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

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

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

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

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

Olivia Wilde’s most anticipated film as a director yet, Don’t Worry Darling was a tale of two halves that had the potential to be a lot better. However, thanks to some outstanding performances, glamorous cinematography, and unique twists, I still found myself thinking about the film days after watching.

In the 1950s, Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack (Harry Styles) live in the idealised community of Victory, an experimental company town where the men work on a top-secret project daily. While the husbands toil away, the wives are free to enjoy the seemingly carefree paradise. But, when cracks in her idyllic life begin to appear, Alice can’t help but question exactly what she’s doing in the ‘perfect’ little town.

I didn’t enjoy the first hour of this film. The mid-century decor, candy-coloured cars, and picturesque homes make for pleasant viewing but the story itself was frustrating as Wilde and her writers tried way too hard. I felt like their only goal was to remind me that Don’t Worry Darling was a psychological thriller through a barrage of consecutive scenes intended to shock me. Instead, many of them fell flat and seemed unnecessary. Comparing this to a masterpiece of the genre such as Jordan Peele’s Get Out where the hair-raising revelations are subtly revealed in between scenes with substance, it simply felt amateur.

Just as I was about to write it off, Don’t Worry Darling suddenly had me on the edge of my seat. This turnaround was mainly thanks to the brilliance of Pugh – who supplies another characteristically strong and layered performance – and a gripping finale that ends with an outstanding final twist (don’t worry, I won’t spoil) that I would argue was well worth the wait. The longer, more dialogue-heavy scenes gave fellow star Chris Pine the chance to show he plays an equally good villain as he does a hero while Styles proved he has what it takes to shine on both the big screen and stage. The eerie score by John Powell continually added to the building pressure.

Although I’ve had more trouble deciding whether Don’t Worry Darling is good or bad than I would like, psychological thriller fans should definitely give it a chance.

I’ve been staring at a blank screen most of the day and still can’t find words that would do A Boy Called Piano justice. How do you write a review when you’re speechless?

This Conch production follows three boys, Piano (Matthias Luafutu), Wheels (Rob Ringiao-Lloyd), and Piwi (Aaron McGregor), who are made wards of state and sent to Ōwairaka Boys’ Home in Auckland 1963. As director Nina Nawalowalo says, “this is the first time the experience of those in state care has come directly to the New Zealand stage told by a man who lived it” – Fa’amoana John Luafutu, whom she calls both a master storyteller and a survivor. I couldn’t agree more.

The Conch’s award-winning documentary feature A Boy Called Piano – The Story of Fa’amoana John Luafutu is woven throughout the show. Aural excerpts are intermingled with Mark Vanilau’s exceptional live piano playing, while shots from the film are projected onto three white fabric panels to great effect. Many of the scenes – especially conversational ones that lean towards realism – take place in front of the panels, while dream or symbolic sequences often unfold behind them. Hāmi Hawkins’ lighting design works in breathtaking synergy with both the performers and projections, particularly when creating dream states, flashbacks, and speckled light that filters down through the recurring theme of water.

The performers go where I’ve not seen many go. Luafutu deftly shifts between adult and child, bringing a gut-wrenching vulnerability to the latter. Ringiao-Lloyd is our vital comic relief and does it brilliantly, translating humour into a coping mechanism for his character, and McGregor gives his all to express unspeakable trauma.

In A Boy Called Piano what’s left unlit, unsaid, unsung still bruises. The volcano erupts and the lava is cooled by humour and restraint before bubbling to the surface again. Nawalowalo sculpts it all together with a featherlight touch or strong hands when needed, only adding to the power, the force, of this landmark work.

In a predominantly classical programme, I hadn’t expected to find the opening to be my highlight. Mozart and Brahms were musical prodigies, high achieving young men who made names for themselves early in their lives. Dame Gillian Whitehead is a New Zealand icon and Arts Laureate and her retrieving the fragility of peace was the outstanding item of the night.

