In my concert experience this year, I can’t imagine that anything will eclipse this performance of Bartók’s opera, Bluebeard’s Castle.

The work calls for a large orchestra stacked with percussion, brass, woodwind, and fewer strings than one might have expected, and two singers, a dramatic soprano and a dramatic baritone. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra was on fire throughout the performance with immaculate, precise but emotional and intense playing. Lester Lynch from the United States was Bluebeard and Susan Bullock from England was his wife, Judith. Both had glorious, unforced, effortless voices. Unlike much romantic and dramatic opera, their parts were not florid or ornamented. The rhythms were speech-like and their diction was excellent. Bartók’s orchestration is extremely well matched to what is happening on the stage and to the ebb and flow of the feelings of the characters. The conductor did a superb job of uniting the performance.

While the music performed was as composed, the tale was not. The original interpretation of a fable is a ghastly tale of a woman in love with a man about whom horrible rumours abound. Nevertheless, she demands that he releases to her the secrets of his life. Her entry into his castle ends with her discovering his three dead wives, whom she joins.

This production, however, is an astonishing and powerful reinterpretation of the story, recast by the UK-based Theatre of Sound to centre on a loving couple whose lives disintegrate when Judith is affected by dementia. Surprisingly, the original libretto fits the new scenario convincingly. The audience sees and feels the memories, the love and tenderness, the frustration, loneliness, fear, and anguish the couple experiences. The acting was strong, sensitive, and subtle and the effect compelling and harrowing.

Altogether this was an outstandingly rewarding performance, musically, dramatically, and emotionally.

We have been bombarded with media surrounding the release of the much-awaited Barbie movie. From billboards to press tours, bus-stop posters to teaser trailers, from Dua Lipa’s hit song Dance The Night playing on our airwaves to the infamous “She’s everything. He’s just Ken” tagline posts.

Love it or hate it, I’d like to officially extend a very warm, aggressively pink welcome to Barbie Land… no, not to you Ken.

Barbie Land is a dream. The streets are lined with Barbie Dream Houses – did I mention the streets are pink? The clothes are impeccable and beautiful, the weather is always sunny, the Barbies and Kens are perfect and perpetually happy, and every day is the best day ever. Until Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) starts having thoughts about death and her feet go flat. What ensues is a riotous, eye-opening, world-changing, mind-blowing adventure into the real world for both Barbie and her Ken (Ryan Gosling, who steals the show).

It was hard avoiding spoilers, so if you have succeeded thus far, I will let you discover this plastic fantastic world for yourself. But that’s easy, because the true heroes of Barbie are not the dolls but the production team. Sarah Greenwood’s production design is so meticulous, so perfect, so utterly researched it should be deemed the eighth wonder… okay maybe not, but the entire team ensured every detail in Barbie Land is essentially a replica of the actual toys. I offer the same praise to Jacqueline Durran’s costume design. The amount of work that these two departments must have done to achieve the end result is simply mind-boggling.

Director, producer, and writer Greta Gerwig, a feminist icon of our generation, has outdone herself yet again. Barbie is a satire, a tribute, a critique, an adventure, and everything in between. It is so self-aware in its simultaneous championing and condemnation of consumerism, beauty standards, gender roles, existentialism, and more. A new addition to the feminist canon, the mere existence of a movie like Barbie means we have made leaps and bounds as a society. It has its flaws, of course, but it’s fun, it’s beautiful, and it has something to say.

This Barbie highly recommends the movie.

Three varied and striking 20^th century works, early compositions by young Englishmen, featured in this concert. As conductor Marc Taddei pointed out, they were a riposte to the recent, wonderful all-German concert.

A prophecy forecasting his death was delivered to Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, after blaspheming against the God of Israel. The narrative of William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast was unfolded by Orchestra Wellington, a 28-strong Wellington Brass Band, the Orpheus Choir, and baritone soloist Benson Wilson. It was a dramatic, fast-moving, and very loud tale that kept the audience rapt. The stars, I thought, were the choir. Whether singing over the top of large instrumental resources, or unaccompanied, they negotiated tricky harmonies and a range of dynamics with assurance and sensitivity. The well-prepared brass band added colour and depth. Wilson’s voice is smooth and rich but a bit lacking in drama, perhaps, for the part.

