A talented literary editor with a story of her own to tell. A mayor’s son taking a different path than his father. A young soldier trying to make his mark on the world by “following his own bright star”. These characters and a vibrant bluegrass score are the main ingredients of Bright Star, a musical set in North Carolina in the 1920s to 1940s.

Billy Cane (Fynn Bodley-Davies) has just returned from World War II to his small southern hometown and dreams of writing for the Asheville Southern Journal, publisher of the best short stories from miles around. Editor Alice Murphy (Cassandra Tse) takes him on, impressed by his spirit and quick thinking if not his writing skills. What the pair don’t yet know is that hidden in Alice’s past is a secret about to change both of their lives.

This Wellington Footlights Society production is set to a live band playing bluegrass music, an energetic string-based genre with influences of jazz and blues. The man behind me in the queue beforehand said, “there better be a banjo,” and we were not disappointed. With the band and musical direction from Michael Stebbings behind them, the talented singers shine. Tse and Chris McMillan as Alice's love interest Jimmy Ray Dobbs stand out with their solos, and a surprise favourite is Billy’s hillbilly father Daddy Cane (Vishan Appanna), who has one beautiful duet with his son and hops around after frogs in the river for the rest of the play.

The set (concept and coordination by director Stanford Reynolds) and lighting (design and operation by Tom Smith and Lucas Zaner) are simple yet effective, creating a new mood for each scene with bright yellow light for party songs and darker, individual spotlights in more emotional, personal moments. The chorus rearranges a small collection of benches and chairs between scenes. I did feel that more could be made of the projector screen behind the stage, which is lit up quite sporadically throughout.

All in all, Bright Star is heartfelt, infectious, and made me cry several times – an unexpected must-see.

Although I am in the tiny minority of my generation who have somehow never seen the film, it says much about John Williams’ music that the opening piece, Adventures on Earth from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, was immediately recognisable to me. It was played with gusto and the smiles on the faces of the orchestra immediately engaged the attentive full house.

At first glance the programme was predominantly film soundtracks, and it would have been easy to overlook the Violin Concerto No. 2 (New Zealand premiere) tucked between E.T. and the interval. However, it was utterly impossible to ignore a single note of the spectacular performance we were lucky enough to hear next.

Anne-Sophie Mutter is a renowned violinist with a long career and, aged only 60, many years ahead of her. Mutter commissioned the Violin Concerto No. 2 from Williams and, in what must be a reflection of his respect and admiration for her talent and skill, it is technically hugely demanding, with achingly beautiful passages, fearsome cadenzas, and plenty of drama and atmosphere.

Mutter showed complete ease, total confidence, and absolute commitment to the music. Famed for her technique, she augmented and varied her tone brilliantly. The balance with the orchestra was perfect. New brought in the orchestra imperceptibly and with such cohesion it was impossible to tell sometimes where violin stopped and orchestra started.

The second half was all cinema with tracks from Hook, The Adventures of Tintin, Cinderella, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. Williams can extract such extraordinary sounds from the orchestra, there were reminders music accompanied movies long before electronic sounds and effects. We were also treated to three additional film tracks Williams had arranged for violin. Mutter dedicated the theme from Schindler’s List to all those suffering in the world through war, reminding us how fortunate we are to be able to find escapism in music and film.

I am fully convinced that Strange Way of Life was made as an excuse for a bunch of creatives to play cowboys in the desert. With a stacked cast and production team, the short film is the newest addition to director and screenwriter Pedro Almodóvar’s extensive oeuvre broaching themes of desire, family, passion, identity, and LGBTQIA+ issues.

After 25 years, Sheriff Jake (Ethan Hawke) and rancher Silva (Pedro Pascal) meet again. Following a night of passion, Jake must decipher whether his lover’s arrival was indeed to rekindle a love lost or to save his son Joe from the heavy hand of the law. A gruff and hopeless man, Hawke’s Jake exudes a dejected fatalism lifting only for brief moments in Silva’s company. Silva is a hopeless romantic who believes the dream he and Jake once shared can still come to fruition. In Strange Way of Life, Almodóvar subverts the classic trope of the cowboy, painting instead a portrait of compassion that offers new possibilities.

