confronts Reg’s alcoholism and flashes back to a time in his childhood when he felt unloved and unwanted. Together with Kane Parsons’ sound design, Janis Cheng’s lighting design is used effectively to make these scenes pop, often segmenting the stage with colours and focused lights, making the background fall away as we are taken with Reg on his internal journey.

Throughout Re-Engineered, Reg’s exploration of heavy topics becomes personal and vulnerable as he directly challenges the audience to confront their biases. With the short runtime of the performance, the big ideas that are offered can feel abandoned too quickly as Reg moves on to the next topic. The effect is that the plot of the show becomes choppy, and it is difficult for us to find a thread tying the story together. Reg has a lot to share with us, and I hope that he continues to win audiences over while challenging them to think.