Shows

After a sold-out January showcase, A Welly Full of Laughs is back at The Hannah for another round of Wellington’s “best comics delivering their best sets”.

According to the queue that is already forming when I approach the theatre on this spring evening, everyone seems to be ready for a good night, and so am I.

The host of tonight’s show is Jerome Chandrahasen, who immediately warms up the crowd by starting a heated discussion on the tension between Upper Hutt and, in his words, the “proper” Hutt, Lower Hutt. What a perfect way to get us going. Over the course of the evening, he introduces and invites 10 of Wellington’s top comedians to deliver compilations of their best bits on a stage as colourful as their performances. Designed by Austin Harrison, who constructed it with Nina Hogg (the pair behind Mon Platon Productions), the bright backdrop consists of dozens of buckets hanging from the ceiling to the floor – a set befitting such varied sets!

Topics range from lesbian awakenings at the Catholic church (Clarissa Chandrahasen), to the uniquely Kiwi “aggressively passive” character of men (Mike Fowler), and the questionable reasons for buying café merch (Hoani Hotene). My favorite set by far is Jak Darling’s, who proudly takes us beyond comedy alone into “thinking territory”. They proceed to dramatically perform a tragic poem of a daddy long-legs trapped in their shower, a story that is as relatable as it is hilarious. The evening ends with a comically bizarre dance performance by JoJo Bellini, in which she invites the crowd to throw ping pong balls at one of the targets fixed on her barely clothed body, all whilst singing Hit Me with Your Best Shot.

While no comedian can be for everyone, A Welly Full of Laughs was a great way to explore what Wellington’s comedy scene has to offer. I laughed, I cringed, and I guarantee that every viewer will have walked out with a different personal favourite, just like I did. An entertaining collection of carefully curated, clever comedy.

Circa has brought to new life another theatrical classic for its 50^th anniversary. Anton Chekhov’s masterwork of the human condition is this time seen through Andrew Foster’s sensitively creative lens, relocated to a rambling Kiwi farm, and delivered through the languorous dysfunction of contemporary cultural malaise.

The original cast of eight is reduced with aspects of two roles merged into other characters or replaced with soliloquies to the audience. Both are clever decisions and tighten the narrative, while giving talented musician Kali Kopae the opportunity to display her guitar-playing and singing skills as Helena.

As Vanya, Tawhi Thomas is superb: deeply fallible but ultimately empathetic despite his self-described failure at life and tendency to whine about everything and everyone. The other five cast members are equally strong, and all are entirely convincing as a group of people who have known, loved, and irritated each other for years. Cross-casting Sonya as Sonny is a brilliant decision and Andrew Paterson brings fresh longing to the character’s unrequited love for Michael (an excellent Jonny Potts). His final speech to Vanya with his arms wrapped lovingly around Thomas’ leg is devastating. Peter Hambleton’s Alex is wonderfully arrogant and the sort of character you love to hate.

Foster’s set is a long, narrow area between traverse seating rostra with a dark, hazy space beyond it through which the characters move off into the world outside the house. His scene changes are just as watchable as the scenes themselves, as the cast move bits of furniture and props in subdued light while occasionally interacting with each other in character. The final transition in which the stoic Maria (Carmel McGlone) stands alone while others move around her, one gently handing her a scarf, is sublime.

Marcus McShane’s lighting design is lush and warm. A huge disc suspended above the void at the end of the acting area is most often a vibrantly glowing sun, a visual delight that anchors the space. Chris Ward’s sound design complements the lighting beautifully with subtle soundscapes, spot-on effects, and well-chosen music. 

Classic Chekhov for the modern age. Don’t miss it.

As I take my seat at Flutter, a tiny, curious chick hops over to me and… dunk! Takes a sip out of the water glass at my feet! I’m charmed before this kids’ puppet show has even begun.

Pepe the bat is enamoured with regal Moon (composer and onstage musician Stephanie Cairns, who plays accordion, keys, and a toy piano with a delay effect for maximum whimsy). But sometimes Moon is cheeky and hides from Pepe, who is afraid of the dark and what scary creatures might lurk in it. Thankfully, Titi the glowworm falls from the stars and has a light-up butt! The two become fast friends, but a hungry stoat with glowing red eyes is circling...