A study in contrasts, it was both delicate and intense, fragmented but coherent, solo and ensemble, gentle and fierce. The devastatingly beautiful cor anglais solo was breath taking. Perhaps it was about being new to the ear (this was the world premiere) or the clarity of the composition and the quality of the performance but the music and musicians whetted our appetites in a most moving and spectacular way.

Another local talent, Stephen De Pledge, took to the stage in place of the unfortunate Gabriela Montero, who had arrived in NZ and then tested positive for COVID. While we missed her promised interpretation of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20, we were well rewarded with De Pledge’s performance. His was a confident rendition and, although his improvised cadenzas didn’t always hit the mark, there was little to criticise in what must have been a last-minute replacement. The encore, a piece of his own choosing, was a lovely rendition of Schumann’s Träumerei.

Finally, under the direction of Alexander Shelley, the orchestra let loose on Brahms’s Symphony No. 1, giving size, shape, and power to a majestic and defining piece of music. Brahms felt the pressure of Beethoven’s legacy. He started his first symphony at 21 and was 43 when he finished it. The orchestra was solid and energetic but lacked something in tone and balance, not quite living up to the promise of the work’s long gestation.

It was a powerful performance which, more than anything, augmented the complexity and quietude of retrieving the fragility of peace.

Ryan McNaught has perhaps one of the coolest jobs in the world. He is, as he says, a LEGO-certified professional – one of only a select few in the world and the only one in the Southern Hemisphere. His job is literally to make LEGO models for stores and events around the world.

Until I had the pleasure of reading McNaught’s The Bricktionary, I never knew LEGO made lightning elements in Powered Up or Power Function sets. These are designed to add a bit of drama or pizazz to your LEGO creations. Nor did I know about LEGO maths and pro techniques for creating a stunning illusion of water.

Putting things together is not my forte – transformers with missing arms and legs come to mind – except LEGO has always been different. There’s something quietly reassuring about sitting ensconced, head down in LEGO instructions (mostly with my child) knowing each coloured brick will bring us closer to the end product, whether it’s a Ninjago scene, a Minecraft something, or a Batman-inspired car. LEGO is cool, though never ever underfoot.

LEGO is serious business for McNaught, although there is a strange juxtaposition throughout this book of so much potential fun and interesting facts to be found alongside the serious business of LEGO creation. In the first few pages there’s a photo of McNaught holding a pretty impressive LEGO-comprised hamburger, while the carefully stacked containers behind him are telltale signs of someone further down the LEGO rabbit hole than first anticipated. Neatly stacked LEGO beams from within, colour coded, brick sorted, and size categorised.

Under ‘F’ I was able to expand my increasing LEGO vocabulary. FLU stands for a fundamental LEGO unit, which equates to the width and length of a one-by-one Lego plate or brick. Under ‘T’ I found the most impressive treehouse I’ve seen, LEGO or otherwise.

The Bricktionary will appeal to the LEGO-lover in you. Oh, and of course, your children.

In case you didn’t know it, the difference between an autobiography and a memoir is that whereas an autobiography delivers the reader a chronological, strictly factual, and detailed account of your life (yawn?), a memoir is much more selective. It rearranges content, and it can become reflectively fanciful.

Poet Kate Camp’s You Probably Think This Song is About You decidedly falls into the second category. Camp, in writing as in life, has taken on her mother’s mantra: “Never apologise, never explain”. Does that attitude demonstrate courage or defiance? One or the other, or maybe a bit of both, accounts for this warts-and-all story of a life.

From years of wetting herself, to smoking cigarettes and dope, to binge drinking, to attaching herself to drug dealing, sometimes violent boyfriends – Camp paints an unedifying picture. And sure enough, there’s no accompanying explanation for why a girl from Khandallah would for so many years – and for half a book – indulge in such heedless hedonism.

