Music Portrait of a Humble Disabled Samoan paints a vivid picture of its lead creative and performer Fonotī Pati Umaga. Bold and brilliant brushstrokes layer live music, storytelling, dance, and visual design upon the blank canvas of Tāwhiri Warehouse, set up as a theatre-in-the-round with Umaga at its heart. Around him, five performers (Mere Boynton, Paris Tuimaseve-Fox, Lavinia Lovo, Albert Latailakepa, Faithleen Tou) and four musicians (Meka Nehemia, Hayden Nickel, Andy Mauafua, Isitolo Alesana) circle, each dedicated to helping him share his story. Above him hangs a large screen, a white drum lampshade across which celestial lights dance (Jane Hakaraia) and projections play (AV content by Delainy Jamahl, Ella Dove, Josiah Wood). The faces of the people who have shaped his life swim overhead like stars in the sky.

The story starts in the 70s, spiralling galactically through Umaga’s adolescence to the fall that left him tetraplegic at 46 and the battle with depression and addiction that followed. Through music, faith, and force of will, Umaga emerged victorious. Today, he is a respected leader and advocate for the Pacific and disability communities.

Under the direction of Maiava Nathaniel Lees, Music Portrait of a Humble Disabled Samoan is a masterclass in balance. Achingly painful moments – such as the cast’s seated, writhing dance (choreographer Neil Ieremia) to drum and bass music – cause sharp inhalations across the audience. A collective breath is held. Then, perfectly timed humour is injected into the dialogue (Oscar Kightley). Umaga laughs – tender, gentle, such strength in his vulnerability. We release, soften. In these instants of ease, our lungs deflate. They are buoyed once more by uplifting, stunning harmonies (musical director Matuaitoga Posenai Mavaega) or the joyous interaction of instruments as we watch Umaga rediscover bass – a scene that will stick with me forever and that I did not want to end.

As we experience the highs and lows of Umaga’s journey, it feels as if we, too, are cared for by everyone onstage and behind it. Music Portrait Collective (creative producer Sasha Gibb) possesses a meteoric passion for Umaga and his story. It beams through in every second of this production, as bright as the star map that lights his way.

I anticipated reading James Brown’s latest collection with something approaching glee. Two of his earlier collections had given me expectations and they happily turned out to be justified.

The poems are all prose, so there are no titles to go by. The opening one echoes the collection’s title with its mention of broomsticks: “These are effective until their ends begin to fray and snap, creating more debris than they clean away.” But no, our poet doesn’t go on to praise vacuum cleaners! A much graver metaphor is at hand.

Later we get a poem that seems to be about a thimble. Such an unassuming object can be symbolic, however, and the poem goes on to explore this and ultimately its impact on a young girl. Brown’s typically short sentences here enhance effect.

Further poems consider second-hand goods, give job interview tips, describe a peculiar characteristic of horses, and tell us about the Palmerston North version of the game monopoly. I knew Palmy would get a mention: Brown can’t resist a reference to his hometown.

But I was stopped short (if you’ll excuse the pun) when the poet addresses the reader thus: “You were a semicolon in the last printed edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica which ran to 32 volumes.” Brown goes on to lament the lack of printed editions of such tomes. As a semicolon, you gave the reader a chance to consider two connected but discrete ideas, he points out, something sadly lacking in these new all-too-digital days. The final simile here is devastating: “You have been hurried past and swing like a hook and eye between two seams coming apart.”

I can only guess why babies are so much on Brown’s mind. But they figure in several of the concluding pieces, along with their namesake films. Well over a hundred are referenced: I’m sure our poet would appreciate acknowledgement of Zak, who was obviously at his back.

There’s a rhyme in that last sentence. James Brown may be short of them, but that’s prose for you!

Gloria – A Triple Bill brings together six dancers each from New Zealand and Australia in a triptych of contemporary dance works for the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts.

The first work, Lament, is a world premiere choreographed by The New Zealand Dance Company artistic director Moss Te Ururangi Patterson with a startling original musical score by Shayne P Carter. It reflects on memory, resilience, resistance, and the enduring spirit of Aotearoa through the performers from The New Zealand Dance Company. In loose, comfortable-looking outfits (Chantelle Gerard) and with fluid and dynamic choreography, they are mesmerising to watch as they bring whakapapa into visceral being under elegant golden light (Mark Haslam).

