Oui, oui, c’est magnifique! Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel The Three Musketeers has been brought to life anew in this rambunctious and rollicking romp across the big screen. What’s more, the journey does not end when the credits roll on The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan, because part two – The Three Musketeers: Milady – is also screening across the region as part of the 2024 French Film Festival.

In its first French cinematic treatment in over 30 years, The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan rivals the already impressive ranks of film renditions. Set in the early 1600s, the battle begins with increasing tension between the ruling Catholics – helmed by King Louis XIII (Louis Garrel) and the power-hungry Cardinal de Richelieu (Eric Ruf) – and the rebellious Protestants. The spirited young swordsman Charles D’Artagnan (François Civil) dreams of joining the king’s elite swordsmen known as the Musketeers. Narrowly escaping death on multiple occasions but plunging headfirst into a deep-seated scheme and the fangs of Milady de Winter (Eva Green), D’Artagnan befriends three of the most formidable Musketeers: Athos (Vincent Cassel), Porthos (Pio Marmaï), and Aramis (Romain Duris). Soon he will find himself at the heart of a royal conspiracy upon which hinges the fate of the entire kingdom.

It’s no wonder this was France’s highest-grossing film of 2023. The script? Génial. The sets? Magnifique. The costumes? Trés chic. The performances? Éclatant! Director Martin Bourboulon’s extravagant €70 million production cuts no corners when it comes to depicting lavish courts or swashbuckling battles, but at the same time does not compromise on either subtleties in dialogue or nuances in performances. In fact, the film strikes the perfect balance between the robust ebullience of a Hollywood blockbuster and the delicate subtlety of a French arthouse picture.

The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan advances first with intrigue, parrying with romance and using humour as a feint, before delivering a final blow through unrestrained and exceptionally choreographed action. Dumas’ sharp text slices through The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan, with contemporary touches slashing across the screen to formulate a perfectly coordinated attack au fer. Strike while you can, and allez to The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan!

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.

Thea is the central character and narrator of this work. She sets the tone and mood of it in the following passage: “I am on maternity leave, which I seem to have taken to with the spirit of an angsty chihuahua.” A vet who specialises in large animal work, she has a husband, two children, and friends with their own troubles too.

She is struggling with priorities, and her tale relates an intense strife to maintain roles, all too often in the face of male condescension. It may not be a fresh complaint, but here it is enlivened by a pervading contrasting of Thea’s work as a vet with her other work in the domestic and family arena. She’s busy palpating rams, enquiring after a bull, and euthanising an elderly cat on the one hand, while contending with piles of laundry, a testy husband, and demanding children on the other.

That’s all in the Before section. The After is dominated by the eponymous ash of the title. Something has erupted – and it’s not just the mountain. The metaphor of disturbance pervades the narrative from now on. There is growing impatience with the men who run the veterinary clinic she works for. The clinic is operating remotely, and the husband is working from home. The tension is palpable.

Interspersed through the book are texts created from other sources. These lend an esoteric aspect that some readers will struggle with. A lengthy notes section acknowledges them.

Intelligence is supposed to be an advantage, but author Louise Wallace makes it sadly clear that intelligence encompassing an awareness of a woman’s place in things and its consequences can only lead to frustration and anger. How did women manage in earlier times? Ah, that can be learned from the musty books purchased at op shops by Thea’s mother-in-law and left handily about the place.

Ash will make angry women angrier. Those of us not yet angry may become aware that eruption is a possibility and, in the face of personal reality grown mountainous, even welcome.

Author Liza Frank states in her introduction that Everyday Folklore: An almanac for the ritual year is “Not your traditional almanac in that it doesn’t provide the times of the tides or the phases of the moon. It does, however, include information about each day that will help you to navigate your way through the year from New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve regardless of what the year actually is.”

The almanac begins with a folklore key that can be tied to any day of the year, spanning a range of animal, food, plant, and weather lore. Plus, apotropaic magic and the supernatural, calendar customs, celebrations or festivals, competitions, divination, fixed dates or anniversaries, love, luck, the moon and stars, moveable dates, remedies, rituals, and rules. 