The grief of a passionate pacifist in the face of WWII is the essential quality of Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto. The solo part is fiendishly difficult in speed, dynamics, and fingering and bowing techniques. This is an austerely beautiful work. Both orchestra and soloist Amalia Hall delivered technically, musically, and emotionally.

Thomas Adès’ first orchestral work …but all shall be well is a curious work exploring meandering musical lines within a somewhat fuzzy and subtle soundscape without significant climaxes. It is just as well that it opened the programme, or it might have been overwhelmed by the power of the other works.

Briar Prastiti, a young woman of mixed Kiwi and Greek heritage, was commissioned to write a work for Orchestra Wellington. Ákri is an exciting debut orchestral work that conveys the dilemmas of being on the edge (ákri) of two cultures. It is all of sweet, moody, bold, delicate, soaring, and dramatic. Congratulations to Orchestra Wellington for their initiative, and for another compelling performance.

Written in 1982 at the height of Thatcherism in the UK, Top Girls is Caryl Churchill’s landmark feminist lament on motherhood, women in the workplace, ableism, and individualist versus collective thinking.

Bel Campbell’s new production for Wellington Repertory Theatre wisely treats it as a period piece with 80s staging and costuming. Some of the script inevitably feels dated, especially in the second act in an uncompromising, female-run recruitment agency where other women are considered only worthy of secretarial jobs in cosmetic and knitwear firms. However, the final act in particular – where estranged sisters argue about politics and the disabled daughter of one of them suffers because of their unresolved conflict – feels very relevant to contemporary societal divisions.

All of the highly competent cast, except Rachel McLean as central character Marlene, play multiple roles and do it with skill, cleverly adapting their voices and bodies to each part. A highlight is Shemaia Dixon’s Dull Gret, a devil-battling warrior woman painted by Bruegel in 1563, who says little but eats a lot – principally everyone else’s food – in the opening scene of a celebratory dinner. Susannah Donovan’s Pope Joan is also entertaining as she relates a hilariously horrifying story of giving birth in the middle of a street parade, then gets progressively drunker and can’t remember her Latin.

The T-shaped, three-quarters set (Sam Hearps) provides an intimate space for tough themes and allows the cast to deliver the many asides to the audience in the first act. However, it does give them challenges in terms of projection, particularly with many overlapping lines in the script.

The pink-based lighting design (Jamie Byas) works well and the sound design (Campbell) containing songs of the era effectively maintains the 80s vibe. Wardrobe (Carol Walters) is era-appropriate, although the odd lining and petticoat would stop manmade fabric sticking awkwardly to pantyhose.

Overall, this is a strong production of a difficult play, and all involved should be commended for taking it on.

There’s an ominous feeling when you walk into the Hannah Playhouse theatre, as Robin Kakolyris (Girl) stares out to the audience ­– a feeling much akin to the anticipation of a storm. What follows is a hurricane of poetry, heartbreak, and love so tumultuous that even as I am writing this review, I can barely do such tragedy justice. Birthday Book of Storms explores the many faces of the inextricably linked writers Sylvia Plath (Anita Torrance), Ted Hughes (Phil Roberts), and Hughes’ lover Assia Wevill (Tania Lentini). The play fictionalises Plath and Wevill’s cataclysmic undoing of their relationships with Hughes.

All of R. Johns’ sentences are crafted masterfully, with the play reading as a poem does. One could compare it to violently ripping a page out of Plath’s work. For me, the monologues are the most impactful aspect of the script. They uncoil the characters, revealing nuanced, wonderfully tragic human beings in their most vulnerable states. All the performers strike each word with utter conviction, revealing the bare bones of these damaged people.

It must be noted that Roberts looks strikingly similar to Hughes, as if his ghost is haunting us through the play. Torrance as Plath and Lentini as Wevill provide powerful depictions of these historical figures.

I find it clever how the lighting (designed by Natala Gwiazdzinski) emphasises potent emotions felt by the characters. I do however wonder if adding music to the heartfelt moments would add to the tension. I also feel that the production would benefit from an intermission to allow the audience to recoup their thoughts after such intensity, especially as there is a perfect moment in the narrative for this.

Carefully crafted, complex, contradictory, and compelling, Birthday Book of Storms has it all. This play doesn’t drizzle, it torrents – an intense tempest of the lives of such beautifully broken people. Make sure that you book tickets now before the storm passes.