The debut offering from Saint Laurent Productions, a subsidiary of the fashion house Yves Saint Laurent, Strange Way of Life boasts a bright and stylishly curated wardrobe. Antxón Gómez’ production design and José Luis Alcaine’s cinematography possess all the boldness and vibrancy of a signature Almodóvar film. I was struck most of all by the beauty of the editing (Teresa Font), which not only complemented but drove the story.

The brevity of the film means that it goes unfinished, leaving it up to the viewer to fill in the rest of the story. Leaving a movie open-ended enables it to live past its runtime. With this piece, Almodóvar showcases what a short film – but not a short story – can accomplish, catapulting the format back into the cinema as a valid form of expression full of untapped potential. Coming at a time when films seem to be getting increasingly longer (I’m looking at you Killers of the Flower Moon) and the multi-volume series is king, this beautiful slice of cinema is a refreshing reminder that sometimes less is more.

Only Bones, a remarkable physical theatre production created and performed by Daniel Nodder, is an exploration of the human body's expressive potential. This one-man show transcends traditional boundaries of performance, captivating audiences with ingenious use of movement and gesture, and all within a one-square-metre performance space.

Clocking in at just under an hour, tour-de-force Nodder unfolds without a single spoken word, relying entirely on the language of the body to convey everything from The Big Bang to the invention of fire to a truly striking performance of Shallow from A Star Is Born (2018) using his kneecaps. Yep, you read that right. In my 34 years of living, I never expected to see a ballad between patellas. But that is exactly what keeps me excited about theatre and performers like Nodder – seeing boundaries being pushed to create something truly unique. And believe me, you haven’t seen anything like this before, or the 10 versions that came before it.

Created by Thom Monckton, The Only Bones Project is a minimalist physical theatre and sparse-video performance project with the guidelines of ‘only one light, no narrative, no set, no props, no text, and all within a limited amount of space’. Performers create their own world within this concept. Nodder epitomises that sage advice, ‘less is more’. The command of his body is remarkable, sometimes cringe-inducing, with audience members gasping at joints going this way and that. From teeth to toes, Nodder can isolate his body parts and give each a personality of their own.

This fascinating and playful performance is set within the wonderful composition and sound design of Ben Kelly and lighting design of Rebekah de Roo. All components are weaved together so harmoniously.

After watching in awe and pondering how one might even discover they can contort their body this way, my afterthought was how much this performance is a testament to the creative’s commitment to expression and their craft.

Discordant, atonal, brutal, distressing? Yes! Wonderful? Yes!

Wozzeck is about an ordinary but vulnerable man, a soldier, whose self unravels as he sees horrible visions and faces poverty, exploitation, and humiliation. He struggles to provide for his child and wife, Marie, and he encounters every day the disdain of his so-called superiors, his fellow soldiers, and his wife and her lover. It is Marie’s tragedy too: she loves and fears for her child and is eventually killed by Wozzeck before he drowns himself. We know the child will suffer.

Wozzeck, written during and after World War I in which its composer Alban Berg was himself a soldier, is in three acts with five scenes in each, each separated by a short orchestral interlude. The orchestra was only 39 strong and while cacophonous at times, it did not overwhelm the singers. The instruments were often used in small combinations. Their parts brilliantly underlined the emotional state of the singers.

The opera was presented semi-staged and, thankfully, with English surtitles. Perhaps inevitably, the performance seemed to me rather better musically than it was dramatically. All six main soloists, each an artist of international standing, were excellent. Madeleine Pierard has the most wonderful spun tone. Julien Van Mellaerts’ voice was smooth, secure, and expressive. American Corey Bix as the condescending Captain and Paul Whelan as the pretentious Doctor not only contributed strong vocal performances, but injected some rare humour into this tragic tale. Jason Collins as the ‘other man’ was equally strong. The Tudor Consort provided excellent chorus voices.

The work may have frightened some of the usual Orchestra Wellington patrons off. It was a bold decision to perform it. It cannot be an easy work for soloists, chorus, or orchestra. Orchestra Wellington is to be congratulated for programming Wozzeck and all performers for pulling it off so successfully.

Well, this will be a fun review to write, but little ones: please avert your eyes.

Dracula’s Cabaret is an Australian institution: a vaudevillian variety show inspired by the iconic The Rocky Horror Show. The comedy cabaret restaurant thrilled, teased, and titillated audiences for an unprecedented 37 years in Melbourne and on the Gold Coast, where it first creaked open its doors in 1985 and remains today. Produced by Luke Newman, Dracula’s: The Resurrection Tour combines those decades of perfected performances into one tasty morsel that Wellington fans got to sink their fangs into for the first time ever this November.