Part two, A Moving Portrait, is an equally engrossing meditation on aging and vulnerability choreographed by Co3 Contemporary Dance Australia founding artistic director Raewyn Hill. Moving to the haunting beauty of Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa Ludus II. Silentium, the Co3 dancers are deliberate, slow, and intimate in their gestures and interactions, flowing over and around one another in diaphanous white costumes (Akira Isogawa) that emphasise the collective nature of the piece. With moments of tenderness and grace, then gentle resistance and even violence, it’s another visually absorbing piece. Haslam again provides beautiful illumination, with the whole work being performed in the confined space of the soft light from an elongated doorway.

The final piece, GLORIA by renowned New Zealand choreographer Douglas Wright, is a joint performance by both companies. It’s accompanied by a contingent from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dr Joseph Nolan, and a 16-strong Voices New Zealand choir led by chorusmaster Michael Stewart, who masterfully perform Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria in D Major RV 589. This dance work speaks to the stages of life through a series of short pieces featuring recognisable moments from playful childhood with a human skipping rope, to two young men locked in a wrestling match, sensual procreation, and more until, finally, death. More expansive than the two previous works and with a looser synergy between classical music and modern choreography, this work was less intensely engaging than the first two, but no less successful as a glorious example of contemporary dance.

Two-time GRAMMY^® Award-winning male vocal ensemble The King’s Singers have been wowing audiences around the world since 1968. They return to the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts after knockout performances in 2014 and 2018. The gold standard in a cappella singing, they have a back catalogue – as we learn during the performance – of 2776 songs ranging from medieval madrigals to modern masters of jazz, pop, and more. In this performance, one of the last for Christchurch-born baritone Chris Bruerton, we’re treated to the full breadth of their capabilities in a programme of two distinct halves.

Appropriately for the cathedral setting, the first half was entitled Angels and Demons and centred on these popular figures of Christian iconography, alongside the Virgin Mary and Christ. Using these four symbols plus Geoffrey Poole’s dramatic Wymondham Chants written in the 1970s for inspiration, this section collected together choral music from over 500 years to explore the light and darkness of the human experience.

The King’s Singers’ exceptional timing and purity and balance of tone shone through in all the diverse pieces, especially so in the third part of the Demons section, William Byrd’s Miserere mei Deus. Here, each voice perfectly delivered the complex and elegant six-part harmony into a sublime whole. Geoffrey Poole’s epilogue Blessed Jesu was performed partly in the cathedral’s ambulatory, giving it a stunningly ethereal quality.

Following a fun reworking of the overture to The Barber of Seville, the second half was devoted to the group’s favourite arrangements of gospel, jazz, and pop songs, including the most requested in their library, Billy Joel’s And So It Goes. They chose two songs particularly for Wellington. The first, called Whina Said, was composed by Robert Wiremu for the group and beautifully reimagined speeches by Dame Whina Cooper. After a long and hugely deserved standing ovation, they finished with a delectably arranged encore of Pōkarekare Ana.

Fully living up to their reputation for unrivalled technique, musicianship, and versatility, The King’s Singers delighted and excelled yet again.

Wellington rock legend Julia Deans received news none of us ever wants to hear: that she had a stage 4 malignant tumour in the roof of her mouth. For a consummate chanteuse who has built her life around her voice, this news was cataclysmic. Deans’ not-yet-released album Goliath traces her personal journey with cancer from diagnosis to recovery and lays bare its highs and lows in raw-edged song.

With an inauspiciously late kick-off, which Deans ascribed to “the monkeys in my brain telling me it was an 8 o’clock start”, we were underway once the hastily summoned latecomers – including the other two-thirds of Fur Patrol – had scurried in. The muttered grumbles from the row behind me soon turned into murmurs of empathy as Deans began her story. While ruggedly truthful, Goliath is a passionate ode to the people she met along the way, her friends and family, medical experts, and her fellow wayfarers.

Ranging from aching ballads to fiery rock, each song describes a waypoint along the emotional road of cancer that will be familiar to anyone who’s travelled it or supported someone who has. For those lucky enough to not be among the one in four who will experience cancer first-hand, Goliath is an education in resilience.

With unbridled authenticity, Deans held her audience captivated. Clearly, the disease that could have ruined her career was successfully obliterated as her vocal range is exceptional, soaring from throaty rock notes to soft soprano to a Julie Andrews opera moment. With just her guitar for accompaniment, the stripped-back songs and vivid commentary in between revealed for the first time in public the weight of what Deans has been through.