Local choir Note Bene has turned up to Soundings Theatre without really knowing why. Indian Ink Theatre Company told them to learn a bunch of specific songs for a play, and when they arrive, they’re shown onstage and cast as office workers. Finding their way through the network of brightly coloured cubicles (set design by John Verryt), they sit down at their new desks and try to look busy until a cue from musical director Josh Clark means they can finally burst into song.

What a concept! Dirty Work is set in a modern-day office, where Joy (Catherine Yates) is cleaning in the wee hours before overzealous office manager Neil (Justin Rogers) arrives ahead of schedule. Next, Zara (Tessa Rao) walks in with the whole team (Nota Bene, with singers from other Wellington choirs) in tow. But Joy still hasn’t finished cleaning, all the computers are missing, and the company director (Jacob Rajan in a knockout audio performance) has just Zoomed in with a to-do list that’s way above Neil’s paygrade.

Remarkably, Nota Bene looks perfectly at ease – you can hardly tell they’ve got no clue what’s going on. Incorporating physical theatre into his performance, Rogers expertly portrays a subtle shift in his character’s perspective in the final scenes. Rao navigates a similar character arc with aptitude and aplomb, while Yates brings the house down as the lovable, no-nonsense Joy.  

You could certainly expect chaos incarnate from this play. But I leave the theatre marvelling at how cohesive it all is, how Rajan and Justin Lewis have entwined Dirty Work’s themes so seamlessly throughout, even how natural its absurdist elements feel (due credit here to director Lewis for conducting the action as masterfully as Clark conducts Nota Bene). This play doesn’t spoon-feed its audience pathos. Even with a choir, it doesn’t use music to tell you how to feel. It doesn’t hit you on the nose with its underlying message. With self-love as its beating heart, it’s an entertaining but tender exploration of finding your place, your worth, and your identity amidst the relentless grind of the nine to five.

A story about a brother and a sister biking together to a party, Long Ride Home explores a complicated relationship between siblings who have had bitterness and resentment build between them.

The stage is empty except for two bicycles which are placed apart from each other, each facing the audience. They are held in place by devices clipped onto the back wheels (set design by Squash Co. Arts Collective with support from Sam Griffen). With a stage this empty, actors Anna Barker as Cate and Dylan Hutton as David do a great job setting the scene with their physicality as they ride the bikes in place, changing gears and straining to show when they are biking up a hill. The imitation of biking on a stage has comedic value, but more interestingly, it places the characters in an exposed situation where their frustrations can pour out honestly.

The scenery is further evoked by an effective soundscape of traffic noises (sound design by Esteban Jaramillo) and spotlights that rise and fall on either bike to show us when one of the siblings disappears from the scene, riding ahead or falling behind (lighting design by Squash Co. Arts Collective with coordination by Julia McDonald). The coloured lights and music in the background when the characters arrive at the party are also a nice touch.

While the brother and sister biking onstage together is an interesting image, I find myself wanting the performers to make more of the opportunities they have to interact with each other in the space, as many of the lines feel as though they’re being delivered inwardly rather than to their scene partner. However, Barker does a fantastic job of selling what her character is going through internally, particularly in her facial expressiveness in the awkward silences throughout the play. Hutton similarly peddles the right mix of cockiness and insecurity for his character.

Discord between adult siblings is a compelling motif, and Long Ride Home captures the relatable feeling when grievances get in the way of making amends, even with the people we’re supposed to be closest to.

Created by James Nokise and Anya Tate-Manning, Public Service Announcements (PSA) is Aotearoa’s longest-running political satire. When I caught my first one back in 2017, I was practically apolitical but still found it accessible because it’s totally nonpartisan and parodies every politician in da House. It sparked the conversation for me and my interest in New Zealand politics in turn. So, going into my third campaign (read: show) with a slightly firmer grasp, I agree with co-writer Johanna Cosgrove’s statement that each edition feels “more urgent and unhinged” than the last. Our political landscape is interesting right now, and for PSA, mistakes mean pisstakes.