If there’s a price though, she’s paid it. A couple of bizarre accidents, plus grisly sounding, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempts to get pregnant through IVF, lead her to reflect. Though I’m at a loss to understand her dismay at her inability to conceive – is this liberated thinking? At about this time, too, Camp meets future partner Paul, whose treatment of her is exemplary. “Paul comes out of this story very well” is an understatement – the man is a modern saint.

Camp’s analysis of Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life is thought provoking. It examines the conundrum of a book on self-healing that contains questionable suggestions about self-responsibility – an apt comment on Camp’s own life?

But some of Hay’s affirmations worked! Chiefly: “I always find time for my own creative work” has surely been useful, ultimately giving rise to her life as a poet. I’m glad there is an acknowledgements section – we get Camp’s gratitude to those who have contributed to make her life what it was – and is.

Night Meditations is a calming and restorative journal that traverses the seasons: winter, fall, summer, and spring. Helping to encourage a quiet mindfulness, it encourages restful and meditative sleep by creating the opportunity to identify what is holding you back or impeding your access to good sleep and rest.

Night Meditations poses many questions to consider and there are journal pages for you to document your thoughts. This helps prompt you to stop, pause, and consider your life holistically to identify what your creative outlets are and what you view as restorative. It helps you consider your environment, your faith, and awareness of self-care while encouraging you to find peace in stressful times.

Muted colours and sweeping illustrations only serve to further entice you to reflect on your life and how time and happenstance can either create great wonder or stressful burdens that can compete with your ability to sleep well.

Journaling is peaceful and contemplative and is a great way to delve into a quiet introspection that comes from stopping, resting, and taking the time to consider your frame of mind; it’s almost like your own hypnotic guide. A slower pace and uncluttered mind is all conducive to a better sleep. Night Meditations encourages you to disconnect, put pen to paper, and take the time to slow down.

I’ve read that the importance of sleep is often underrated, and I think it’s true. What can be done to get more of it? How can it be more restful, restorative, and beneficial to our physical and mental wellbeing? These are all questions I’ve considered.

If you are looking for a simple yet very intentional way to pause and break down everything that may be hindering restful sleep, then Night Meditations is a good place to start.

“Identify the ‘weeds’ in your garden. Write about ways that take up space in your life, and how you can make room for new growth.”

I had to put pen to paper as soon as I’d finished Donna Leon’s latest novel Give Unto Others so no other fans of detective novels made the same mistake as me. My error was not reading this author sooner. 

Donna Leon’s writing is beautiful. Her character descriptions, particularly of her older characters, are exquisite in the little details of behaviour and interplay that reveal so much about the person. Her treatment of a scene where a former vice admiral with Alzheimer’s disease – a proud man with status – pockets the silver cutlery at a dinner and a conversation between the detective and a former upper-class neighbour are so gentle in capturing the unsaid that it would be easy to underestimate the quality of the writing.

A bit about the plot before I go on. This is the latest in a series of crime novels set in Venice, featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti. Brunetti is twiddling his thumbs in between COVID lockdowns and so agrees to look into the seemingly innocent concerns of a former neighbour and family friend about her son-in-law’s business. This sends him on a twisting path to get to the truth. He and the reader begin to wonder who is pulling the strings and whether Brunetti’s sense of obligation to an old family friend will get him into trouble.

Usually when I read a crime novel, I race through it to find out the killer. Donna Leon’s descriptions are so gentle yet so captivating that it forced me to slow down and enjoy every sentence. The pace of the novel though is spot on.

Occasionally – not often – as a reader I get a glimpse of a writer at the top of their game. Donna Leon, at 80 years old, is definitely a writer at the top of her game. I hope she has many more novels yet to come to share with this newfound fan.

Wellington’s usual concertgoers were not much in evidence at this concert: a pity since the occasion was part of an initiative to introduce Chinese performing arts to audiences around the world. Members of the Wellington Chinese community made up most of the audience.

The programme included Pōkarekare Ana and an early work, Drysdale Overture, by New Zealander Douglas Lilburn, alongside five Chinese compositions.