With help from Erica Duthie (puppet painter/surfaces), TAHI 2026 creative resident Anna Bailey has crafted intricate puppets that crackle with a surreal eccentricity. Titi in particular puts me in mind of a Tim Burton creation. Her characters are magnetic and so fascinating to watch that you forget she is, quite literally, pulling the strings. They glide along Struan Ashby and Roger Sanders’ set, which comprises bright green hills to climb, silken waterfalls to slide down, and little nooks for bedtime. It all makes for magical viewing, especially when Moon floats past a tapestry of stars (electrician and light construction by Joseph Bailey) in her ethereal costume (Sarah Bell).

No doubt kids will walk away wanting to know more about New Zealand wildlife, just like I did. I was inspired to do some research into the nasty stoat and learned that it reportedly mesmerises its prey with a weasel war dance! After the show, Anna chatted with lots of the littlies who wanted to meet the puppets and I heard her telling them all about the introduced predator to many ‘ooh’s and ‘aah’s. It was lovely seeing their curiosity so stimulated, their comfort in large part thanks to the safe environment Anna created – especially by giving cues at the start as to how they could opt out of interaction if they wanted.

Flutter does a marvellous job of sparking the imagination of tamariki… and, safe to say, grownups too!  

Footnote New Zealand Dance always delight and surprise with their boundary-pushing productions and Big Low Dream is another fine example of that ethos. Described as “an unorthodox homage to Dreams by The Cranberries”, this work is an imaginative reinterpretation of the sentiments expressed in that song’s lyrics. In addition, the pulsing soundtrack by 2025 Wellington Theatre Awards Sound Designer of the Year Thomas Lambert is cleverly constructed wholly from the instrumental and vocal layers of the song.

Four young dancers (Airu Matsuda, Sasha Matsumoto, Caleb Heke, and Millie Maden) open with an appropriately 90s set of spunky dance moves to the introductory bars of the song, but these are abruptly cut short by a blackout (lighting design by Tony Black). Then, we are launched into a dream world of moving clouds, drifting smoke, floating gold helium balloons in the shape of letters, and a giant, pink mouth that frequently spits out the performers into new movements and tableaux. The gorgeously patchworked backdrop by Anne de Geus holds this plump-lipped orifice, which the dancers operate to excellent effect.

The four dancers work seamlessly together and apart in a series of short segments, while the handful of floating gold letters spell out reconstituted words: DEATH, DREAM, TEAM, MATE, ART, and so on. These are a creative cue to the vibe and intention of many of the segments and sometimes become part of the choreography as they gently dance above the performers or form part of their tableaux.

The hard-working dancers manage all the other simple, recycled props too. Perspex triangles start as teeth inside the sinisterly gaping mouth, are taped together to become a crown, and are used as daggers. A square of the same stretchy material the dancers’ outfits are made from is a superhero’s cape, a portable backdrop, and finally a shroud.

Like dreams themselves, this new dance work is ever-changing, surreal, and sometimes hilarious. So, slip on your virtual pyjamas and drift into the land of the Sandman with Footnote Dance.

A solo psychological thriller with lashings of dark humour, Dinner’s Getting Cold concerns a middle-aged woman somewhere in the past played by the production’s writer Mamaeroa (Mo) Munn (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāpuhi) waiting for her husband to come home for dinner.

She starts off confidently telling us about the whirlwind beginnings of their relationship where John swept her off her feet after their eyes met across a smoke-filled office. Romantic dates, gooey compliments, and lavish gifts preceded a quick marriage, house buying, and domestic bliss. This all seems like an unreachable dream come true for “a Maōri girl” who’s always been a klutz and told she’s a disappointment. As the evening wears on, wine is swilled and we learn the twisted truth about the nature of their relationship and why John still hasn’t come home.

Munn is a gifted comedian and able to skilfully draw out the emotional depths of the situation her character is swamped in, both in her writing and her performance. Decades of trauma and abuse are unravelled in seemingly throwaway lines and the sudden realisation of the enormity of what has happened to John occurs through a simple and otherwise innocuous question. Her final image is a uniquely delicious moment of comedy horror.

The semi-realistic setting (production by Quentin Potts (Ngāti Kahungunu), Aroha Faletolu (Ngā Puhi), and Ralph Hilaga) is a retro fanatic’s delight of mid-20^th century gorgeousness. Furniture and appliances suggest 50s, pop music suggests 60s, and cultural references suggest 70s. The nebulousness of the exact time we’re in feels deliberate, revealing how trapped within this world our protagonist is and that this story could belong to any woman.