In Election 2023, Carrie Green, Tom Knowles, Simon Leary, Jamie McCaskill, Sepelini Mua’au, and Tate-Manning bring MPs from Labour, National, Green Party, ACT, Te Pāti Māori, and New Zealand First to party on a stage resembling a grownup playground (a knock-your-socks-off set by Daniel Williams). Thanks to Helen Todd’s distinctive, RGBY lighting design and Williams’ costume design – the brilliance of which is highlighted in turbo costume changes during the final scene – audiences never lose sight of who’s speaking when. We do lose some lines on opening night however, so ear-splitting is our own laughter.

Onto the funny stuff then. (The whole show is the funny stuff, but alas, word count.) Oliver Devlin’s sound design sees the flighty Greens introduced to the White Lotus theme song, and Labour to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Red Right Hand (a stroke of genius). How did Leary’s lips chap instantaneously as Chris Hipkins? McCaskill’s Winston’s Song is still stuck in my head, as are Carrie Green’s hilarious outbreaks of Te Aroha as Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. Mua’au’s three-fingered “Hi”s as David Seymour; Knowles’ Sméagol-esque Christopher Luxon; Tate-Manning’s cannibalistic Judith Collins on mute… There are too many highlights to list, and they’re all fire. The meta references woven throughout, especially to Gavin Rutherford’s appropriately inappropriate directorial decisions, are the honey on the Beehive for me.

Whether you care about politics or you don’t give a coup, take a seat at PSA for a rollercoaster riot this election. They’ve got my vote.

As a COVID lockdown project, author Tainui Tukiwaho set himself two wero (challenges) when writing The Sun and the Wind: make the hostage genre surprising again and find an interesting way to use a gun in a show. In answer to his pondering in the programme, I agree that he has admirably achieved both.

An older couple, Hūkerikeri (Julie Edwards) and her catatonic husband Rangi (Tukiwaho) are having a lacklustre birthday party for their son. However, their son isn’t there and it quickly transpires that it’s the introduction to a murder-suicide pact between the couple. This is where the gun comes in. The hostage part begins when Hūkerikeri is foiled in shooting her husband by the sudden arrival of two young would-be thieves, Hihi (Joe Dekkers-Reihana) and Kate (Tuakoi Ohia).

As the following drama unfolds, laced with Tukiwaho’s trademark humour, many themes are revealed: grief and loss, childhood trauma and abuse, parent-child relationships, abandonment, guilt, jealousy, desperation, idealisation, and a spiritualism that raises the question of reincarnation versus simple wish fulfilment. It’s a lot to unpack in just 70 minutes, but the strong cast delivers this heartbreaking story with power and grace, each fully inhabiting their well-formed characters and delivering an emotional king hit.

The simple set (Tukiwaho) of two circles of flooring and a small dining table and chairs gives enough space and variety for the ebb and flow of the action, and is sensitively lit (Katrina Chandra). The sound design (Eve Gordon) is also notable with its poppy 60s music that has poignant underlying meaning and an ever-present thunderstorm rumbling menacingly under the action.

The Sun and the Wind is a challenging but compelling watch. The cleansing kōrero and karakia performed by the cast at the end is a beautiful touch and allows the audience to exit the theatre with a sense of relief from the confronting themes of the play. As all good theatre should do, it leaves much to digest, deliberate, and discuss.

Da-da-da-dum. Da-da-da-dum. This famous start to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is often played portentously, seen as “fate knocking at the door.” In this performance it was over in a flash, signalling that this was to be a very high-energy version of the symphony. The rhythm of the motif is continually integrated throughout the first movement. It underlies or breaks into quieter passages of lyrical music which seem to wish to console the listener, only to be taken over by another strong and urgent climax.

In more subtle form, the motif continues through the other movements. The second and third movements are more lyrical but still punctuated by dramatic sections using the full resources of the orchestra. I feel like I hold my breath through these movements. Though quieter than the first, for me they have a suspense about them which is only resolved with the exuberant sense of triumph of the last movement.

At the same time as he was writing the Fifth Symphony, Beethoven was writing the Coriolan Overture. It also is a dramatic work with typical big contrasts of pace and power. It tells of Coriolanus, the Roman general who planned to punish his own people and sack Rome. His mother beseeches him to give away his terrible plans. The music beautifully contrasts his heroic and ruthless character with her gentle maternal entreaties. The work ends with his suicide.