Pushed forwards on the large Tāwhiri Warehouse stage, the intimate performance was augmented by beautifully responsive interpretation into NZSL, large pot plants, and lovely lighting that vibed with the emotions of each song.

Goliath and Deans’ honest delivery of it demonstrates wholeheartedly that the cancer ‘battle’ is so much more nuanced than that cliché can ever express.

The Great Hall of Massey University adds another layer of grandeur to this Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts show. From the high ceilings to the great acoustics, we are fully immersed in the multimedia performance of Voices at the End, which offers a social commentary on our shared future and the present day through the use of composition, the written word, and cinema.

In the hands of London-based pianist Dawn Hardwick, Greek New Zealand composer John Psathas’ compositions – the titular Voices at the End and Second-Hand Time – come to life. Psathas’ score encapsulates key emotions, from sardonic undertones to all-encompassing dread to a heartfelt sense of hope. 

The pieces take us on a journey through the present and potential future. The musical performance works well on its own, yet pairs perfectly with Kenyon Shankie’s film and visual works. Both are timed impeccably; when urgency is presented visually, we can also hear it through Hardwick’s performance. 

Voices at the End will move you and get you thinking about not just the world we live in, but the world the next generation will inherit. It provides us with a sense of immediacy to take action whilst instilling hope that we can endure the ever-increasing impact of conflict and climate change in the present day. The production raises critical concepts we should all consider, such as how violence has become entertainment and the idea of citizenship in today’s world. My one criticism is that during the first act, it becomes difficult to read the text that is set low down on the screen, as it is sometimes obstructed by other audience members. 

This is the only planet that we inhabit in the entire cosmos, and if we destroy it, we may never find another place to call home. Voices at the End begs us to make haste to enact change, but not in a way that is overwhelming. It is a wake-up call that I hope everyone can experience.

Khalid Abdalla’s astonishing solo work Nowhere melds the personal and playful into the roar of unbearable injustices across global and historic scales. Rooted in his involvement in the 2011 Egyptian revolution and the counter revolution that followed, Abdalla weaves parallel narratives of his patrilineal history, global colonial dynamics, and the friendship he formed with a fellow artist lost to pancreatic cancer.

A core value of the work is the reclamation of play and creativity, both as personal necessity and a force for resistance. Abdalla embodies this sense of possibility. His physicality is impeccable across naturalistic acting, stylised movement sequences, technical tricks, and gorgeous, bashfully vulnerable dance sequences (choreographer Omar Rajeh).

The production features the most cohesive integration of projections (video designer Sarah Readman), live filming, and shadow work (lighting designer Jackie Shemesh) that I have seen. Importantly, these techniques resonate in a story invested in documentation, filmmaking, visual art, and resistance through online content. This means the form does more than support the material, it enacts it, creating a highly functional and coherent storytelling world.

Surrealism threads through the piece, evoking the unbearable stagnation of political hopelessness, and creating strange-wondrous avenues of escape. Abdalla looms over landscapes, is crushed in his Cairo flat, and dwarfed by crashing waves. He is subjected to his viciously critical inner monologue on loudspeaker (sound designer Panos Chountoulidis) and plays his father and grandfather conversing with each other about political imprisonment alongside English subtitles.

Pacing is expertly managed, with lightness and quiet breaking up the intensity. At one point we are invited to look under our seats, where we each find an envelope containing a mirror, pencil, and paper. Abdalla encourages us to draw ourselves by looking only into the mirror, letting the hand roam without correction. Donated drawings will join drawings from audiences around the world as part of a wider art project.

Gradually, more didactic passages develop, but these feel earned. Alongside regimes, colonists, and genocides the work insistently holds space for beauty, grief, love, and play at the scale of the individual.

This Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts sees the return of a powerful chronicle of the spiritual and cultural trauma of leaving home. Hone Kouka was commissioned to write Waiora Te Ūkaipo – The Homeland for the 1996 festival and its revival now is as deeply personal, emotionally affecting, and relevant as it was then. It’s become a landmark piece of Aotearoa New Zealand theatre exploring the impact of colonisation, urban drift, and the tension between past and future that feels prescient in the current political climate of this country.