Dracula’s: The Resurrection Tour stars Vladimir (host and comedian William Rogers), Onyx (vocalist James Smart), Viper (burlesque performer and vocalist Clara Fable), Duo Synergy (aerial and variety artists Scott Lazarevich and Emma Goh), The Heart Attack Twins (dancers Molly Kealey and Amber Flaherty), Vendetta (guitarist Viola Skyes), and Whiskey (drummer Lachlan Neate). These nine performers pack a (blood)sucker of a punch as they present a scintillating, sexually charged smorgasbord of acts straddling both the expected and the wickedly unorthodox.

But even the ‘traditional’ song, dance, burlesque, and acrobatic numbers are anything but. Haloed in epic stage lighting (Reuben Willmot), Smart, Skyes, and Neate’s rendition of Led Zeppelin’s anthemic Stairway to Heaven is nothing short of world class. Stripteases include a flawless burlesque number from Fable (I’ve never seen such smooth disgloving!) and a tongue-in-cheek towel moult from Smart and the electrifying Rogers, who is all-round hilarious. Duo Synergy performs three gravity-defying feats that send my jaw plummeting to the floor. 

And then we’ve got the unconventional. John Taylor’s technical design sees superb puppetry utilised hilariously in a scene featuring a giant worm-like penis (sorry kids, I did warn you) and a terrifying giant baby I’m still having nightmares about. Let’s not forget the floating-heads concert of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody that gets some of the loudest laughs of the night.

Packed with feathers and leather, debauchery and stage sorcery, every second of this 80-minute show slays. I’m desperate to ride the roller coaster again.

Four teenage girls from the private boarding school Appleyard College set off on a picnic to Hanging Rock, a geographical marvel and former volcano in central Victoria, Australia. On Valentine’s Day 1900, Edith, Irma, Marion, and Miranda ascend the monolith. Only Edith comes back. Later, Irma is found bruised, bloody, but alive.

Back at the college, headmistress Mrs Appleyard has turned to the bottle to cope with the growing unrest as more perturbed parents withdraw their daughters from the school. Much to her annoyance, she’s left with orphaned student Sara, a close friend of Miranda’s. Meanwhile, Englishman Mike Fitzherbert nurtures a growing obsession with the mystery.

Tom Wright’s stage adaptation of Joan Lindsay’s acclaimed 1967 historical fiction (or is it?) novel of the same name sees five actors play multiple characters. Between Emily Bell, Lydia Verschaffelt, Gracie Voice, Ava Wiszniewska, and French-accent icon Anna Curzon-Hobson, there’s a handful of distinct roles. For instance, Bell plays Sara beautifully, Voice is the dangerously infatuated Mike, and Wiszniewska tweaks the heartstrings as a traumatised Irma. But they take turns to embody the missing girls, and not in the way you might think. In the opening picnic scenes, the cast speaks in third person, narrating the girls’ actions even when carrying them out. This striking playwrighting choice depersonalises the characters for me, but equally and aptly, intensifies the disorientating sense of unease that builds throughout the play.

The superb cast accentuates the impending sense of doom with performances perfectly sculpted (director Tanya Piejus) to climax at just the right moments. Verschaffelt in particular is a knockout in the final scene (and a wickedly funny drunk as Mrs Appleyard), but the entire cast works as one cohesive, committed unit to hit the horror home. This coupled with Hanging Rock looming large above the action (AV design by Tanisha Wardle), a sparse and haunting sound design by Brian Byas, and well-timed, moody lighting changes (Jamie Byas), and Picnic at Hanging Rock is a thrilling watch.

Bravo to Wellington Repertory Theatre for this stellar production of a story I’m still thinking about. Will somebody please tell me what happened to the missing girls!

Murder becomes a regular in this 50-minute solo thriller-comedy. Fatal Fame is Dripping Bottle Theatre’s debut show, and let’s just say that it opens the company’s canon with a bang… literally. The production follows Annie (Zoe Snowdon) as she rises to infamy in the most interesting way possible. Serial killing.

Snowdon’s depiction of Annie is nuanced and realistic. Oftentimes uncomfortably so, as she embodies so excellently what a serial killer can be. We see the not-so-gentle decline of Annie from socially awkward to sociopath. Snowdon’s mannerisms and stage presence culminate in the perfect depiction of a killer who executes each of her victims convincingly, albeit very humorously.

