Shows

Jane Keller and Michael Nicholas Williams have been collaborating for 25 years and produced five shows together of which Leave ‘em Laughing is a celebration. Bedecked in her characteristic sparkles, Keller is a captivating raconteur and singer of lesser-known and often hilarious songs, while Williams tickles the ivories with aplomb alongside her. The intimate and beautifully dressed (Keller and Meredith Dooley) Circa Two stage with lush lighting (Deb McGuire) is the perfect place for this dynamic duo’s scintillating swansong.

Topping and tailing the show is Alto’s Lament, a nod to Keller’s students and torch song for all those musical theatre types with voices that are always consigned to the boring harmonies, ever longing for the melody.

Deftly weaving her own history into the song choices, Keller reminisces about her high-school years with Last One Picked, a funny but angst-ridden remembrance for all those terrible at sport. Bad and sad relationships come under the spotlight with the laugh-inducing 15 Pounds (Away From My Love) and Shattered Illusions, and a heartbreaking Hello, Tom which elicits a sympathetic “Awww” from the audience at the end. The first half closes with a lovely, lovelorn medley of four songs followed by Simple Christmas Wish.

The second half bursts onto the stage with Keller’s trademark knack for the bawdy. The saucy Speaking French, unashamed Getting It, and self-explanatory S&M have us all in stitches and the fun romps on from there.

Keller’s facial expressions are masterful, whether showing us the teenager’s pain at being turned down by a prospective prom date or pouting with the ecstasy of European passion. Her enunciation is impeccable, with every word she sings crystal clear, even when accented in French or Russian. It’s also a joy to hear the snippets of Keller’s own life given narrative verve by K.C. Kelly’s fine dramaturgy.

As the culmination of a quarter-century creative relationship, Leave ‘em Laughing delivers on its promise and is a fitting finish to the one-woman-show career of a musical maven.

An interpretation for the Bridgerton generation, Penny Ashton’s Sense & Sensibility is a comedy tsunami to crest the Austen wave that has surged through Wellington theatre in recent years.

Ashton takes a highly theatrical approach to staging, eschewing the lavish drawing-room sets others have opted for. She instead uses a few simple props, chairs and set pieces on casters that the actors often employ to great comic effect and deftly manoeuvre between scenes with the slick assistance of stage crew (Fay Van Der Meulen and Chenae Phillips). This lack of complexity gives free space to a highly talented cast to create the larger-than-life characters and fully express the wit that inhabits Austen’s pages.

Casting only women to “celebrate a woman denied so much because of her sex” is another brilliant comic touch as four of the six ensemble cast play the men (and women) in the lives of the Dashwood sisters, stoic Elinor (Adriana Calabrese) and emotional Marianne (Lily Tyler Moore). Amy Tarleton, Heather O’Carroll, Bronwyn Turei (Ngāti Porou), and Aimée Sullivan are endlessly creative with the handful of parts they each play. Sending up male stereotypes as only women can do, they bring a new level of entertainment to a classic story. The chemistry between the Dashwood sisters is authentic and Calabrese and Tyler Moore are perfectly cast.

The soundtrack (Ashton again) plays a strong supporting role with its rousing classical music and shameless plundering of the Bridgerton playbook with string quartet versions of Katy Perry, Eurythmics, Bonnie Tyler, and more. And in true Ashton fashion, the script slips in references to Dickens, a sneaky homage to Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and a hilariously meta aside to Bridgerton itself.

Ashton has managed to walk the fine line between making a two-and-a-half-hour show continuously engaging and preserving the emotional heart of Austen’s timeless story. I’ve never cried at an Austen performance before but must admit to a wee tear in the eye at the end of this one, such is its magic.

In the words of the great Antonio Bam-bino Go-Figaro Caravan, the world outside is cold, dark, and complicated. But inside, it’s hot. Oh, so hot!

Revel is a brand-new variety cabaret and cocktail experience by Wellington contemporary circus company Inverted Citizens. Featuring pre-show entertainment served up with cocktails by The Tasting Room, it marries drag and dance with clowning and chaos, harmonies and hoop with music, madness, and merriment to spectacular, sparkly effect.

Performers each deliver an act per half, with introductions and interludes by MC Antonio Bam-bino Go-Figaro Caravan (Nino Raphael) and his trusty assistant, Booth. Some transitions are so charming, silly, and fun that they become highlights in and of themselves, particularly when other performers get involved (here’s looking at you Selina Simone, segueing and sashaying away). In addition to the sheer talent on display, the flow of this cabaret, punctuated by electric interactions between acts, sets it apart from other variety shows I’ve seen in the past.