Orchestra Wellington, conducted by the admirable Brent Stewart, was its usual excellent self, but the warmth of the relationship with its usual audience was missing, reminding me of how important that ingredient is in live performance.

Jian Liu, of the New Zealand School of Music – Te Kōkī and with an international reputation for performance, was the soloist in the Yellow River Piano Concerto. Madame Mao herself directed the collaboration of several musicians to arrange an earlier work to create this concerto. The work’s chequered history probably contributes to it not being the most subtle piece of music ever written.  It was great to watch, however, as Liu made seemingly easy work of the runs, trills, glissandi, and thunderous chords that the work demands.

Soprano Joanna Foote sang an appealing version of Pōkarekare Ana and was joined by tenor Bo Jiang in The Song of Yangtze River by Shiguang Wang to great applause from the audience.

Wang Xilin’s The Torch Festival and Bao Yuankai’s Chinese Sights and Sounds showed how Chinese composers have absorbed western idioms and applied them to Chinese subjects, creating descriptive works that incorporate eastern elements. Gift, composed for the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra by Tian Zhou, is a more sophisticated work.  Zhou has written that he “wanted to create a reminder of the joy of music making, and along the way explore [his] own musical identity after 18 years of living abroad.” Musical identity was the stuff of this concert.

I have been lucky enough to see four Indian Ink productions in my time. I loved each one, and each increased my desire to see Krishnan’s Dairy, Jacob Rajan’s breakout solo work that helped launched the prolific theatre company 25 years ago.

With this year’s TAHI New Zealand Festival of Solo Performance, I finally got the chance to meet Gobi and Zina Krishnan, a married couple from India who run a corner dairy here in Aotearoa. Rajan plays both characters, as well as Shah Jahan, the Mughal emperor who commissioned the building of the Taj Mahal to house the tomb of his wife Mumtaz Mahal. Krishnan’s Dairy entwines the two stories to show that epic love isn’t only found in epic places. Equally, it nestles in the small stuff: the silly squabbles, the safety of home, and the little shops that stock far too many Minties.

Rajan uses half-masks to glide effortlessly between characters. I say glide because even though he often changes masks in full view of the audience, with the exception of the stunning reveal of Mumtaz Mahal (costume design by John Verryt, mask creation by Justin Lewis), blink and you’ll miss it. In the scenes where the transitions are made a deliberate focal point (a hilarious rapid-fire dialogue between the Krishnans for instance), none of the illusion is suspended, none of the magic broken. In fact, it’s all the more marvellous to see the mechanics at play. Gifted doesn’t come close to describing Rajan or director Justin Lewis, who shapes the building blocks of Krishnan’s Dairy with the hands of a master craftsman.

Verryt’s set design shines in a special interaction with the lighting design (original by Helen Todd, development by Cathy Knowsley) that helps us see beyond the veil. Rajan and Conrad Wedde’s compositions (performed by Rajan and Adam Ogle) include a sweet song that ties it all together in a satisfying instance of ring composition. All of these elements take us even further into the magical realm. The result is an unforgettable, inimitable work of theatre that deserves all the acclaim it’s received – and then some.

The latest whodunit to hit theatres is Tom George’s See How They Run. Following in the footsteps of the popular 2019 Knives Out, the film adds comedy to the mystery, making for a playful well-devised puzzle.

In 1950s London, plans for a movie version of Agatha Christie’s smash-hit play The Mousetrap come to an abrupt halt after the director is murdered. When a tired inspector (Sam Rockwell) and an eager rookie constable (Saoirse Ronan) take on the case, they find themselves thrown into a puzzling whodunit within the glamorous world of theatre, investigating the mysterious homicide at their own peril.

See How They Run’s opening sequence sets the scene perfectly. Led by the voice of Academy Award winner Adrien Brody, we get a taste of the postcard mid-20^th century London setting and meet a range of suspicious characters before a sudden murder gets us armchair detectives in the mood to try and solve the mystery.