Set in the summer of 1965, the narrative concerns Hone (Regan Taylor) who has relocated his family from the East Cape to the South Island in search of a better life for them through his job at a sawmill. His wife Sue (Erina Daniels) holds everything together while older daughter Amiria (Rongopai Tickell) creates havoc and Boyboy (Te Mihi Potae) tries his best to please. As they gather near a beach for a birthday hāngi for their withdrawn youngest daughter Rongo (Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne) with two Pākehā guests (Ben Ashby and Mycah Keall), secrets, heartbreak, and cultural tensions bubble to the surface and burst in ways that will ripple through their lives forever. Watching, responding to, and echoing the emotional ebb and flow of the day’s events are four tīpuna (Anatonio Te Maioha, Awerangi Thompson, Huia Rawiri, and Mathieu Boynton-Rata).

Working on Mark McEntyre’s cleverly sculptured set under Natasha James’ brilliantly responsive lighting design, this cast is electric. Their family dynamics are clearly communicated through sharp characterisations and their rendering of Kouka’s crackling dialogue. They particularly shine during the muscular waiata and haka (composer Hone Hurihanganui) that weave through the story to punctuate the emotional climaxes. Ngatai-Melbourne’s singing voice is sublime, and her thread of the story stitches the whole together until it profoundly squeezes the heart of its audience.

As Kouka stated before writing the play: “Everyone is from somewhere else.” Waiora Te Ūkaipo – The Homeland is for all who have ever felt dispossessed.

Tonight, the lofty pastel interior of Wellington Cathedral is transformed by a roiling haze of dry ice and shifting colour. SoundCathedral marks the 40^th anniversary of The Tudor Consort with an immersive performance installation of remarkable scale. It brings together 56 musicians: The Tudor Consort directed by Michael Stewart, the taonga pūoro collective Rangatuone Ensemble conducted by Riki Pirihi, and Stroma alongside organist Max Toth and bellringers Dylan Thomas and Jamie Ben.

SoundCathedral reimagines Orlande de Lassus’ Prophetiae Sibyllarum, a cycle of 16^th‑century motets known for their curious harmonic tensions and eccentric chromatics, features that make them feel experimental and cutting edge even to modern ears.

Promotional materials encouraged audiences to wander the cathedral and experience the soundscapes from multiple vantage points. But when we arrive the nave is tightly filled with seating, and moving would require disturbing rows of people. Musicians occupy the aisles, but it is unclear whether the audience may enter their space. With no mention of movement in the welcome address, all the audience I can see remain seated.

Following a karakia and karanga, the choir enters through the central aisle, layering fragments from Lassus’ opening motet, material that blossoms in a cathedral. Subsequent movements stretch and reframe the originals, drawing out new colours.

The most compelling moments occur when voices and instruments venture into the unfamiliar: quiet throat‑singing from a walking soloist, the whirr of porotiti and pūrerehua, breathy winds billowing around the ceiling, a saxophonist clicking keys behind us.

Often, the deconstructed choral passages drift into meditative inertia. I suspect being able to move and find variations of resonance and distortion in the space would have kept these sections vivid. The range of taonga pūoro utilised is wonderful but I didn’t feel that the composition meaningfully integrated these instruments into the overall architecture of the work.

In the finale, the cathedral bells sound as if from another century, astonishingly distant and ethereal. The hefty, almost menacing organ is wondrous, but we are given barely whiffs of it before returning to ennui. I feel that, tantalisingly, a sublime experience has just escaped us.

Saksham’s Magical Madness is exactly what the title suggests: a 60-minute magic show that is indeed madness. A master of illusion, Saksham Sharma presents us with a multitude of tricks, some of which could confound even the most avid magic enthusiast. From classic sleights of hand with cards to predicting the future through drawings, this show has something that I am sure will pique the interest of all viewers.

Our magician in question is incredibly charismatic and charming, hooking us in from the moment he walks on stage until the moment he leaves. It is satisfying to see how many people he involves to participate in his tricks, including myself. Equally, it is refreshing to see all ages enjoying the show. There is loud cheering and clapping throughout, no doubt a reflection of the joy the audience feels.