And now, onto the acts!  Drag queen Selina Simone slays with a luminous (in more ways than one) rendition of Thunderstruck from AC/DC, while Laura Oakley as Lulu L’amour on hula hoop (sorry, ‘oola ‘oop) makes our heads spin. I’m still struggling to comprehend how one person can get so many hula hoops to orbit their body with such grace, showmanship, and apparent effortlessness.

Jade Merematira as vocalist Seraphina Night handles mic issues like a pro and delivers some truly stunning renditions of popular songs, with her performance of …Baby One More Time putting me in mind of Postmodern Jukebox. Her live accompaniment of Kiera Fitzgerald as Kiera Narise on aerial hoop (Rolling in the Deep) and chair (If I Ain’t Got You, with Raphael on guitar) adds a shimmer of je ne sais quoi. Fitzgerald’s gravity-defying acts are jaw-dropping. And we cannot forget Booth’s sultry ode to the microphone, I Want to Know What Love Is.

When I close my eyes and think of Revel, I see rouge, sequins, smiles. I hear laughter, lively chatter, upbeat swing. And I feel joy, warmth… nay, hot! Oh, so hot! Here’s hoping this becomes a permanent fixture on Wellington’s events calendar.

Well, since my baby left me… I found a new hormone hell. At least I think that’s what Elvis said.  

Created by EBKM (Yes Yes Yes, Gravity & Grace), Heartbreak Hotel infuses scientific facts with gut-wrenching personal anecdotes to examine what actually happens to our bodies when we’re heartbroken. Karin McCracken stands at the centre of this production, playing a woman in the eye of the storm of a painful breakup. Her ex-boyfriend is played by Simon Leary, who takes on multiple additional roles as Everyone Else, including her doctor, new and unpromising love interest, and gay best friend. Leary’s rockin’ and rollin’ performance of the latter is a show highlight.

I have taken liberties to best describe Heartbreak Hotel by breaking it into three segments, which I’ve called Facts, Songs, and Recollections for ease of reference. In Facts, McCracken delivers scientific, TED Talk-like lectures directly to the audience, her synth behind her, gently humming its pre-programmed tracks (exceptional sound design by Te Aihe Butler). In Songs, McCracken stands at her synth, accompanying herself on this newly learned instrument. Here, she chats – more informally, more personably – with the audience and sings reimagined breakup tracks like I Can’t Make You Love Me. In Recollections, she and Leary enact past encounters, not in chronological order, that together tell the story of the breakup and its aftermath. As the show goes on, these segments become less distinct as the waveforms between them fuzz and distort. Polyphonic overlap, if you will.

I find Facts endlessly fascinating; Songs funny, tender, and well performed; and Recollections both relatable and devastating, particularly in the hands of these gifted actors. The breakup and prelude scenes are incredibly written, wrought with language that speaks a thousand words a sentence and builds a complete picture of a six-year relationship in a mere handful of pages. This is where I caught myself shedding a tear or three.

Filament Eleven 11’s production design sees fluffy pink carpet underfoot and striking LED lights running across the sides and back of the stage. These are cleverly utilised but directly facing the audience, which makes them too bright at times. Equally, the sound levels sometimes result in jarring bursts of ear-splitting club music. These technical hiccups aside, what a show! Heartbreak Hotel will break your heart and comfort it in equal measure, letting you know you’re not alone as you learn, laugh, and just maybe, dare to love again.

Leona Revell is an improv legend from Palmerston North. Regan Taylor is one of The Māori Sidesteps who, surprisingly, has never been on Shortland Street. The newly single 40-somethings had never met… until they swiped right on each other. Before their first date, though, they each accumulated some truly heinous dating stories thanks to the infamous platform that is Tinder.

In FWB: Friends with Boundaries, Revell and Taylor share these encounters in extreme, explicit, exquisite detail. There’s the usual: fake profiles, men proudly displaying the deer they’ve slaughtered, unsolicited pics, and the like. Then there’s the specific, like Lycra-clad cyclists who finish the race in record time, and men with little to no understanding of a woman’s anatomy. No, nothing is “geometric” down there.