Commissioned for Beethoven’s 250^th anniversary, subito con forza by Korean Unsuk Chin completed the programme. Its opening copies the Coriolan Overture’s and then reflects an aspect of Beethoven which Unsuk Chin particularly likes: “the enormous contrasts from volcanic eruptions to extreme sensitivity”. The words beautifully sum up the concert.

I’d think that Maestro André de Ridder is a wonderfully dynamic and demanding conductor to work under. The ever-good NZSO was in especially excellent form.

While not generally a fan of jazz, I thoroughly enjoyed the jazz idioms of this concert. From the enthusiastic applause throughout, I’d say the whole audience absolutely loved it.

The concert evidenced an attempt by American composers over many years to achieve some integration of the spontaneity and soundscapes of traditional American jazz and blues music with classical forms. The concert opened with Bryce Dessner’s 2020 work Mari, followed by George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and Wynton Marsalis’ Blues Symphony (2009).

Mari (Mari being the Basque forest goddess) was notable for its textures and sonic washes punctuated by small bites of more distinct sound, the whole evoking a forest, peaceful but teeming with buzzing, budding life. Rhapsody in Blue starts with a stunning glissando on the clarinet, which is then joined by trombone, horns, strings, and saxophone before the piano makes its entry. These beginnings are magical and the magic never stops. The music is, by turns, teasing, marching, thundering, lyrical, luscious, and spunky. It is irresistible. The piano soloist was Australian Simon Tedeschi, romantic, nonchalant, and virtuosic to suit the moment.

The Blues Symphony is something else again. It is huge: seven movements, an hour long, and alive every minute. It traverses several aspects of American music – jazz, blues, rag, and Latin dance. Horns, trumpets with wah-wah mutes, bassoons, saxophones, clarinets, and a variety of percussion, including hand clapping, provided much of the colour and drama. The strings were less dominant than in most classical compositions, but the double basses were in the thick of it and looked like they were having a ball.

André de Ridder was vigorous, emphatic, and expressive in his conducting, and a joy to watch as he danced his way through the programme. He could be well pleased with the orchestra’s performance.

The opening notes of Tōru Takemitsu’s Rain Tree ringing delicately through the blue light bathing the stage set the scene for a beautiful and evocative programme. The tuned bells, each allowed to resonate in response to each other, signalled the moment rain began to fall. The bells gradually gave way to marimba, xylophone, and vibraphone, sometimes solo, otherwise in combination, suggesting the different patterns and sounds of rainfall on leaves, or creating ripples in a pond, or a more intense shower hitting the ground. Under changing lighting effects, the three percussionists had the stage to themselves yet filled the auditorium with highly picturesque sound.

Continuing the visual element of the concert, conductor André de Ridder described John Luther Adams’ Become Ocean as “an art sound installation with an orchestra”. de Ridder explained the orchestra was organised, more strictly than is usual, into three distinct sonic groups. Firstly, the strings, augmented with four harps, piano and celeste, then woodwind, and lastly the brass, the density of the sound they would produce being essential for the composer’s intentions.

While the work itself is highly structured, the impression on the listener was much closer to the experience promised in the title. The layers of music surrounded us with waves growing and breaking, a strong undertow and incredibly deep water, ripples on the surface, light moving across the distant view, conflicting energy where currents run in different directions, the rise of the waves before they break, and the rolling, barely restrained energy of a deep ocean swell.

They say we all associate with one of the elements. I think those of us who are water people were truly at home in this piece. It was an immersive and all-consuming experience. The mathematical precision of the composition perhaps evidence of the theory that all things in nature, including the sea, have an order we can describe in art.

When you’re drowning in debt, struggling to keep the whānau ‘home kills’ business alive, starting a family, and don’t even have money to buy toilet paper, you resort to drastic measures. In Haydn Butler’s Home Kills, screening this Whānau Mārama International Film Festival, brothers Tom (Cameron Jones) and Mark (Josh McKenzie) find a solution by switching livestock for human lives.

I have to be honest and say that Home Kills didn’t feel like a comedy to me. I’m a huge fan of dark comedies, so it’s not that I just didn’t get it. I’ve seen almost every Coen Brothers movie, I watched In Bruges with utter glee, The Banshees of Inisherin was delightfully unhinged. I went into Home Kills thinking it belonged in the genre, and while the central premise is great and there were a few funny lines, I just didn’t catch myself laughing all that much.

