It’s the early 1980s and Henry Lewis, in a world of nobodies, wants to be a somebody. After a shaky start door-knocking to pitch property deals, he becomes a top real estate salesman, then successfully invests in stocks and shares. He finally achieves his dream of building New Zealand’s first New York-style, deluxe high-rise apartment building in Auckland’s Herne Bay, the Shangri-La (which is still there).

Described as a “solo adventure”, High Rise is a captivating one-man work of extraordinary physical theatre that started life as a Toi Whakaari student project and has grown and expanded into a fully fledged, award-winning tale of hubris and excess. It draws on the Ancient Greek myth of Icarus as Henry’s dubious moral choices lead him to fly too close to the metaphorical sun of financial affluence, causing him to crash and burn.

Cameron Jones uses little more than his body, a briefcase, swivel chair, hard hat, and a stack of papers, plus some well-placed lights and music, to tell Henry’s story. With clown work, self-created sound effects, and outstanding physicality, he brings us along on the road of ‘greed is good’ in an entirely original way. Anyone who remembers the 80s will revel in this yuppie character you love to hate, but this is one who can stand on his head on top of a briefcase holding a yoga pose while cheesy affirmations play.

Jones’ physical theatre prowess makes High Rise highly entertaining and fun, while posing interesting moral questions about the human desire for wealth and status. If you’re sitting in the front row, expect to be drawn literally into Henry’s world as Jones breaks the fourth wall and ad libs with the audience. The poignant ending to the story is a stab in the heart.

High Rise combines great storytelling with strong characterisation and unique presentation from an entirely committed actor to create a production that will leave you pondering the meaning of success long after you leave the theatre.

Jane Austen’s classic tale of restraint versus passion is given a freshen-up for the stage by zooming in on the thoughts of Elinor Dashwood in this new adaptation. The novel is written strongly from Elinor’s point of view, so it’s a logical step for her to become the narrator as well as one of the main protagonists. Joy Hellyer and Paul Kay have resisted the temptation to add much content of their own, a wise choice that allows Austen’s words and stories to shine.

As Elinor, who is on stage for almost the entire play taking part in or quietly watching the action, Amy Vines carries a huge responsibility. She manages it with dignity, grace, and strength as her reserve is offset by the bigger, more histrionic characters around her.

Hellyer and Kay’s decision to use a smaller cast and double several roles is an excellent one. The actors are highly capable and make the most of their opportunities to multi-task. Paul Stone’s boisterous Sir John Middleton and bilious Doctor Harris are a delight, and a moment of comedy gold is provided when Lee Dowsett morphs from the shy and awkward Edward Ferrars into his uncredited second character.

As Elinor’s sister Marianne, around whose love life much of the action revolves, Talia Carlisle is beautifully dramatic, her animated eyebrows deserving a credit of their own. The rest of the cast provide expert support and work together well as an ensemble without the urge to scene-steal.

The large costume team led by Meredith Dooley has done an outstanding job with a lush wardrobe that aptly suits the wealth and class of the characters. Amy Whiterod’s pretty set design, supported by Dave Soper’s lighting, is appropriately Regency as well as allowing the flexibility to house several locations through rearrangement of furniture.

Altogether, this is a successful adaptation and KAT Theatre production that will please Jane Austen fans and entertain those less familiar with her work.

Brynley Stent’s got Mummy issues. The character, that is! The real Stent, a well-known New Zealand comedian and actor, plays a version of herself in this solo sketch comedy show, set in a therapist’s office over one painful session that costs $200-and-something but thankfully has a good outcome... in the end.

The whole premise of Soft Carnage is highly entertaining. We watch on as Stent uses humour as a coping mechanism, trying to avoid the hard questions by presenting comedy sketches that exasperate her therapist to no end but delight each of us in turn. Especially when we get handed a Cookie Time or bag of Mexicano Corn Chips. Pro-tip: sit in the front row.

As my plus one points out, solo sketch comedy is hard. Stent nails some sketches with massive energy (particularly when she does parkour), slick transitions, and an excellent incorporation of technology, from projections to sound effects to voiceovers by both automated voices and people with voices that sound automated. The best sketches feature super relatable content, like the torturous process of calling the IRD or getting rid of empty tech boxes. My favourites – which I’ve taken the liberty of naming here – are Peeing at Night, Throw it Away (Kids’ Edition), Bake Sale for Carol, and Mambo Italiano. As you can probably tell, this show is absolute chaos and I’m here for it.

Where I think Soft Carnage would really benefit is in the unpacking of some of the poignant themes within. I’d love to see Stent lean into the vulnerable moments, dive deeper into the big stuff. I absolutely get that humour as avoidance is a running theme of the show, so it’s clever that this literally plays out onstage. At the same time, I think the best comedy is the kind that makes you think, makes you feel, maybe even makes you cry as well as laugh. Stent hits the ball out of the park for the laughs, so I can’t wait to see her bounce the baby to the next level. Inside joke.