Rockwell and Ronan’s chemistry is brilliant. Their banter is both awkward and funny with plenty of running gags and Ronan in particular steals the show with her warm, upbeat performance. Although the narrative and final twist may have fallen flat for more demanding whodunit viewers, I thoroughly enjoyed the final reveal. Yes, this is partly because all of my many guesses during the film were wrong! However, looking back, George and writer Mark Chappell dropped enough subtle clues to make picking the killer possible.

The fictional story is tied in with some true elements. For those who don’t know, The Mousetrap is a real play, and the film even bases some characters on members from the original cast such as Richard Attenborough and Sheila Sim. This was a unique element and only added to a plot that pokes fun at the classic works of the genre. See How They Run also combines fun flashbacks, engaging editing, a suspenseful score (Daniel Pemberton), and colourful aesthetics to provide the audience with enough whodunit constants to keep them involved in the mystery.

Told with fun energy by a fantastic cast, See How They Run may be slightly forgettable once the credits roll, but it is still an hour and a half well spent.  

John Psathas’ Leviathan – Percussion Concerto is a work commissioned by the UN-backed Pastoral Project for Beethoven’s 250^th anniversary year. Psathas was required to reflect Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony and promote action on climate change and the environment. The first movement portrays what Psathas called “the human race’s out of control race to disaster”, with the orchestra providing a broad ominous soundscape against which the percussion solo gives a sense of frenetic activity. In contrast, the second movement, which delicately integrates themes from Beethoven’s symphony, has a sense of eyes-wide-open wonder at peaceful nature. The mood was created through the orchestra’s strings and woodwind, the soloist’s use of glockenspiel and vibraphone, and the innovation of amplifying the sounds of water in a large bowl being slapped and poured by the percussionist. The third movement evoked pollution, recycling, and sustainability by the use of a plastic water bottle used as a rattle and a drum. The fourth movement focused on a more positive future: it had a feeling of purpose and resolve absent from the other movements.

We experienced a virtuosic and athletic tour de force from outstanding German soloist Alexej Gerassimez. This was an excellent performance from the conductor, orchestra, and soloist: a memory to be treasured.

The orchestra also played Wagner’s Lohengrin: Prelude to Act 1 and Schumann’s Symphony No 2. The Prelude is an uplifting piece of romantic writing, aethereal but noble. Schumann’s symphony is considerably darker reflecting his difficulties with mental illness. Just as Psathas’ work referenced Beethoven, Schumann’s symphony referenced his hero composer Bach and the so-called father of the symphony, Haydn. It is clear that Taddei loves Schumann. He gave a music lesson to the audience by having the orchestra illustrate aspects of the composition as he talked. Taddei has a wonderful rapport with his audience. We Wellingtonians are very lucky.

The atmosphere in the theatre is intoxicating as I take my seat for Gag Reflex, on as part of the TAHI New Zealand Festival of Solo Performance. Rachel Atlas takes centre stage, dressed to impress, and it’s absolute chaos from then on.

From New York to London, from pornography to family heartbreak, Atlas leads us on a wild ride through her life in any number of flabbergasting professions. She goes through more costume changes than I can count, all designed by Go Go Amy and all flawless. The scenography team of Bekky Boyce and Erika Takahashi have also done a fabulous job with a simple yet effective stage setting.

The piece was produced by George Fowler, and that unmistakable Hugo Grrrl vibe is everywhere. However, this is Atlas’ story, and she claims the space as her own. Every audience member is on the edge of their seat, uproarious in their applause and laughter. Atlas is a born performer and welcome addition to the Wellington theatre scene.

Intertwined into death-defying circus acts and astonishing tales of sex work is a heartfelt message. Powerfully feminist and unapologetically honest, Gag Reflex is a tale of empowerment and autonomy told by a woman who has lived an incredibly full life. Atlas takes her own scandalous exploits and turns them on their head, seizing worth and control from those who would withhold them.