Saksham also reminds us that even though machines are rising up around us, they cannot take wonder away from us; we can still choose the joy that magic brings. This is what epitomises the show: pure joy. Magical Madness is engaging and entertaining the entire time, making us want more. At the same time, it is not your ordinary magic show. There are no rabbits coming out of hats, nor are there people sawn in half. Instead, Saksham uses technology to his advantage, utilising even our own cell phones to perform his tricks. The use of lighting and projection (show design by Saksham and producer Taruna) heightens the tension and excitement, which builds and builds right up till the explosive grand finale.

I am in awe of the final act and how it ties the entire show together, from the disappearing key and note to the drawings of the elephant. This New Zealand Fringe Festival show offers a fantastic night out that you won’t want to end. Ensure you get tickets to Saksham’s Magical Madness before it disappears from The Hannah.

Three wardens (Joel Baxendale, Stella Reid, and Hannah Kelly) are in charge of 230 strangers with only half a day’s training and a bag of onions. The lycanthropy outbreak has begun. You have been summoned to the local shelter, along with other members of your community to wait for the all-clear. The containment period is one week and the nights are pitch black. As the threat outside takes shape, the atmosphere inside begins to turn.

Inspired by the classic game of deception, Werewolf is a gripping blend of thriller and comedy that pulls you into an interactive world of suspicion, survival, and nervous laughter as part of the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts. Your pandemic information booklet contains a piece of information or behaviour that you can include in the overall narrative if you wish (the tinfoil hats in the back row are a brilliant touch). The organic action stems from game elements and a semi-improvised script, which heroes the audience within a broader plot surrounding the relationships between the three wardens.

The assured cast keep the story moving, deftly responding to the audience’s interjections and reactions, and providing distinct characters to variously love or hate. Eight audience members are called on to fulfil specific roles, with Daniel the timekeeper and his whiteboard becoming a favourite.

A deceptively simple set (Lucas Neal) of supposedly werewolf-proof silver curtains, a plastic tunnel entrance, and some convincingly military-looking equipment trunks is all that’s needed to turn Circa One into Safehouse 656. Neal’s lighting design makes excellent use of comforting orange for the safety of daylight, total blackout for the dread of night, and violent strobing pulses for the resolution.

The star of the technical show is Oliver Devlin’s surround sound design that fills the black nights with gunfire, screams, creepy voices, and a pounding heartbeat that makes the very fabric of the theatre vibrate.

Thrillingly funny and creepily immersive, Werewolf is a tantalising tease to your senses and guaranteed to send shivers down your spine.

I’ll admit at the outset of this review that I have a distinctly positive bias towards useless facts – especially when interlaced with delicious comedy. On that basis, I’m always likely to look favourably on a performance like this one.

It helps that New Zealand comedian O’Sullivan is immensely funny, driven by a punchy and energetic style. He has created a fast-paced script, supported by slides that accentuate the delivery and set the audience up for laughs from the start. Without giving too much away, we’re entertained by the English nickname for people from Hartlepool, the national animals of England, Scotland, and Wales, and O’Sullivan’s take on the most quintessentially British landmarks.

Of course, it’s difficult to do a show containing facts without at least one person in the audience knowing the answer to the questions he raises. O’Sullivan’s use of the audience to augment his performance is masterful. He doesn’t let our involvement in the narrative overpower, instead balancing and blending it into his carefully crafted storyline, barely missing a beat as information comes thick and fast from the audience that is then incorporated into the comedy.

The show itself is clearly premised on the widely known ability of Great Britain’s populace to reflect on their own culture and laugh at themselves. There are more than a few British expats in O’Sullivan’s audience. On this basis, there is indeed some risk in the material; it is unlikely that A Complete Idiot’s Guide to Putin’s Russia would land with the same effectiveness. It’s a reflection on his considered writing that the comedy never crosses the line from humour to insult, nor does it rely on negative personality tropes.

Interactive, intimate, and informative, O’Sullivan’s New Zealand Fringe Festival performance of A Complete Idiot’s Guide to Britain offers an entertaining journey across Great Britain with a different perspective.

Imperfect, reverent, and poignant, Mythosoma invites us to feel, to reach into those wounded parts of us and be open. This theatre and dance piece is beyond interpretation, not because it is too high brow, but because each audience member will have their own extremely personal reaction. I have no doubt that this is its uniting factor; that trauma affects us all differently.

This piece does not try to be perfect, but rather to illustrate the visceral feelings that occur after heavy-hitting moments that words fail to describe. Humour is used tactfully and tastefully, planted in the right moments to preserve emotional momentum. Under Kelly Nash’s direction, the production settles but also stirs in unexpected ways. 