And then there’s the deeply personal. In contrast with the rest of the wild romps recounted, Revell and Taylor provide honest and brave glimpses into their past relationships and trauma. The script is perfectly devised – no doubt with support from director and dramaturg Lizzie Tollemache – to incorporate these stories at just the right moments, providing pathos, then comic relief when it is needed most. A more muted, gentler delivery of these vulnerable moments of direct address would imbue FWB with even more emotional resonance.

However, the heightened performance style is hysterically funny when the gifted actors, who sizzle with chemistry on stage, physically reenact their past encounters. With a glint in his eye and an innate sense of comic timing, Taylor gets some of the biggest laughs of the night just from throwaway, unassuming lines thanks to his chef’s-kiss delivery. Revell’s improv background shines through in her charisma and confidence on stage.

Stellar production design decisions made by the ensemble include the use of two suspended frames behind which the performers enact outrageous Tinder profiles, plus a banging playlist featuring a lot of Spice Girls (hallelujah), adding yet more thrill to this rowdy roller coaster ride. Put it all together and you have a production that is at once hilarious and heartfelt, titillating and tender.

Verbatim or documentary theatre, in which the dialogue is drawn directly from interviews with real people, is a powerful medium for telling unknown or forgotten stories. I Carried This illuminates the harsh adoption processes of the 1950s and 60s and their lifelong impact on the young, unmarried mothers who were often coerced to give up their babies. Interviews with several women have been distilled into five dramatic accounts of the grief, loss, anger, and guilt felt by this generation of New Zealand mothers for whom the ripple effects of their past are still in motion.

These women’s stories are told on a spare stage of white cloth hangings with a shallow set of steps and two moveable set pieces, a bar with two stools and a bassinet. These are employed beautifully to inform the movements of three accomplished actors, Wise (Hilary Norris), Middle (playwright Nicola Pauling), and Young (Mycah Keall), representing the seasons of the women’s lives. The lines are split between the three, who work expertly and seamlessly together to form a coherent and unified whole.

The actors not only voice the women themselves but also the men in their lives and the judgemental parents who sent their daughters away to farms or homes for unmarried mothers. The voices of the adoption agencies are represented by a recorded male voice (Regan Taylor). This creative device cleverly divorces the cold institutional tones of authority from the warm passions of these very real women.

As well as internalising the heart-rending loss of their babies, all the women experience some form of contact with their grown-up children. These stories are in some ways more poignant than the beginnings of their journeys as they grapple with expectations met or variously challenged.

I Carried This is a compelling and affecting record of a period in time that seems almost unbelievable now and of the women whose lives continue to be buffeted by the waves of past choices and their consequences.

Based on playwright Helen Vivienne Fletcher’s own experiences, Confessions of a Sleepwalking Insomniac is a solo show about the challenges of living with parasomnia, a sleep disorder involving sleepwalking and night terrors. The character Briar, played by Pauline Ward, lives with this condition and is now also juggling a new relationship, a sick mother, and her best friend living on the other side of the world.

Ward uses excellent physicality to depict what Briar is going through. Dreams and nightmares are presented as palpably real as she somersaults across the stage, her sleeping mind consumed by visions. One particularly distressing scene shows Briar on the floor, panicking as she is unable to move, and Ward’s thoroughly convincing depiction of this moment is evocative and heartbreaking. At times Ward’s narration of the story is a little rushed, the character’s frenzy in relating her experiences losing some of the intent behind the lines, perhaps needing clearer demarcation between ideas to get them across. Similarly, the delivery of humorous moments in the script doesn’t initially engage the audience. However, as the performance continues, Ward’s interactivity is so compelling that her pleading and questioning elicits audible responses from the audience, who are gripped by the emotions of the character.

Mention must be made of the excellent sound design by director Emma Katene, as the tightly cued soundscapes add texture and believability to the events happening on stage. The boxes that make up the set are unified by a pastel palette, and colourful lighting (design by Kate Anderson) is also used effectively to accentuate changes between dream, nightmare, and the different characters that Ward embodies.

I highly recommend Confessions of a Sleepwalking Insomniac, a powerful play that provides a window into understanding the life of someone who experiences a sleeping disorder. The story is moving and imparts great insight. An excellent variety of accessible performances in the show’s season are also available.