The show is by no means perfect. A number of knives miss their mark (non-fatally) and an unfortunate audio cue mishap steals part of the monologue, but Atlas takes it all in her stride. I question the necessity of ‘The Hand’, but it seems to garner the audience's favour almost as much as The Gimp. I leave the performance energised, elated, and with a strange sense of conspiracy; as though I’ve learnt truths I wasn’t supposed to. Though certainly not for the faint of heart, Gag Reflex is an absolute triumph.

Upper Hutt in the 1980s is the newfound home of Cecily, a recent divorcee from a cheating husband in London and star of this joyous production in the TAHI New Zealand Festival of Solo Performance. Writer Bea Lee-Smith gives a powerhouse performance not only as the adorable Cecily but also as a host of other colourful characters that Cecily meets as she casts off on her own.

Arriving at local pub The Embers, where white wine from a box is the height of sophistication, Cecily meets an eclectic group of women intent on fulfilling their dreams. One wants to travel, another to publish a children’s book, and a third to open her own Italian restaurant. With their encouragement, Cecily joins a watercolour class to rekindle her childhood love of art and from there enters the bright and exciting world of style consultancy with Colour Me Beautiful.

Lee-Smith has performed Colour Me Cecily before and it shows. Constantly switching posture and accent with ease, Lee-Smith takes us on a journey of discovery while always letting us know where we are and who we’re with. Just a small table and its crocheted tablecloth, a chair, a handbag, and four coloured scarves representing the seasons keep her company. The rest is left to our imaginations.

This minimalism is an excellent choice as it allows Lee-Smith’s impressive performance skills to shine. With Hilary Norris’ careful direction and some choice snatches of 80s pop (Golden Brown and White Wedding included), the world of the Hutt in the decade that taste forgot is successfully conjured up, even for those who have never experienced the joy of snacking on Cheds and reduced cream and onion dip while sipping cask wine and ‘having your colours done’.

A delight from beginning to end, Colour Me Cecily is a warm, humorous, and touching tale of personal empowerment at a time when even educated women still had little to look forward to apart from wifely duties and motherhood.

Michael Metzger's award-winning PhD performance piece The Changing Shed deserves every iota of praise it has received thus far. Metzger is effortlessly hilarious and instantly relatable to all as he takes us through the trials and tribulations of a queer farmer's son.

From the moment we enter the space, I am entranced. Metzger limbers up as we take our seats then lays out the groundwork, both literally and metaphorically, setting down masking tape crosses to form a map of the Otago area. This wonderfully engrossing technique humanises our protagonist and grounds the story simultaneously. Before long, we are deep into marathon training and chicken raising, seeing both past and present alongside one another.

Metzger's magnetic stage presence and easy charm make him an absolute pleasure to watch. He cracks wise, treats us to a remarkably impressive flower arranging demonstration, and makes regular use of the on-stage treadmill. All the while, he paints a picture of his childhood, of all the things that push him to run. It is a marvellous performance that tugs on the heartstrings of the rightfully packed house.

My only complaint is that there wasn’t more. The piece felt like it was building to something that never quite came, a finale to round the performance out. With such a complex character portrayed by such a talented performer, I would have happily eaten up another 20 minutes of anecdotes and musings.

On as part of the TAHI New Zealand Festival of Solo Performance, the piece deals with a number of topical issues, primarily bullying and homophobia, and it does so with class and finesse every time. It manages to be hopeful without being preachy, condemning without being hateful. Even the references to assault are somehow tasteful. The Changing Shed takes a snapshot of 1970s Aotearoa and holds it up to the modern day. Some things are still awfully familiar, but the show offers a message of unity and growth. The last thing I would call it is ‘timid’.