Comedy and thriller make for a combination I didn’t think possible. Fatal Fame proves me wrong. The thriller provides a thought-provoking commentary on how real and present killers can be, and the comedy provides a much-needed escape at times from the dark themes within.

Fatal Fame foreshadows fantastically. Every word and every action has its purpose in the grand scheme of the piece.

The scenography by Scott Maxim is cleverly done. The harsh lighting makes it feel as if Annie is retelling her story through a police interview. I particularly like the motif provided by sound and lighting whenever a murder occurs.

Popping balloons at the end of the show make me incredibly uncomfortable due to my phobia of this. However, I do commend the symbolism provided. Killers such as the fictional Annie take to murder like a pin takes to inflated rubber.

This show is not for the faint of heart, yet it is well crafted. I would urge you to read the content warnings before taking your seat.

Come to Fatal Fame if you don’t mind joining Annie’s rise to popularity. However, your name will be below hers, and you will become a victim of this scarily comedic show.

At Wellington’s opening night of the Cinema Italiano Festival, I remember my boyfriend will have to read subtitles during tonight’s screening of The King of Laughter (Qui Rido Io). He then reminds me the movie is in Neapolitan, not Italian, so I too will have to read subtitles. You most likely will as well, but don’t let that stop you from catching the film on the 9^th or 12^th of November at the Embassy Theatre.

The King of Laughter (Qui Rido Io) is a biopic from director Mario Martone about Neapolitan comic theatre legend Eduardo Scarpetta, played by the acclaimed Toni Servillo. Written by Martone and Ippolita Di Majo, the story is a beautiful symphony, a celebration of the language and the city, its theatrical heritage and its people.

Renato Berta’s cinematography paired with Giancarlo Muselli and Carlo Rescigno’s production design is testament to Italy’s long legacy of crafting cinematic masterpieces I would gladly hang on the wall of a museum. Actor Eduardo Scarpetta, who plays Vincenzo in the film, is the great-great-grandson of the film’s protagonist, proof of the Scarpetta family’s lasting impression and endurance.  

Set in late 19^th and early 20^th century Naples, the story follows the rise and fall of this pivotal figure of Italian theatre. And yet I had never heard of him until now. Neither had many of the guests I spoke to after the credits. Gabriele D’Annunzio (Paolo Pierobon), Scarpetta’s contemporary and inadvertent rival, is celebrated the world over. But Scarpetta, who single-handedly took on and, at the time, surpassed the iconic commedia dell’arte character Pulcinella? He is hardly mentioned in our history books. Is it because his artform, parody, is not truly considered art that is worthy of enduring the test of time?

The King of Laughter (Qui Rido Io) tackles this notion. What makes something art? Is it how serious the content is? Or is it its cultural influence or critique? Is it the genre? Or is comedy’s accessibility what makes it important? Either way, the film makes one thing clear: we mustn’t take ourselves too seriously.

Kenneth Young describes his Dance as “a celebration of love and life”. It was glorious and exuberant, and it reminded me of the character dances seen in classical ballet, which took me to a memory of Sir Jon Trimmer on stage in one of the character parts he danced later in his career. Trimmer, who had died only two days earlier, was a neighbour and much-loved member of our community and it was lovely to have a memory of him sparked in that way.

From the joy of dance to Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy, the mood remained high. If ecstasy comes from bringing together a huge number of musicians, a thoroughly mixed assortment of harmony, rhythm, tempo, volume, and orchestration in a way that pushed boundaries in 1908 and sounded as if it is still on the edge more than 100 years later, then this was it. Learning Scriabin was synaesthetic made sense of the music. If sound was colour for me, I imagine I would also want to celebrate that with noise and complexity.

Principal flautist Bridget Douglas, elevated behind the orchestra, under a single spotlight, played Debussy’s modern interpretation of an ancient Greek story, Syrinx. Douglas is an amazing musician and audience favourite. We were captivated. Conductor Gemma New had earlier asked us not to applaud but to allow the mood to carry into Sibelius’ Luonnotar. The strings set off at urgent pace before soprano Madeleine Pierard started to sing her narrative of the Finnish creation story. A demanding piece by all accounts but absolutely no trouble for Pierard. Her voice is stunning, and she made apparently light work of the difficult leaps and incredible range.