What happens after happily ever after? This is the question posed by Femme Natale: The Queen Years and the answer is an R18, mirth-filled catalogue of the woes of child-rearing and sex after 40. It’s co-written and performed by a talented cast of director Fingal Pollock, April Phillips, Jeremy Nelson, Tracey Savage, and Piers Gilbertson. Special guest Megan Connolly greets us when we enter the auditorium as a yawning and grumpy sanitary pad (used) handing out programmes.

A series of short sketches, the production jumps from patronising and competitive soccer mums with kids called Jupiter and Monty to a clever reverse wedding in which the vows become the tenets of divorce, a medieval version of parental angst over technology, a poetically frustrated flight attendant dispensing tea and coffee, and songs about online dating, head lice, and a joyous lack of parental guilt and regret.

Having had more than my fair share of mammograms, I got a big laugh out of the excitable mammary pair (Phillips and Savage) getting their first breast test and squeezing as many boob jokes out of it as possible. The desperate vulva (Phillips) who appears as an interlude between sketches becomes progressively more hilarious as she cavorts with a multi-function pink vibrator (Gilbertson) towards a spectacular climax to the disappointment of her husband’s real, but sadly less performative, genitals (Nelson). Guest writer Pinky Agnew’s contribution delivers one of the funniest sketches of the night in which a grandchild-obsessed nanna peddles plastic toys, Nerf guns, and sugar.

All the performers take on their varying roles with gusto and a complete lack of shame. They are clearly channelling elements of their personal experiences and having a great time doing it. Supported by an effective lighting design (Malcolm Gillett, who also co-wrote a sketch) and some choice music, this is a highly entertaining hour of fun for those post-40 or for younger ones yearning to know what they have (not) to look forward to.

Jak Darling, in their NZ International Comedy Festival debut, is looking for a muse. Usually this might be an inspiring person, but inspiration can come from many intangible places. Recognising this, Darling searches through uproarious experiences, twisted perspectives, and romantically absurd flights of imagination. Will any of these become the elusive muse?

When Darling walks on stage, I’m gobsmacked by their instantly iconic dress. It has such power that it makes me, someone with no drive to escape from pants and a shirt, feel a twinge of envy. They start to remove the dress, but require help from a cardboard cutout of a pigeon, creating a flirtatiously narrated tryst. This moment unmistakably shows how they combine sensuality with delightfully vulgar silliness.

Darling feels commandingly irreverent – we’re going to be silly. Deal with it. This unapologetic attitude is frequently explored through their experiences of queerness. In one story, they take irritation and wrap it in charm, playfully mocking the neuroticisms of an ‘ally’ who is only supportive in a self-serving manner.

A dizzying performer, their tone-shuffling artistry traverses stand-up, theatre, poetry, and music. Poetry transforms a Wellington bus trip into a picturesque Venetian tale full of romance, intrigue, and an overwhelming number of puns. Darling showcases puppetry with an ‘environmental guilt’-gobbling turtle, skilfully timed against an array of sound effects aided by Sanjay Parbhu. Quaint ukulele strumming is paired with total debauchery.

It’s barely noticed, but when Darling fails to reach a mic stand, they briefly turn it into a heightened drama. Even when caught off guard, they maintain their attitude of turning struggles into confidence, playfulness, and glamour. Their comedy seems to encapsulate their true character, and it creates a cohesiveness that makes the whole show feel that much more compelling.

Ultimately, Darling’s approach to comedy is addictive and highly amusing. It feels wrong to reveal the muse that they discover, but through their bold example, I have discovered a muse in Jak Darling.

Brynley Stent is a Billy T Award-winning comedian who you may recognise from Taskmaster NZ. Pus Goose is a… wait, what is a “pus goose”? It sounds like some sort of scary monster from a bizarre horror movie. Well, as it turns out, Pus Goose is a show all about fear and just how ridiculous it can be.

Perhaps this is technically a stand-up show, but right from the start it feels nothing like one. Unlike most stand-up comedy, Pus Goose has a subtle theatrical atmosphere, evoking the nostalgia, light horror, and wonder you might associate with a Stranger Things episode. Stent’s NZ International Comedy Festival show is introduced and contextualised through the world of a spooky childhood board game. Using the game, she bouncily guides us through the dark glowing realms of her silliest fears – and with each one, we jump through a portal into an absurd tale from her life.

Pus Goose seems to be what happens when a rambunctious theatre kid insists on doing stand-up comedy. As a result of this collision, Stent breaks free from many of the limitations associated with the format. While she tells stories, impressions and sketches become highlights rather than asides, and it’s all richly decorated with infographics, videos, voiceovers, sound effects, and lighting.