Theatre veteran Steven Ray has chosen an extraordinary and challenging piece in Title and Deed to perform as part of the TAHI New Zealand Festival of Solo Performance. Although written in 2012, Will Eno’s meandering prose poem is remarkably pertinent to the existential crisis we’ve all been living through for the last two and a half years. The COVID pandemic has made many of us think at some point about the nature of life and death, and what it is to be human. That self-examination is captured beautifully and lyrically in Title and Deed, which is an ultimately uplifting ode to the weirdness of being us.

The skill in Eno’s writing is that it shows us ourselves from a highly quirky outside perspective, that of an unnamed traveller who has recently arrived here with nothing other than a white suit and a bag containing a long stick and an empty box. Is he an alien or is he human? Even by the end of his monologue, I’m not sure. But that doesn’t matter. He tells us plenty about the nature of his unspecified homeland. It is a place of perpetually rumbling blue skies, reverse weddings, and terrible Saturdays where the main exports are sarcasm and uric acid. Despite the traveller’s claim that it’s a weak and dying place, I still have an urge to go there.

Ray’s subtle and engaging performance, Jeff Kingsford-Brown’s unfussy direction, and Niamh Campbell-Ward’s soft lighting design let this strange text comfortably breathe. Thanks to the frequent non sequiturs, Ray occasionally calls “Where am I now?” to the lighting box while staying fully in character. This is a bold and wise choice to avoid the awkward pauses of an actor reaching for his lines in a first-time performance and keeps the quiet energy flowing.

The best theatre makes you think about it well after you’ve left the auditorium and that’s certainly the case with Title and Deed. Long may its blue skies rumble.

Loud, proud, and disavowed; Agents Provocateurs tells the story of half a dozen female spies throughout history, spanning some 400 years. Each tale of bravery and brutality is accompanied by a pop song parody, with snippets of Jo Marsh’s life threading a narrative together. Though this entire TAHI New Zealand Festival of Solo Performance piece is delivered with fierce enthusiasm, I am left feeling like we’ve barely scratched the surface.

The set design I applaud. The stage is set as an archive room out of time, with file boxes scattered everywhere and a sprout of cardboard tubes. Dynamic lighting takes us from scene to scene, from a melodramatic performance realm and back to Marsh’s direct address. These transitions are slick and effective, demonstrating the show's high production value. I’m only slightly perturbed by the sudden appearance of a pair of puppets, which are equal parts amusing and confusing.

The format is established as Marsh takes us through Mata Hari’s journey during WWI. We get the key points of each spy's life, but never much more than that. I feel we miss out on juicy details and the nuance and intrigue that are so inherent to the appeal of spy stories. The songs are fun, the rewriting clever in some places and verging on cringeworthy in others. I’m swept along by Marsh’s passion for her craft and her insatiable fervour as she regales us with each woman's life story.

Throughout the performance, the audience is bombarded with feminist and antifascist sentiments. Marsh reminds us that trans folk have existed for centuries, that women have been fighting out of the spotlight forever, that Nazis are… y’know, bad. While these are all obviously excellent messages, they’re nothing I don’t already know, and Marsh seems hesitant to delve deeper into her subject matter. These are powerful characters and I’d love to learn more about them. Next time I hope to see a more aggressive message from such an powerhouse performer.

‘Arms and legs’ are a recurring theme in this book about Georgie, her husband Dan, and their son Finn, New Zealanders who end up living in America. It’s set in humid Florida which adds to the friction. It’s about the unravelling of their relationship, her infidelity, and the hurt that it causes them both.

Georgie is the storyteller and realises that her marriage may be more fragile than she thought, and there is a lot on the line
once Dan learns about the infidelity. Arms & Legs is well written and captures the awkwardness of a marriage going bad. It made me feel anxious and sick in places, as it’s so close to the reality of how a solid relationship can unfold very quickly and then
there’s no pulling it back. The little details about irritating conversations and misunderstandings are so easy to relate to. I wished she’d be brave and leave him but she couldn’t even apologise for her lousy behaviour.