The evening finished as it had started, with a stage full of musicians expertly led by an expressive and expansive conductor. Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe Suite No. 2 gave New the opportunity to have the last dance.

Helen Moulder has been thrilling audiences at Circa Theatre since the late 1970s and The Bicycle and The Butcher’s Daughter is another solid entry in her canon. It’s a lovely story of familial relationships in a changing world seen through the eyes of five members of a famous clan of butchers who sell their products under the cheesy tagline, “On your feet with Patterson’s Meat!”

In this one-woman show, Moulder plays everyone – businesswoman Olivia, patriarch Sir Harold, arty Jennifer, vegan comedian Lexi, and 11-year-old Grace – alongside a mysteriously mangled bicycle. This simple device cleverly mirrors the unfolding tale of the Pattersons and the fake news scandal that threatens to derail their burgeoning product deal with investors in China.

Each character is exactly drawn and, even without the basic costume changes that slow the pace somewhat, they are clearly rendered through Moulder’s acting skill. Olivia is slick, bossy, and constantly on the phone, wheeling and dealing. 94-year-old Sir Harold potters in his garden while ranting about change and drifts randomly back to “pūkeko pies” in comic outbursts. Lexi’s stand-up comedy routine, starting with a half-consumed banana folded carefully in a beeswax wrap, is sweary, angry, and genuinely funny. Estranged sister Jennifer is artily flaky as she struggles with unfunctional plumbing while trying to open her new gallery on Featherston Street. Finally, 11-year-old Gracie completes the narrative circle and we discover why bicycles are so important in the Pattersons’ family history.

Delivered on a typically sparse Circa Two set, this is an intimate production that mostly uses direct address to engage the audience. Sue Rider’s choice to use scene and costume changes is enhanced through the addition of lively Beethoven sonatas recorded by Juliet Ayre and Richard Mapp and straightforward lighting (design by Giles Burton) that keep the changes interesting.

For 75 minutes of delightful entertainment, you can’t go far wrong with The Bicycle and the Butcher’s Daughter.

Milk, meet Halloween. Halloween, meet milk. MILKOWEEN! is the fourth entry in the canon of Wellington’s wettest show. In this blood-curdling, milk-churning improvised comedy, Ruff as Gutz performers make up a spooky story on the fly while we, the audience, throw water balloons at them whenever we want something to change. Three of these balloons are filled with milk. When one of them explodes, the consequences are so dire, it is worth crying over spilt milk.

In the curious, chaotic case of MILKOWEEN!, audience suggestions result in a terrifying tale set in an abandoned aquarium, where the ghost of Justin Bieber roams the halls, intoning “baby, baby, baby” and terrorising the local residents. Namely, dead fish, two sharks named Bob and Nige, and some dude (Dylan Hutton) who’s been trapped in the closet for at least 30 minutes, if not 45. The sexiest teenagers in all the land – Chad the Jock (Emma Rattenbury), Casey the Cheerleader (Tadhg Mackay), Felicia the Goth (Salomé Grace), and Nigel the Nerd (Zoë Christall) – must unravel the great mystery of the Biebs, all while dodging deadly toenails and attempting to learn the Shark Alphabet (Sharkabet for short).

The MILK concept is fun and funny, wet and wild. As you can imagine, forcing performers to change tack faster than a speeding balloon could be a recipe for disaster. Improv is challenging enough under normal conditions! Dugdale-Martin and Hutton in particular are glorious at responding to our cues, and one magical moment between a brilliant Grace and design leader and technician Jacob Banks serves as the perfect example of concept execution. The quick changes score a high laughter rate overall, a testament to the talent of this troupe. The improvisors all commit to their stereotype designations and conceive impressive character arcs in a short space of time, all the while managing to tie together such extraneous elements as unexpected cousins, interspecies relationships, and aubergines into one cohesive story.

Milky, mercurial madness at its silliest, soggiest, and most delightful.

Being social is one of the reasons the human being has risen through the ranks to become (for better or worse) the number one animal on planet Earth. But it is also why there are so many jokes about why we hate Mondays. Because while we are very social and love each other’s company, we sometimes get on each other’s nerves as well.

Over 2000 years ago, Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius knew this and wrote Meditations, a book centred around the philosophy of Stoicism: the idea that we cannot control someone else’s thoughts, feelings, and actions, so why bother.