I am in awe of how Nancy Wijohn, Jada Narkle, Georgie Goater, and Caleb Heke move; the way they twist, turn, and navigate the memories their bodies hold. Every movement enthralls. We are called to lean in as observers, not to interpret what is placed before us. Likewise, Moana Ete’s narration and vocals provide a sense of grounding, of realisation and revelations. All five of these performers work as one, yet they tell their own stories. 

With production management and design collaboration from Rob Larsen, we are presented with a scenographic delight. Each lighting state draws us closer to the performers as well as our own feelings. The soundscapes are raw. The combination of lighting and sound results in an evocative experience for our eyes and ears. 

I was moved to tears by this piece. Be warned that it may take you on a powerful and possibly painful emotional journey, but the feelings that linger after and the healing you might undergo will make it entirely worth it. Mythosoma brings to life how we feel in our bodies during and after moments of impact, a task that Body Island – Motu Tinana achieves with flying colours where very few have been able to. Kia toa, Mythosoma.

What a sparkly, sassy, spectacular way to open the 2026 Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts! Since 2008, Australia-based Briefs Factory have redefined cabaret with their own brand of queer subversion. With The Works, they thrust open their archives with a dazzling, daring, and delicious celebration of flesh, flash, and flourish.

For a gold coin, you can buy raffle tickets at the start of the show with the promise of a fabulous prize to be won. As suspected, that prize turns out to contain more than a little cheek – and I don’t mean the ones on your face. If naked tush makes you blush, this show ain’t for you! If it makes you whoop and holler for the beauty and sensuality of the human form, then this show definitely is for you. From feathery stripping drag numbers to burlesque trapeze over a bathtub, this is a glorious and gasp-inducing display of circus, comedy, crooning, and choreography. Sit in the front couple of rows and you’re literally immersed.

Kitty Bang Bang lights up the room with her whiskey-fuelled fire-eating routine; her flaming nipples need to be seen to be believed. The Evil Hate Monkey jumps through fiery hoops, bounces en pointe in a sparkly yellow tutu, and does obscene things with bananas that give eye-popping credibility to the full-frontal male nudity warning in the pre-show email. NASTIA’s hand balancing, Captain Kidd and Benjamin Butterfly’s aerial antics, and Serenity’s heel-wearing tumbling astound as much as Hollywood Star’s vocals and progressively revealed body inspire. And, Fez Faanana, exactly where do all those red flowers come from?

Joining these top-notch performers from Australia, London, and New York are local ballroom troupe, House of Marama. Their powerful gothic routine is a stunning introduction to this US Black and Latin-inspired Rainbow Pacific subculture for those unfamiliar with the local scene.

All the above is accompanied by a thumping dance soundtrack, intricate costumes, and bold haze-enhanced lighting.

Don your best briefs and get on down to the factory for the full works!

The Night Ali Died is a gripping story beautifully told. Pre-show, we see a single central chair, with two distinct piles of clothing in each upstage corner. This simple staging creates opportunity for the sole actor, Christopher Sainton-Clark, to shine.

And shine he does.

Each character in this criminal drama recounts the events before and after the death of mild-mannered chemist Alistair (‘Ali’). As they unpick the events of that fateful night, each offers their own back story and perspective. From drug lords to detectives, motivations gradually come into focus.

For Alistair in particular, this is a simple and honest account that invites reflection on who matters in our lives – and the role we might play in theirs. Chances are, our actions or character make each of us a hero to someone. In this story, Ali’s actions define him as a hero to the daughter he will never know. Yet the invitation to reflect never feels like lecturing; it remains, first and foremost, a compelling story.

Sainton-Clark uses mime to accentuate key elements; from the recoil of a gun to the grip of a knife, we are left in no doubt as to what has occurred. His multiple characters are sharply differentiated through mannerisms, movement, and speech.

The technical precision of this production is almost cinematographic in nature. It’s as if we’re watching carefully constructed scenes from a movie, but performed live in one slick, classy ‘take’. Lighting cues, including the use of brief blackouts, heighten the drama, while sound and music reinforce the mood (collaborative design by Sainton-Clark, director Rosanna Mallinson, and technical lead Daisy den Engelse). A minor quibble is the placement of sidestage curtains allowing an open view of backstage. I say minor because once the performance gets underway, I never take my eyes off the action on stage.