The atmosphere may suggest a more serious show – but to be clear, the content ranges from quizzing the audience on the sex appeal of Cadbury Yowies, to a riveting impression of an office printer. Stent is upbeat, joyfully chaotic, and wildly expressive. She’s like that one friend who just has to act out stories for you – except this time, the friend is hilarious and armed with a special effects department.

Overall, Pus Goose successfully combines effects and immersion with the stand-up experience of laughing among your mates. Stent goes beyond expressing herself with the content of her work to express herself with the medium too. Unfortunately, now my next conversation is going to feel woefully incomplete without slideshows and sound effects.

Alayne Dick never forgets an insult. In fact, she wrote a whole show about it, coming at you as part of the NZ International Comedy Festival. She describes herself at the start as “a lesbian who makes jokes on the internet, which makes men on the internet mad”. It’s easy to see how this adorably nerdy librarian in a purple T-shirt, shorts, high-top sneakers, and rainbow socks, with big glasses, lusciously long hair, and an obviously genital surname might upset fragile male (and probably some female) egos. She’s smart, sassy, and a whole bunch funnier than every incel on the web.

I feel seen when she starts talking about reviewers needing to use her surname in their reviews and its hilarious results: “Dick has us hungry for more” or, less kindly but perhaps more appropriately, “Dick always disappoints”.

The lack of pockets in jeggings, Vin Diesel’s ludicrously low voice, being an only child, the creepiness of pre-schoolers, Beaver Town Blenheim, the Boomer obsession with small-town murder TV, and many other subjects come under Dick’s frenetic but laser-like focus over the course of this comedy hour.

Occasional bursts of modern jazz dance accompany the high-energy delivery, but it’s not all frivolous. Like all good self-effacing stand-up, there are moments of intimacy and pathos as Dick relates her teenage dive into gay fan fiction due to the lack of good queer media – apart from Glee, obviously – and her relationship with her stoic, uncommunicative dad.

I particularly relate to her description of going to an uptight all-girls school that was simultaneously conservative and gay, then becoming a convincing vegetarian to qualify for the limited number of much tastier non-meat meals in her university hall canteen. And I’m totally going to take up her suggestion of making sure I have uninvited chaotic exes to yell “I object!” at my next wedding.

Dick doesn’t disappoint, it turns out.

I am one of Guy Montgomery’s 50 million fans and I’m not wrong. A multi-award-winning, instantly recognisable face on the New Zealand comedy circuit, you may remember Guy from the “proudly stupid” clip show Fail Army or the smash-hit podcast The Worst Idea of All Time in which he and Tim Batt dissected the same bad movie over and over again. Maybe you’ve seen him on Taskmaster NZ, Celebrity Treasure Island, or Have You Been Paying Attention?. However you’ve come to know him, you’ve hopefully come to love his distinct brand of comedy like I have.

It’s one that’s very difficult to describe, but that’s my job so here goes. Surrealism meets precision, absurd observations make sense as Montgomery rolls onto the stage, stoked and surprised we’re clapping, to spin bizarre, brilliant yarns that feel erratic and tangential until you realise how intricate, how interconnected they are. He applies razor-sharp wit to the obscurest of obscurities, leaning into the illusion of being barely “smarter than a fish” when secretly, sneakily, his content is cleverer than a 12-year-old pretending to be an 11-year-old at the airport so they can receive special treatment as an unaccompanied minor. Inside joke.

I last saw Montgomery live at the 2023 NZ International Comedy Festival at Te Auaha, an excellent but much smaller venue. In Over 50,000,000 Guy Fans Can’t Be Wrong, he’s sold out The Opera House and hypothesises that the 1400-strong crowd may well be there to see him. He informs us that we’re in for “mostly sentences” and proceeds to string loads of hilarious ones together about lesbians, New Year’s resolutions, urinals, greyhounds, and more. Peppered with syllabic stress in all the wrong places, disarming and natural crowd chat, effortlessly awkward charm, and the occasional startling bellow, Montgomery’s delivery makes every sentence all the more genius. I laugh and laugh, even during the ones about sportsball despite having zero investment in the subject.

A comedian that continues to grow from strength to strength, Guy Montgomery will likely soon have 50 million-bajillion fans. Join them and you, too, can’t be wrong.