Perhaps it’s because I didn’t feel much sympathy for the protagonists? Though that’s common in the genre. I felt for Tom in the beginning since he was dragged into the mess by Mark, but by the end I think I wanted them both to pay their dues. That said, I’m not mad that I disliked them. McKenzie’s Mark is possibly one of the most unsympathetic characters I’ve ever encountered… and I kind of loved it. He truly has no redeeming qualities. He’s selfish, irritating, infuriatingly impulsive, and McKenzie does a bang-up job.

I was also struck by Alex Jenkins’ cinematography. The film is beautiful both in composition and setting, the light captured as brilliantly as the grungy, dank shadows. Furthermore, there were some innovative shots and angles. In a scene where the brothers flee a bar, the camera angle looks as though Mark is holding a GoPro up towards his face, the action in the background. It’s exquisitely stressful and adeptly builds tension.

Home Kills is a fresh romp through rural New Zealand from a different perspective. It was a bit grim at times and would have benefitted from more tongue in cheek, but it’s another quality Kiwi caper to add to our already impressive books.

Compelling programming, three superb soloists, a committed orchestra, and a dedicated conductor made this an outstanding concert.

A quasi-piano concerto in Richard Strauss’ Burleske, a quasi-symphony in Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, and a work so outrageous in 1912 that people hissed its debut, Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra, made up the programme. Jian Liu was the soloist in Burleske, while Oliver Sewell and Hadleigh Adams were the tenor and baritone soloists respectively in Mahler’s song cycle.

Burleske was written by Strauss at the age of 20. It is an exuberant, one-movement work, hugely challenging for the soloist. Throughout there was a bit of a dialogue between the piano and, of all things, the timpani. Several times, the work seemed to reach an extravagant finale, only to have the timpani intervene and set the piano off again. The timpani had the last word, as it had the first. Liu’s restrained and modest presentation belied the magic of his hands and fingers. Liu presented a solo encore which was as delicate and introspective as Burleske was sparkling and virtuosic.

Schoenberg’s short pieces sparkled in a different way. It feels nervous, unsettled, and unexpected, with instrumentation choices creating varied textures and timbre, complex soundscapes, and different moods. Tuneful it is not, and the effects are most often fleeting and splintered. Orchestra Wellington got into it with gusto, and it was certainly no hissing matter.

Das Lied von der Erde is a supremely emotional work, addressing Mahler’s concerns with nature and mortality. This work also demands much of its soloists. Sewell was sometimes drowned by the fullness of the orchestra, but the quality of his voice and interpretation was never in doubt. Adams brought great emotionality to his performance, and in the final movement, Der Abschied (The Farewell), his performance was intense and very moving.

Club Sandwich is a monthly comedy night that serves up the city’s freshest comedians on a silver platter, sandwich style. Our headline act – the meat, if you will – is Taskmaster NZ star David Correos, who is sandwiched by local comedy ringleader Jerome Chandrahasen and award-winning storyteller, writer, and actor Sameena Zehra. After some introductory banter between the three, each comedian performs a solo 20-minute set to the capacity crowd.

It all starts with Chandrahasen, the perfect opening act. His crowd work is exceptional, particularly when dissing our responses (in a friendly way). Speaking of friends, Chandrahasen is really good at making new ones when out drinking. His Shrewsbury biscuit anecdote is my favourite of the evening. Warm and golden like cookies fresh out the oven, his comedy is as Kiwi as it gets, with plenty of yeah-nahs, ois, and genial profanities that we lap up and gobble down, bellies full of laughs and hypothetical bikkies.

Zehra covers the big stuff – gender, race, religion, politics – and concludes her set with a bang: a story about the best sexual harassment she's experienced yet. Sharp and artfully crafted, her material includes a tasty morsel about confusing the bigots of the world. With a decidedly more laid-back, quietly assured delivery style, she serves as a grounding anchor between Chandrahasen, whose manic energy is a 10, and Correos, whose manic energy is… um, infinite.

At one point, Correos makes me fall out of my chair. He charges onto the stage like a bull in a china shop, tearing up the place, sending it harder and harder, bucking wilder and wilder, crunching fragments of broken porcelain beneath his hooves and practically frothing at the mouth as he impersonates a fish, a mime, and a Filipino dad whose grasp of English slips in stressful situations. It’s frantic, frenzied, feverish, frenetic. It’s cataclysmic chaos. It’s the epitome of lesh gooo. I’ve never seen anything like it. And my God, I loved it.