Tough themes often hit hardest when their truth is revealed through cleverly pitched comedy and that’s clearly the case with Dinner’s Getting Cold. Without the laughs, this hour of storytelling could be emotionally torturous for its audience. The healthy dash of mystery also propels it forward to its seemingly inevitable ending.

Part of the TAHI Festival of Solo Performance, Blackpill is a confronting verbatim play taken from the online forums of the manosphere where incels preach their violent and dogmatic ideology, express profound hatred for women, and share their pervasive loneliness. 

Anyone who has watched Adolescence or Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere on Netflix will have some idea of what to expect. However, Rachel McLean’s play goes to a deeper level of toxic masculinity – and emasculinity – by taking her text straight from the pernicious anonymity of the internet. What results is a brutal exposé of a sub-culture that is extraordinarily warped in its view of life.

Zachary Klein is a devastatingly effective performer. Starting with simulated masturbation, he brilliantly embodies the diverse facets of the incel world from the clichéd basement-dweller to the looksmaxxing poser to the severely depressed, socially isolated loner contemplating suicide as the only solution to his entirely joyless existence. It is this last persona that hits hardest, along with the realisation that these men hate each other, and themselves, as much as – or maybe more – than they hate women.

Rachel McLean’s direction is as accomplished as her scriptwriting, making the visual presentation of a solo performance constantly interesting. And I’m always excited when I see Rebekah de Roo’s name on the crew list. Her production and AV design more than meet my high expectations. A multi-panelled, monochrome screen behind Klein becomes a canvas for a complex and ever-changing, equally monochrome kaleidoscope of imagery, helpful definitions of the language of inceldom, distorted videos of Klein, and hate-filled rants from the chatrooms. Lucas Neal’s lighting design is also superb with highly effective use of practical lamps and subtle colour tones to complement and highlight the action. Ben Kelly’s liminal sound design rounds out the production’s netherworld between reality and the limbo of cyberspace.

Like its glossy Netflix cousins, Blackpill is blisteringly truthful, painfully revealing, and will leave you wondering where and why it all went so horribly wrong.

How do you hold what you are given when someone passes away? Is being needed the same as being loved? How does loneliness impact our actions? These are some of the many questions that Flight Club, written and performed by Zody Takurua (Ngā Rauru, Te Kāhui Rere), poses. Directed by Ahi Karunaharan, the piece follows someone growing up in a fractured family, entering foster care, and making sense of what they carry as a result. Utilising the pūrākau of kuaka, the bar-tailed godwit, child of Tāne and great storyteller, the narrative is interwoven with an equally remarkable tale.

Heartbreaking, real, and relatable, this solo show could touch the innermost part of everyone’s wairua. Through design (mentored by Grace O’Brien) and Takurua’s performance and words, the idea of how difficult it is to hold what people leave behind particularly moves me. Fight Club challenges you to feel, connect, and consider so much in such a short time.

The motif of the heartbeat (sound design by Mannuel Caballero) pulsating through the space enriches the performance. It feels like the stone in the kuaka’s throat urging him to return to Aotearoa, but also a signal for yet another moving conversation. Lighting (Alexander Dickson) is dramatic and at times playful; the way it interacts with Takurua’s body creates a perfect partnership. I enjoy the inherent queerness of Flight Club, the beauty of it creeping into the softest of moments. I would love this to be explored more.

Takurua soars with outstretched wings. With tact and dexterity, they switch from thoughtful, tear-jerking remarks to proclamations of bountiful humour. Their movements flow like a manu gliding in the sky. Vulnerable points of human connection are poignant, particularly during audience interaction.

Touching parts of grief I didn’t even consider, I feel Fight Club helping to heal my wounds. Even if you see it multiple times (and I implore you to do so), you will collect new fragments of brilliant wisdom. Part of the TAHI New Zealand Festival of Solo Performance x BATS Theatre Residency for LGBTQIA+ artists, this show is filled with nothing but aroha and ātaahua. Arohanui Zody Takurua.