Welcome to international spies in downtown Welly! Tom (Tamiti) Yelich is the lead character and has recently returned, badly injured, from his time fighting in Afghanistan. His ‘brother from another mother’, Devon, is by his side to help him rehabilitate and work out at the gym. Tom experiences reliving the horrors of war and was told he might not be able to walk unaided again, which makes him more determined. Tom returns to live with his moko (grandfather) in a small and run-down apartment situated in Wellington’s railway station. I’m thinking platform 9¾ as it seems ludicrous to me. Moko saved passengers’ lives once upon a time and the payback is he gets to live here, much to the annoyance of the Kiwirail employee, Mr Dunkell, who tries to evict them. To avoid being evicted they find a bylaw which means they have to set up a business in order to also live there. White Rabbit Investigations is born and has a staff of six no less.

This book includes te reo and Māori culture as the lead characters are Māori. There isn’t much descriptive language or lovely turns of phrase though, reflecting the lead characters’ ex-army background. However, I like stories set in Wellington as it brings them to life for me. But I would have thought Tom on crutches would be an in-plain-sight spy, but he and his crew follow international spies on a skateboard, crutches, and in cars. The spy team includes two youngsters who are good at tech, two older Māori men who know stuff, and Tom and Devon. Between them they form a tight team that also manages to reunite an old lady with her missing cat, in between all the spying high jinks going on around town. Epic!

At the end it says “To be continued…” so maybe White Rabbit Investigations is moving on to bigger and better operations?
Stay tuned…

A city sacked and burned. Families displaced and killed. The world of Troy’s women forever changed. As the Greeks celebrate their victory over a senseless war, the captured women of Troy wrestle with their fate, some perhaps preferring to have died alongside the men while others make the most of their new life working their way up the social ladder from servitude to concubine. The best fate a woman of Troy can hope for is attachment to a Greek soldier, serving his every whim until her dying day for his ‘mercy’. Or is it?

Pat Barker’s The Women of Troy examines the unwritten stories of the women in a world of men; how they survive when they are not wanted or hardly even considered human. Briseis is torn between standing up and keeping her head down like she always has, which elevated her from slave to Achilles’ lover. But how can she love his child she carries when the father massacred her village? Helen suffers the consequences of actions that were not hers by choice. Blamed for the war, the Greeks and Trojans alike hate her; no sympathy from either the men or women, no one to save her. Andromache withers away, dreading the moment in which Pyrrhus, murderer of her husband and child, beckons her to his bed as a prize of honour. Hecuba curses the heavens and attempts to rally the women to avenge Priam and Troy; after all, the women are all Troy has left. Helle, a Trojan slave, is eager to climb the ranks of the camp. Never having family of her own, she is used to fending for herself. Amina, courageous and fierce, refuses to acknowledge her new life and risks destruction.

The Women of Troy is bold, brave, and bewitching. Barker gives a voice to the unheard, unacknowledged, unrecognised narratives of the women of Troy. Every girl, woman, and man should hear their stories.

All life’s a drama, and an even more telling one it seems if you live in an apartment. Home Theatre recounts the experiences of some of those who dwell – unwillingly or unwittingly – in Repertory Apartments, formerly the location of the Wellington Repertory Society Theatre. An intriguing article, purportedly reprinted from the Evening Post of 1922, describes a fire that destroyed the theatre, thus providing a macabre but provocative context for our characters.

The Difficult Art of Bargaining has a husband and wife reluctantly rehousing due to bankruptcy, something the wife cannot help referring to, despite her husband’s efforts to look on the bright side of things. The bargaining of the title refers to a sofa offered to the incoming residents by a friendly chap a few doors along. The ensuing dialogue about the state of the sofa is wince-producing, revealing the characters of all participants. The hint of a hopeful outcome is as welcome as it is surprising.

“Traipsing along the footpath, Emma gave the baguette a squeeze” is an appetising start to It’s Been a Long Time. Emma’s preparing a lunch for long-lost friend Paige and has dared to ask her to bring a bottle of wine. “It’s been a long time since I last touched a drop”. Those of us who note the “dared” realise exactly where she’s coming from! But the lift misbehaves, the baguette is wrecked, and Emma is felled. And Paige, who has bounded up the far safer stairs, eventually succumbs to the gift bottle of vodka she’d brought for the occasion.

Perhaps the most salutary tale is that of Melati, who is seeking the prize of the eponymous title: A Spare Room. The account of her interview by a housing bureaucrat is all too familiar. Myriad questions, seemingly irrelevant, are asked; they receive nervously reluctant answers. “Volumetric reporting was part of her reality” is the nearest we get to a judgment of the clock-watching bureaucrat.