Lydia Ko will go down in history as one of South Korea and New Zealand’s (let’s share her) greatest golfers. But as the saying goes, a person is only as great as the people behind them – the ones who believe in them and put in the hard work to see that belief turned into reality.

In the beginning, those ‘people’ had one name: Guy Wilson. For those unfamiliar with Guy, he was the man who took Lydia under his wing and coached her when, as a five-year-old, she accompanied her mother to the Pupuke Golf Club. While they got off to a shaky start (Lydia did not know much English or about golf), it was not long before Guy was building up her confidence and fostering her love of the sport.

With a foreword by former Prime Minister Sir John Key, an avid golfer himself (and one who scored a hole in one for the Make-A-Wish Foundation in 2022), Guy Wilson Creating Golf Excellence is essentially an analysis of what makes sportspeople like Lydia such a pro, and what steps she took earlier in her career. Bruce Miller interviews several greats in the golfing world and through them we find out that golf is more than just hitting a little white ball into a hole. Instead, we discover it is part-physical, part-mental, and requires a huge amount of commitment from the player and their coaching staff.

The author’s writing is clear, simple, and a pleasure to read. The only downside is that, unless you are familiar with the sport, some of the terminology may pass over your head. It’s not a big negative and I still enjoyed the read, but it might be something to consider. However, if you love golf, want to get into it, are after some tips to improve your game, or want to learn more about Lydia and Guy’s early process, then I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

If the cover of this book is anything to go by, the poems therein will be puzzling and require more than a second look. So far, so mysterious.

Hannah Mettner introduces herself in her first poem, which is titled after the book and refers to “a long and winding story that neither starts at the beginning nor finishes at the end”. That neatly captures the definition of saga: a story of heroic achievement, especially in Old Norse or Icelandic. Indeed, Mettner’s Scandinavian roots predominate in a sometimes curious, sometimes quizzical, and often humorous fashion.

I don’t usually have much patience with long poems, but Birth Control had me from the start. Its preface references the so-called virgin birth of an anaconda, and here’s our writer visiting the Vatican and worrying about “the small T-shaped thing” inside her as she “walks through the metal detectors and bag check”. Chilling. The rest of the poem is hardly a celebration of women and their ability/duty to bear children, but it’s horrifyingly accurate. “If men can’t explain a thing, they call it witchcraft and destroy it.”

Breakup poem at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki is a delightfully wry reflection on ending a relationship. Backgrounded by Gretchen Albrecht’s and Frida Kahlo’s paintings, our poet can’t contemplate the Frida and Diego kind of love, and comments “This is a high stakes way to break up – being psycho- / analysed via text in a terracotta-red room / with a thousand painted old people looking down on me / from their gold frames.”

I find myself glorying in Butch era, in which Mettner describes herself thus: “One perfect pair of new trousers / and suddenly I’m in charge.” She flirts with the bartender, cats and women flock to her, and her phone autocorrects ‘butch’ to ‘b*tch’, but she don’t care.

Poem while watching the world burn demands my attention even though I wish it didn’t. It’s realistic, frank, and saddeningly prophetic.

This poet has important things to say, and she says them remarkably well – it’s a sagacious accomplishment.

“We have measured our days by the sun, and now there is no sun.” 

What does society do when people take up too much room? What do we do with their violence? How do we treat what we cannot explain? Pip Adam strives to figure out these questions in her latest novel Audition. Audition is part-science fiction and part-social realism, flipping between the past and the present. 

Alba, Stanley, and Drew became too big of a problem. Like everyone else who grew too big (literally) to control, they are sent to space. Audition begins with the three characters on the spaceship, unsure if they’re all one being as they try to think their own thoughts and remember anything. The lack of memory and individualism is gripping, but the author lingers too long in the grey areas and the introduction loses its impact. 

When we’re swung out of the spaceship and back into the past on Earth, new life is breathed into the work. Crashing back down to reality reveals shocking truths and evokes that familiar feeling of dread we get when science fiction hits a little too close to home. Is this how society could end up? We see Alba’s past and her connection with both Stanley and Drew, and how they came to be in space. We see the impacts of hate and violence. Fear turned to anger, submission, and the desire for invisibility. 