Wellingtonians have experienced something special with this limited two-night run of The Night Ali Died. There’s still hope for audiences in Christchurch, Oamaru, Nelson, and Dunedin over the next few weeks.

Decadunce is a frenetic, energetic, multi-layered romp that offers a merciless skewering of consumerism and excess.

Briscoes, Harvey Norman, and Uber are featured, with the focus of the satire less about the companies themselves and more about their target customer demographics. Lorenzo’s persona as a Harvey Norman salesman notes that all of their couches look like they were designed in 2001, while Uber’s younger generation customers have no money to their name, but still prefer the service to using their legs. And as for the Briscoes lady… I will never hear “You’ll never buy better” in quite the same way ever again.

As consumers, regardless of age, stage, or demographic, we are all roundly and hilariously lampooned.

Lorenzo offers a masterclass in audience engagement, with direct eye contact and energy that is irresistible. His stage performance is well supported by a striking set that offers superb functionality through its simplicity, and a soundtrack of energetic beats that reflect his own performance while keeping the buzz alive amongst the audience.

It is the clever integration of all those technical and creative elements that create the underlying energy for this show. Of course, we might expect that of every performing arts show, but it’s the sheer variety of those elements that make Decadunce something special. Lorenzo uses movement and dance, singing, voice, and caricature, beautifully integrated with sound, light, and stage. His talent is there for all to see, and the satire is generally well focused and targeted.

There are a couple of moments in the script that feel unnecessary. Satirising individual politicians is one thing, but making a personal slur against one within the show detracts from the wider satirical nature of the script. It’s clear that Lorenzo has the talent to create the satire without resorting to insult; maintaining the satire would have offered far more scope for humour.

Regardless of my personal status as an unabashed capitalist, this was a great night out. Energetic, biting, and seriously funny, it left me wanting to see more.

They say you can make a poem out of anything. Jenny Bornholdt’s recent collection bears this claim out – balancing banality of content with whimsicality and a fine appreciation of the everyday world. And I welcome her relatively simple language.

In Forecast, the lines “High pressure / and one weak front.” preface a brief but apt comment on the opposing nature of things. Worry opens with the poet’s state of mind before describing her concerns about disturbing stick insects, remarking about dogs “that veered like thoughts / into a tiny experimental / forest,” and recalling her mother’s preoccupation with the gardens of the world. I loved Spring with its delight in vegetables and the interspersing of flowers and birds – all so true to nature.

Mail is an amusing comment on our times – in this case the potential complexities of receiving letters. The poet’s mother lives in a retirement home, but somehow or other mail for the whole family ends up in her mailbox! “Soon after, we move there. All of us. It seems easiest. We have each other and mail comes as regularly as meal times.” remarks our poet philosophically.

For those who appreciate the esoteric, The London Painters should be a satisfying read. It’s a so-called found poem. For the uninitiated, a found poem is a creative work composed by taking existing words, phrases, or passages from non-poetic sources to create a new poem. In this case, more than 20 names are referenced – some painters and some not – of which I was familiar with perhaps half a dozen. A poem about painters that presents an intellectual challenge to readers.

The title Poem with a hole in it recounts an actual hole that needs to be dug for practical purposes, but our poet can think of only one use for such a deep pit: fill it with words. And she does! It’s a useful vocabulary lesson enshrined in literary form.

As for the collection’s title, we’re no better off, but then neither is our poet!

With the highly talented people involved, I had high hopes for this production and it didn’t disappoint. Once Upon a Time in Homowood is a hilarious and deliciously realised celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community.

As the show’s publicity blurb states, “cinema and theatre are vital for queer people to see themselves represented both in explicitly queer texts, as well as queer-coded works”. Hear, hear. To that end, Once Upon a Time in Homowood creates a fan fic of what would have happened if Jack from Titanic was a soft butch. How about if Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond transitioned and Hollywood ditched her? What if Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin kissed in The Social Network?

These three ‘original scripts’ by Cassandra Tse, Jamie Cain, and Matthew Loveranes are delightfully irreverent of Hollywood tropes and place their new, playfully queer plots front and centre. The characters and scenes we know and love are joyfully parodied by an energetic seven-strong (with the emphasis on strong) cast of Ruby Carter, Rachel McLean, Zachary Klein, Mike Bryant, Lincoln Swinerd, writers Tse, Cain, and Loveranes, and stage manager Julia Bon-McDonald in a delightful cameo. Under Cain’s highly creative and fast-moving direction, they all have standout moments, as well as forming a seamless ensemble. Klein’s tight-lipped Cal Hockley in Titanic, Bryant’s manipulative Max in Sunset Boulevard, and Tse’s idiot Winklevoss twin in The Social Network are just a few of the many highlights.