A live music experience that takes us through the story of musician Bryony Matthews’ traumatic head injury and years of recovery, Brain Storm is an immediately striking show. Against a sparsely decorated stage backed by mesmerising visuals (visual art by Nicholas Ahu, Storm music video by Harry Knight and Maria Webb, Recovery music visualiser by Spencer Hall), performers Matthews and Joshua Holmes create an unexpectedly rich and immersive world.

Matthews’ story unfolds through original songs interspersed with narration. In the narrated sections, the stage falls into darkness as Ahu’s visuals bring the story to life. The imagery is hypnotic and evocative, moving between recognisable places in Christchurch and dreamlike recreations. During the songs, the projection shifts into something more like a concert visualiser, with engrossing, otherworldly images that sweep us up in the music.

The sound design (soundscape by Holmes, sound engineering by Marcus Winstanley) is excellent. Every element is distinct and beautifully balanced. The two guitars, Matthews’ vocals, and the supporting tracks all have room to breathe. Reverb gives the music an affecting spaciousness, while driving drums and melodies provide momentum. The result is haunting, ethereal, and dreamlike, with Matthews delivering a clear and moving vocal performance throughout.

But it is Matthews’ story that gives Brain Storm its emotional weight. There is real vulnerability in what she shares, but also an unmistakable sense of gratitude. She speaks from a place of feeling fortunate, and this makes the experience feel less like a performance of hardship and more like an invitation to understand.

At its heart, Brain Storm asks us not to judge others too quickly, as we rarely know what someone else is carrying. It also offers a gentle challenge to our instinct to push harder when things become difficult. Sometimes, Matthews suggests, the answer is to “do less”, to accept rather than force.

It’s a thoughtful, beautifully crafted show, and I would love to see Bryony Matthews performing live again. Brain Storm travels to Hamilton and Auckland in October. Catch it if you can; I’ve already added the album to my playlists.

Judy Garland, “the greatest entertainer who ever lived – or probably will ever live” (Fred Astaire) made so many comebacks, “what more could you possibly want?” So quips a magnificent Ali Harper in Judy’s Encore, a night in concert with The Wizard of Oz star where the sequins are sparkling and the stakes are sky-high.

In August 1964, the stage and screen superstar was booed off the stage at Festival Hall Melbourne. Judy’s Encore imagines her redemption a few years later, before her death by barbiturate overdose in 1969. She returns to the venue to try to restore her reputation in this meta solo show where the audience is positioned as the sceptical Melbournites she is trying to win over.   

Culminating in a breathtaking Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Harper performs 18 songs accompanied by Francis Meria (piano) and Blair Latham (horns). With music direction and arrangement from Tom Rainey, Meria and Latham play Judy’s loving but long-suffering band, who try desperately to keep her on track and out of the booze bottle. The concert takes place on a striking, shiny stage (set design by Ian Harman) that puts on the ritz, especially when paired with Roz Willmott-Dalton’s costume design, which nods to the poppy dress Judy wore for her first Sydney appearance on the ill-fated tour.

Judy’s Encore sees our hero, already frayed, start to come undone. Comically downing half a bottle of whisky set atop a table in a sweet and silly moment of lightness from Latham, Harper’s Judy is sensitively portrayed. She is not the butt of the joke, nor is she the tragic heroine she so hated being called in her lifetime. She is a person, buoyed and torn down, devoured and spat out again, by other people.

The first-person format of the show does have its limitations: there’s only so much a public figure will ever divulge about themselves, so Harper can’t tell us lots about Judy’s life while playing Judy herself. The more you already know, the more Easter eggs you’ll enjoy. Like me, you’ll surely be inspired to go learn more about a woman who “gave so richly and so generously, that there was no currency in which to repay her” (James Mason, A Star Is Born).

Welcome to Living Room Wall and the final concert by Bauble and Skump before the fumigators come to rid Rachel and Tim’s house of insects, these adorable ladybugs included. It’s a tragic premise for a delightfully entertaining show about bug life and human strife.

The music playing in the background (sound and lighting tech Jack McGee a.k.a. Moth) as we arrive and don pairs of antennae is appropriate – They Might Be Giants’ Doctor Worm and Owl City’s Fireflies are on the playlist.