What a wonderful idea, and what a wonderful book Stoic at Work: Ancient Wisdom to Make Your Job a Bit Less Annoying is. The clever writing, super short chapters, and little illustrations by Oslo Davis come together to really make this a wonderful read. Each chapter is just a few pages long, but still manages to impart little nuggets of wisdom from back then that are still relevant today.

One of its biggest strengths is that it’s so relatable. We have all had a hard day at work, suffered through that annoying colleague’s watercooler rant, worked under that overbearing boss. The book succeeds because it’s essentially everyone’s life – at least everyone who has ever worked.

One of my favourite chapters is Don’t Shag The Boss (definitely words to live by), followed by Win Lotto and Resign Well. While funny, there is a ring of truth to each of these rules.

The only downside is that the length of Stoic at Work might make some people think it’s a book for children. I assure you it is absolutely not. It’s well written, humorous, and the accompanying pictures make it a joy to read.

If you see this, pick it up and keep it in your back pocket in case you find yourself in a sticky situation with a pesky colleague or, God forbid, your supervisor. It might just save your job or make your life that little bit easier.

Hoof is my favourite book I have reviewed for Regional News so far, yet also the book I understood the least. Kerrin P. Sharpe’s latest poetry collection features an eclectic mix of horses, celebrities, and small villages, tied together by beautiful writing throughout. The poetry is evocative in its descriptions and careful in its word choice, full of sentence fragments blending into each other and attention paid to small details. The metaphors and references left me lost several times and I relied upon the Notes section at the end for further explanations, but I liked the writing style so much I didn’t mind. It is how I would like to write if I were a poet!

The book is divided into three sections, each one introduced by a poem about a train that sets the tone as we travel through the chapter that follows. The first features nature and family, the second weddings and famous people, and the third colder climes like Russia, Greenland, and Antarctica.

Several of the poems in the collection have won or been commended for awards, with the ways of rain and te hau o te atua | the breath of heaven being personal favourites. It is easy to see why Sharpe is as widely published as she is.

Voice is given to those usually voiceless: workhorses, trees, and even wind turbines watching over a cemetery. There is a tone of environmentalism in several poems, with still describing deforestation and from letters to Johanna referencing oil spills and global warming. Reverence and respect are demanded for the world and all its inhabitants. The reader also learns about New Zealand’s history of Antarctic exploration. The final poems drop names of explorers, their dogs, and the places they visited like Osman the Great drops off the Terra Nova – a reference you will get if you read the book.

My main takeaway, however, was Sharpe’s way of using brief and specific detail to paint a picture of her world.

End Times explores the recurring dread of the end of the world. It flips between New Zealand in the 80s and the early 2020s (set post-COVID, but pre-Cyclone Gabrielle).

End Times follows teenage girls Rebecca and Maz as they try to cope with knowing that the future is uncertain. With an uproar of political unrest, the friends find themselves in the punk scene during the Springbok Tour, the nuclear age, and the Homosexual Law Reform Act. However, they leave their punk youth behind as they step through the church door, rebelling the only way they could against their feminist mothers. This time is reflective as they test out “lukewarm Christianity” and explore the need to anchor themselves in something.

Nowadays, Maz is an engineer and Rebecca a science historian. Rebecca is worried about global warming and it’s all she can think about. The book is interspersed with facts about climate change, which are interesting at first. They provide insight into what damage can be done even with renewable energy and the risks we currently face, especially in New Zealand. There’s huge value in knowing the history of the land, what can happen to Earth, and the current state of things. However, the facts quickly become heavy-handed. Imbuing a personal storyline with journalistic intent and switching between the two can be jarring and narratively confusing.

Rebecca tries to find ties to the land, to the country, to the future. She tracks down her maternal family history while she also interviews locals about COVID and climate change. She wonders, when was the best time for humans? Back then, we knew our children would have brighter futures even if our own lives were difficult. Now that we have access to more information, we have better lives but must face the uncomfortable fact that the next generation will not.

End Times is a great resource and Rebecca Priestley has incredible insight into climate change and how it can impact us, but it does build anxiety without providing much hope or many solutions.

Bryce Langston has travelled Aotearoa and the world to see just how big you can live when living tiny. He documents the many tiny houses he has explored, including those he has lived in with his partner. In Living Big in a Tiny House, each home is a unique expression of choosing to live differently, and it’s interesting to learn about them and their owners with Langston’s insights peppered in along the way.