Lucas Neal’s brilliant set consists of HOMO writ large like the Hollywood sign across the full width of the Dome stage with each letter containing fantastically clever pop-out sections that create specific acting spaces. All sound is provided by the cast. Special mention to Tse for providing the beautifully sung soundtrack of classic Hollywood themes. Jacob Banks’ hardworking lighting design under Ruby Kemp’s skilled operation ties the whole performance neatly together.

Come to Once Upon a Time in Homowood and have a gay old time this New Zealand Fringe Festival!

Independent Auckland-based theatre company The Rebel Alliance has adapted its award-winning stage production into an illustrated radio play. The Valentina follows eight-year-old Ellen as she travels through space alongside notable figures who have ventured beyond Earth, such as Neil Armstrong, Yuri Gagarin, and Laika the Dog.

This show has a great New Zealand flair, hitting the mark perfectly with a humour that most Kiwis will be well familiar with. This is not only thanks to director Anders Falstie-Jensen’s incredible script, but also to the vocal performances by Talia Pua, Ross McCormack, Bronwyn Turei, Wesley Dowdell, and Kevin Keys. The actors’ voices are crisp and clear, bringing the vibrant characters to life.

John Verryt’s illustrations add a whole new colourful dimension to the story, providing a visual way to ground us in the narrative. I am mesmerised by the illustrations of space. The vivid sound design by Sean Lynch further stirs my imagination. The visual and aural elements work in tandem to create an experience so immersive, I feel like I am also a crewmember aboard The Valentina. The new format therefore supports the crux of the piece: that we should feed our imaginations and dreams.

There is a perfect blur of science fiction and reality at play here. The Valentina is both educational and entertaining. Fact and fiction are clearly delineated, but this doesn’t stop me wishing all elements were true… I would only dream of visiting Vitanonan X!

Easily accessible and universally appealing, The Valentina can be appreciated by adults and children alike. It is a feel-good piece, daring us to let our minds run wild and reach to the furthest depths of space. Be sure to watch this illustrated radio play before it blasts off to galaxies unknown. Fly like a toroa and get tickets to the online event this New Zealand Fringe Festival.

I haven’t read the book, but I can say with certainty that those who have will very likely not be pleased with this liberal adaptation of Emily Brontë’s groundbreaking novel Wuthering Heights. Smut-centric BookTok, however, will go absolutely feral.

A tale of lust and longing, madness and macabre, “Wuthering Heights” captures the storm of passion that ricochets between the somewhat-of-status Catherine Earnshaw (Margot Robbie) and servant-of-sorts Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi). From brooding glances to unspoken yearning, roiling anger to frenzied passion, bottomless despair to utter depravity, this film is truly a romance of epic proportions played fervently and intensely by its leads.

For an idea of what might await the viewer, one must only look at the poster: the clinch pose familiar from bodice-ripper books signals explicit passion and historical spectacle. Director, writer, and producer Emerald Fennell’s adaptation is designed to be as shocking to today’s audiences as Brontë’s would have been in the 1800s; it aims to disturb, disgust, and arouse.

Suzie Davies’ production design dances equally between two worlds: one decadent and hedonistic, the other stark and severe. It’s rich in symbolism and verging on surrealist, with not-so-subtle visual cues reflecting the inner turmoil of the characters. It’s certainly not afraid to depart from historical accuracy. Composer Anthony Willis crafts a soundtrack equally anachronistic, but no less fitting. Filmed on the desolate and melancholic moors the tale is famous for, Linus Sandgren’s cinematography is a visual feast that hungrily devours Catherine and Heathcliff’s insatiable appetites.

However, by leaning into the carnality and romantic aspects of the story, Fennell’s adaptation compromises what makes Brontë’s so great. The novel is not a romance, perversion is not sought, what Catherine and Heathcliff share is not the kind of love one yearns for. Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” – despite being much more explicit in a sense – will never reach the depravity of the original. Nor will it ever achieve the depth that made Brontë’s tale groundbreaking.