The almanac is split into months, each with five categories alongside it: birthstones, flowers, star signs, full moon names, and shopping lists. The shopping list blends everyday things alongside what sounds like ingredients for spells. For instance, the month of June has St John’s wort, lemon-scented soap, sickles and candles, hemp seeds, and nine keys.

Each day of the month includes a snapshot of folklore and a suggestion of something you can do. For example, the 25th of April mentions Anzac biscuits as part of Australia and New Zealand’s food lore. Or the 20th of September simply says to take note of the weather today, tomorrow, and the day after, as from that you’ll be able to predict the weather for October, November, and December. Or that the 27th of November is Pins and Needles Day and what you should do as part of the remedy. 

A resource you can reuse throughout the years, Everyday Folklore: An almanac for the ritual year doesn’t require you to use it daily or even monthly. It’s a way you can brighten your day, learn something, and perhaps even try something new like a chant to reveal who your true love is.

Pav Deconstructed: Pavlova through the eyes of everyday Kiwis is literally an anthology of all things oriented towards the humble pav.

Authors Jac Jenkins and Kathy Derrick – two serious pavlova aficionados who set up their own publishing company, Pavlova Press, to get Pav Deconstructed out into the world – give rise to the iconic dessert. Whether pride-of-place centrepiece of the Christmas table, or standard fare as a housewarming-cum-barbeque offering, wherever it appears, however it’s consumed and experienced, pavlova has a rich history and argue-worthy origins (it’s Kiwi, of course!).

If it’s about a pav mishap, or where family and festivities collide, Pav Deconstructed offers a unique trove of tales where pavlova has played its part. There’s the cat who got the cream, the priest and the pavlova, and the first pav on Mars. With its fruity and pastel-pink cover, Pav Deconstructed is like a walk through the bizarre.

For the cheesy at heart, there’s an included fridge magnet that screams: “You’re the cream on my Pavlova.” In Pav Deconstructed, the art and the kitsch intertwine – pavlova, poetry, pop art, and consumption – in a weird and wacky way. There’s even a song sheet, should you feel inclined to whip out your ukelele for an impromptu serenade to your next pavlova. Whether it’s pavlova the colour, pavlova the style of dress, or pavlova the cocktail, it’s all in there.

There’s no rhyme or reason to many of the stories shared. Some will regale you with the fate of the common pav: down the loo for one, just for it to stubbornly resist and float in all its meringue-like glory. Another will tell you the time that adding aquafaba spelt disaster. Seemingly everyone has an opinion on the pav. Soft, gooey, and fluffy, with the perfect amount of meringue on top… so perfect in fact, you may just want to sing a song to it.

In Pav Deconstructed, Jenkins and Derrick plunge headfirst into pavlova, convinced it is more than just a dessert. “It brings people together,” they say.

Set six months after Bennett’s last novel Better the Blood, Return to Blood finds the series’ heroine Hana Westerman living a quiet life in her childhood home of Tata Bay.

Since her last adventure, Hana’s left the police force and is trying to reconnect with the extended family she left behind. But while she may not be a police officer anymore, it is not long before she is dragged into a new mystery.

Return to Blood is such a great read and has everything I love in a sequel: more thrills, more fun, and most importantly, a greater sense of danger. This time, Hana does not have the cops backing her up, and instead finds herself relying on her wits and resources to bring the book’s killer to justice.

Just like in Better the Blood, the characters make the book a joy to read. Not only do they come to life as if leaping off the page, but the ones we already know and love have evolved and grown since I last met them.

Once again, Hana is the star of the show, this time evoking hints of Tom Selleck in Magnum, P.I. as she runs a parallel investigation alongside the police. And once again, we get to spend time with the book’s suspects and see them as more than just villains. We see them as people – real, genuine people. Bennett’s use of prose is as impressive as ever, and Hana’s latest story keeps me glued to the pages till the very end.  

One of my favourite aspects of Return to Blood is that we don’t only spend time with the bad guys, but with their victims as well. Getting to know them as people and then discovering what happens to them eventually is like a real punch to the gut and draws me closer into Hana’s world.

If you love crime drama and need something to distract you this winter, I cannot recommend this book enough.

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.