The dream-like, sedated states of the giants shows the impact of power in the wrong hands. I’m still not sure how the space exploration ties in or what it means, and the end of the novel does little to clarify things. But as the wool is pulled off over our eyes, as layers of time reveal why each character ended up in this position, it’s clear there aren’t obvious answers to the questions Adam is posing. Audition makes you think outside of the box. You’ll question how crimes are dealt with, and how we value the lives of others.

Nanny Jo and the Wild Mokopuna | Nani Jo me Ngā Mokopuna Porohīanga is a poignant tale: one of sadness, celebration, and whānau. Local author Moira Wairama incorporates traditional oral storytelling into her children’s book, which sees Nanny Jo gently weave the significance of Matariki into her mokopuna’s lives by sharing the story of the great fisherman Taramainuku and Te Waka o Rangi.

“Each night Taramainuku sails his canoe Te Waka o Rangi across the sky”, Nanny Jo says. “It’s hard to see his waka in the darkness, however if you find the right stars you will know where it is. Look for the stars of Matariki as they are at the prow of the waka. Look for the stars of Tautoru, as they are at the stern of the waka.”

As Taramainuku sails Te Waka o Rangi across the sky, he drops a great net down to the Earth; the spirits of those who have recently died are invited to climb into his net. For a while, the stars of Matariki and Taramainuku’s waka disappear, but one winter morning the stars reappear, guiding Te Waka o Rangi back into the sky. Taramainuku flings his net high into the sky and the spirits who have travelled with him become free. Some become stars, some return to Hawaiki, and some journey towards the great unknown.

“This can be a sad time, but also a time to celebrate as the return of Matariki and Te Waka o Rangi marks the beginning of the Māori New Year,” Nanny Jo explains.

Nanny Jo tells the story to comfort her mokopuna when she dies. I am reminded of the village it takes to raise a child as Nanny Jo’s whānau cloak her and her mokopuna in their care – taking the children to the park, the river, the bush as she becomes more weary.

Margaret Tolland perfectly conveys a sense of connection and belonging through her illustrations. The ‘wild’ mokopuna seem just that: free, adventuresome, and spirited.

Nanny Jo and the Wild Mokopuna is a moving dedication to Joanna Huriwai and to all the women who battle breast cancer.

Prisencolinensinainciusol. If you haven’t heard this Adriano Celentano song before, I recommend you scurry over to YouTube stat. It’s central to director Emanuele Crialese’s newest film L’immensità, screening in Wellington as part of Whānau Mārama New Zealand International Film Festival.

Having grown up in Italy, I’m familiar with Celentano and the song. He’s an icon and often considered the man who brought rock and roll to Italy. A trailblazer of the 1970s – a period of enormous turmoil, political upheaval, and change in Italy – Celentano was authentically himself. Prisencolinensinainciusol is a song that sounds like English but is complete gibberish. Its theme is the inability to communicate. It’s one thing craving to be something else, and in doing so, becoming something in between.

L’immensità follows 12-year-old Adriana or Adri (Luana Giuliani), the eldest child of three who identifies as a boy and begins to increasingly assert his trans state. Meanwhile Adri’s mother, Spanish expat Clara (Penélope Cruz), struggles to cope with her marriage to an abusive, cheating man. Unable to express themselves, both Clara and Adri feel trapped. Their relationship grows closer as their burdens increase. Celentano’s hit song frames the pair perfectly.

Production designer Dimitri Capuani and costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini had a field day recreating the vibrant absurdity of 1970s Italian style. From furniture to clothes, the colours are vibrant, the forms fanciful – a stark contrast to the inner turmoil of our protagonists. There are inserts of Cruz and Giuliani recreating scenes from famous Italian songs that provide a nice break from the intensity.

There is a lot to unpack in L’immensità, but at the same time I feel there were many moments that merely touched the surface, never delving deeper. So much happens, yet nothing ever changes – life shifts into limbo. With Italy, it’s virtually impossible to speak of something in an isolated way. As a region that has history dating back more than 3000 years, everything bleeds into everything else. A people so influenced by our ancestors and what came before, everything is connected. How can you include it all? Perhaps this immensity, l’immensità, is exactly the feeling Crialese wanted to capture.