Home Theatre is aptly described as genre-bending, bookended as it is by two lengthy, fittingly fantastical tales.

The Language of Food is where food and poetry intertwine. Ms Eliza Acton is 36 with secrets afoot. Mistress of a boarding house, poet at heart, rising cook, and in the year 1835, she’s considered a spinster at best. Ann Kirby is a scullery maid, soon to be 17. Green around the edges, young and free-spirited, and with secrets of her own, she has come to work for Eliza. Both are very different women bound by a life of service in their own inevitable ways.

Swept away by the nostalgia of a time gone by, Annabel Abbs expertly tells the shared story of the scullery maid who dreams of being a cook, and the other of her mistress, a self-proclaimed spinster from Suffolk who dreams of being a poet – but is told to write a cookery book instead.

Words meld together delectably with Abb’s decadent narration, where the lushness of food and its various states highlight the emotions of two very vivid characters. “My mind, which a few minutes ago was whisked to a foaming peak, goes very small and tight and still. Like a hazelnut.”

When Eliza first meets Ann she is like a breath of fresh air: “her presence has set me alight. She is such a slither of a girl. Like a thinly flaked almond. Her shoulder blades jutting like stunted wings. Her large luminous eyes lighting up from pockets of darkness, like church candles. Her boots peeling away from their soles... And yet she has a palate capable of distinguishing the subtlest of flavours.”

Through a work of fiction, Abbs has bought Eliza Acton, widely thought of as writing the first cookery book for general use, to life in a sumptuous feast of storytelling that may, in the hands of another author, have otherwise resulted in ordinary fare. I thoroughly enjoyed The Language of Food, a tale of an unlikely friendship that brews, bakes, and rests as the twists and turns of ambition get in the way.

The latest horror to terrorise screens around the globe, Smile has really got me thinking: should someone be able to review a film when they had their eyes covered for half of it? That question just about sums up how good – or in other words how freaking terrifying – this movie was.

Smile follows Dr Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) after she witnesses a bizarre, traumatic death involving a patient she just met (Caitlin Stasey). After this incident, she starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can’t explain. When this overwhelming terror begins taking over her life, smiling at her as it does, Rose must confront her troubling past in order to survive and escape her horrifying new reality.

Smile is by no means a genre-defining idea. Plenty of horrors in the past have taken something that is usually associated with happiness – clowns for example – and twisted it into something quite the opposite. However, director Parker Finn and his team have taken this formula and executed it to perfection. From start to finish the story gleefully plays with audiences’ expectations to create some genuinely nasty moments, unpredictable jump scares, and tension-filled scenes. Each upside-down camera shot or suspenseful piece of music is calculated in its use while the seamless transitions mean you can hardly stop for a breath – much like the main character, who is brilliantly portrayed by Bacon. Unlike her friends and family in the film, you can genuinely feel her fear and emotion as you root for the tortured clinical psychologist to find a way to escape from what haunts her.

Smile also plays with some deeper themes, adding depth to the surface-level terror. It speaks to the impact of trauma and the effect this has on mental health. Although somewhat predictable, the action-packed conclusion had me on the edge of my seat. I was taken out of the moment somewhat due to some poor visual effects, but this was just a small blemish in what was a red-blooded crowd-pleaser throughout.

Having never smiled less in my life, Smile is not for the faint of heart. Horror fans however can delight in its jarring story that dances with the smiling face of evil.

What a fun silent show for the kids! My four-year-old (going on 40) son absolutely adores the characters and laughs from his belly as the cast members Laurel Mitchell, aka Mum, and Riley Brophy, aka Dad, start engaging the audience even before the show starts by looking for their oh-so-bored son, portrayed by Damon Manning. The kids all get involved in the hunt and their reactions are so funny.

This KidzStuff Theatre for Children production is suitable for all ages and has every child and parent laughing and participating. It really paints the picture of boring parents and an active, imaginative child. There are some unexpected surprises and tricks that keep you engaged – so much so, that my poor potty-training son almost didn’t go to the loo during the show, because he didn’t want to miss out on anything!

The costumes and props, created by Amalia Calder and David Ladderman, are great and well designed to change with the scenes. Amalia and Chrysalynn Calder did a great job with the sound effects and music, which bring the actions of the characters to life. I also have to mention that the theatre itself is very welcoming and upon entering, you get a whiff of freshly popped popcorn for sale as well as some lollies, and you get a very warm greeting from Tom Kereama. The seating area is versatile, and you have a choice of sitting in rows, along the wall, or even on the carpet right in front of the stage.

I loved asking my son what his favourite part of the show was. He answered that the kite was his favourite. It was pure magic to him, and based on the reaction of the other children, it definitely made an impression.

Why Are My Parents So Boring? is well worth a watch these school holidays!