Lia Kelly (Bauble) and Phoebe Caldeiro (Skump) are engaging and utterly charming performers, quickly bringing the audience into their world of insectoid musical magic. Their Flight of the Conchords-esque wit and lyricism (aided by co-writer and director Alayne Dick) is accompanied by adaptable and virtuosic playing skills as they flit between instruments and musical styles. Every song has us laughing out loud. It’s tough to pick a favourite but It’s Hard Being a Bug had me giggling insanely as Skump’s and, increasingly, Bauble’s obsession with lemons overtakes the existential dilemmas of arthropod life. Sadly, we don’t get to hear such bangers as Six Legs, Seven Things to Hold as the unfolding human conflict going on below – carefully scored on points by Skump – brings the fumigation ahead of schedule and we have to fast forward to crowd favourite Praying Mantis Wedding and a small-tear-inducing pair of songs about how the duo met and fell in love.

Kate Anderson’s set design particularly deserves mention as her backdrop evinces the top-down view of a suburban living room with simplicity and clarity. Her birthday card mini-set for It’s Your Special Day is inspired, has hilarious insect puns, and allows for funky head-bopping choreography from our performers.

From a clever homage to The Very Hungry Caterpillar, to the sub-plot of a failing human relationship, to the polished and clever anthems, Bug Songs Not Love Songs is entomological ecstasy from go to whoa.

The joy of improv theatre is that the unexpected can offer a great experience. It isn’t surprising that the experienced Best on Tap troupe deliver on that promise, but it is perhaps surprising that the story unfolding on stage reflected a drama built on well-realised characters and relationships, rather than mere comedic slapstick.

The performance is a gentle enquiry as to the nature of friendship and the different forms it takes. The audience is asked for only two prompts at the beginning of the show, and the story unfolds from there. The scaffolding might be minimal, but this was enough for this skilled troupe to create a coherent narrative.

The show’s title and theme Find Your Tribe lends itself well to an emotional journey and a reflective tone. I felt the performance began somewhat tentatively, but it didn’t take long for each of the five actors to develop distinct characters and relationships.

Wiremu Tuhiwai seemed to revel in creating outlandish cues for his fellow actors to follow (I couldn’t help feeling they were used to it). It resulted in drama punctuated with enough humour to provide contrast to its more reflective moments. Kate Whitaker added strongly to this emotional dynamic; we were taken from reflection to humour to sadness, and everywhere in between.

Improv theatre is inherently collaborative, and the performances and cues provided by Mary Little, Geoff Simmons, and Barry Miskimmin were all integral in adding further emotional depth to the show. By the end, the audience was fully invested in all the characters on stage.

Matt Hutton’s improvised live soundscape added further emotional context, responding deftly to the action on stage. My favourite sound moment was the beeping of hospital equipment somehow wrung from his Yamaha keyboard.

Quick-wittedness is a hallmark of improv theatre, and there was plenty of that on display from Best on Tap. Find your way to this show or their next for something beautifully unexpected.

On entering the Dome in BATS Theatre, I immediately notice dozens of typed paper sheets hanging from the ceiling. They remind me of memories scattered throughout the mind. This first impression proves to be right, as the performance I am about to witness is, in short, a meditation on remembrance. It is my first time watching a solo performance and I’m not sure my attention will hold over 90 minutes with one actor alone. But how wrong I was.

Becoming an Anecdote is writer and director Mitchell Botting’s attempt to tell the tragic story of the death of his lost love. The second-person play is a recollection of Mitchell’s own memories spanning decades, navigating the complex relationship between himself (performed by Stevie Hancox-Monk) and “you”. Through time jumps between 2006, 2015, and 2024, Mitchell revisits selected moments before, during, and after “your” death, allowing the viewer to witness a defining period of his life. Next to these personal flashbacks, the performance also lets the viewer question the reliability of the narrator by showing how memories are shaped by humans and distorted by time.

This play manages to be as entertaining as it is heartbreaking. The reenactment of past conversations is supported by quotes projected on the wall, lighting effects, music, and interactive recorded voices. Hancox-Monk perfectly portrays the conflicting emotions connected to an impossible situation, captivating the awestruck audience until the end.

I leave full of questions and lingering thoughts, and I think that is exactly how I am meant to feel. All in all, this “fabricated memoir” is a brilliant interplay of heartfelt script and outstanding acting, showcasing the complexities of love, grief, and guilt. It is a beautiful homage to a long-lost love and also a reminder of the rippling effects of death on the ones left behind. This was a truly moving experience that I will not forget any time soon. If you have the chance to see it, don’t hesitate!