There is some lovely imagery, including: “Dan responded by quietly folding and sealing himself up like an envelope.” Haven’t we all been that envelope? “It was as if something was loosened, a ribbon pulled free of itself.” “Cleared a space for him in my heart” and “But it tapped on a nearby wall in my brain.”

Aside from the marriage and affair, there is the wildlife to contend with including snakes, raccoons, bats, and the planned burn-offs in the countryside. One burn-off leads Georgie to the unfortunate discovery of the body of a student from the university she works at, who had been missing for a month. She retells those images to friends, which I thought was brutal, graphic, and unnecessary. But we all say things we shouldn’t, right?

I don’t know how things are going to end up for them but it was a good read. Maybe relationships should be as basic as being about arms and legs and which ones you choose to entangle yourself with. Be careful what you wish for!

In this thrilling new novel, Maia and her friends face off against new threats after reaching the fabled city of Leucothea. After surviving in the wilds of a broken Earth for so long, it finally looks like Maia has found a safe harbour. But it soon becomes clear that the city is not the saviour so many people think it is.

Jillian Webster’s third entry into The Forgotten Ones saga really does a great job of pulling together all the groundwork that the first two books laid down, giving readers an exhilarating final ride as Maia struggles against seemingly insurmountable odds to protect the ones she loves. The action is more intense, and the stakes higher.

I have always believed that it’s the characters that make stories compelling, and the character development here is grade-A perfect. While I love them all, and each one is memorable in their own right, Maia remains my all-time favourite. She journeys from a naive young woman living in the wilds of New Zealand to a heroine finally in control of her destiny, with strange powers that have only grown stronger throughout the series.

Of course, great characters and their stories come from equally great writing and Webster has done a stellar job of taking the world she first created in The Weight of a Thousand Oceans and expanding on it, adding to its richness. The city of Leucothea is particularly well written and while I won’t give too much away, I feel that it mirrors some of the problems faced by its real-world counterparts.

The Echo of a Thousand Voices reminds me a lot of Game of Thrones (the novels) in that it’s a huge open living world with a meaty story where everything and everyone is there for a reason, and nothing is filler. My advice? Buy all three books in Maia’s saga, lock the doors, take the phone off the hook, hunker down, and enjoy.

What constitutes joy? That’s the question this production seeks to answer.

Conceived in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and commissioned expressly for the TAHI New Zealand Festival of Solo Performance, Joy is a set of five monologues and a sweet vignette written by female and non-binary artists Mel Dodge, Etta Bollinger, Indigo Paul, Elspeth Tilley, Nī Dekkers-Reihana, and Stevie Greeks.

As anyone with a shred of life experience knows, things that bring you joy come with an often-equal measure of pain and that is the great success of this new collection of work. Childbirth, a sibling’s wedding, or the rediscovery of single life after a relationship break-up can bring great joy, but they come hand in glove with fear, uncertainty, and self-doubt. As the programme deftly puts it, “joy is a shifting creature” and these writers have captured it with compassion and care.

The three performers, Nī Dekkers-Reihana, Mel Dodge, and Stevie Hancox-Monk, are confident and courageous in owning these stories. They make us laugh, bring a tear to our eyes, and create relatable characters from the excellent writing. Hancox-Monk’s perfectly delivered line, “You’re so nice it bothers me” is my favourite of the night.

The actors are supported by a beautifully simple set and lighting design (Bekky Boyce) that employs soft yellows, oranges, and beiges, with pops of pink to unite the monologues under a strong visual theme. Masterful directing by Sally Richards and Kerryn Palmer, well-balanced sound and music (Matt Parkinson) plus two square frames, an old chair, some textiles, and a handful of props give the actors a comfortable but flexible place to work in and some business to keep them moving. A computer screen with the title and author of each piece subtly lets us know where we are in the narrative.

Not only have this group of artists created a thoughtful and thought-provoking meditation on the theme of joy, but they have also created a joyful production that engages and enlightens while it entertains.