Whether it is off grid, perched at the back of someone’s yard, nestled in a forest, or hidden from curious eyes, the tiny homes featured all look glorious.

Living Big in a Tiny House is eye-opening. Some of the houses are so intricate, featuring outstanding design elements and extraordinary ways of using space.

Langston describes a World War II-era carriage converted into a tiny house cabin in Colorado, USA as quirky and filled with recycled goodies. By recycled goodies, he means the gorgeous bottle wall, backlit by LED lighting and made up of antique airline mini-bar bottles from the 1950s and 60s. It’s stunning for its rustic charm alone, and more so considering its history and beginnings. With a high roof, glass ceilings, and scalloped mermaid tiles in the bathroom, it’s a beautiful montage of history blending with contemporary art. It’s a stark contrast to the tiny home Serenity, which is equally fabulous but on the larger side of tiny: light, airy, and spacious. Langston describes it as having a Hampton-style aesthetic.

One tiny house occupant has made a home away from home in shipping container bliss, nestled away in a forest high in the Coromandel Ranges. It’s a modern, industrial-looking, off-grid sanctuary.

There are certainly considerations to make when living tiny: the functionality of space, being intentional about the material possessions you need, and ultimately, whether tiny house living is actually for you.

I really enjoyed this book – and dreaming about my own tiny house should I ever become a minimalist, where I could live a little less ordinary with a lot less stuff.

Two shows for the price of one. What could be better this New Zealand Improv Festival? With just 30 minutes each, Queen & Friend and The Mechanical both manage to pull off a fully formed narrative with multiple characters based on suggestions from an excitable audience.

Using the Slido app, Queen & Friend (Imogen Behan-Willett and Mark Grimes), assisted by tech master Tristram Domican, use the audience’s selection of an inspiring location as their starting point. It’s Gore, South Island. Using clear mime skills, they quickly establish that we’re in Gore’s lone, nameless pub with its only two regular customers. Soon a third character, that of the publican, is introduced. Then the audience gets to pick whose story we follow next, choose-your-own-adventure style. The publican is the popular favourite and we’re off home to his wife, endless schnitzel-making, career angst, and emotionally stunted son.

Creating three characters per scene gives Queen & Friend its distinctiveness. Behan-Willett and Grimes deftly flit between their roles using simple physical moves that are easy to follow and fun to watch, alongside a speedily developed and entertaining storyline.

Next up is The Mechanical (Rik Brown), otherwise known as Tom Snout, the one performer left after his A Midsummer Night’s Dream play-within-a-play castmates have deserted. It soon becomes clear that Brown’s improv skills are a cut above the usual when he invites the audience to give him eight mostly random words that he will weave into a story. What follows – The Tale of the Gross Plumber – is a masterpiece of on-the-spot Shakespearean cleverness of which the Bard himself would have been proud. Weaving in multiple characters and three storylines (the fixing of a leak in the castle kitchen, a homosexual near-encounter on a snow slope, and an onion addiction), Brown uses existentialist mock-Elizabethan language and brilliant physical theatre throughout to take us on a complex and well-rounded story arc. As always with improv, I’m in awe of his instant creativity.

Oh, how I would kill to watch this show again. With music by Marvin Laird and book and lyrics by Joel Paley, Ruthless! is a hilarious musical about a daughter who would do literally anything to get the lead role. Maybe even murder...

With such a talented, professional cast that commits wholeheartedly to the performance, this show is bound to make you laugh. Every quip corrals the audience into collective laughter.

One of the most hilarious moments in the show is Lita Encore’s (Jane Keller) humorous number I Hate Musicals. It’s nice to watch a fellow theatre critic singing on stage. However, I shudder to think how ruthless Lita Encore would be if she ever got the chance to review this show, because Ruthless! deserves all the praise it can get.

I thoroughly love musical director Sarah Lineham’s portrayal of Judy Denmark. Her performance puts me in mind of Rachel Bloom and Jane Krakowski. It is extremely satisfying to see her subtly portray Judy’s character development through the show. Lineham has excellent control of her voice. In saying that, all the performers do, with each musical number a thrill to listen to. It is furthermore impressive that there are no mics used in the show and each performer is able to project their voice so skilfully.  

Addy Stone as Tina is bursting with talent and certainly has a future on the stage (just don’t cast her as an understudy… seriously). I would love to see the other Tinas; I have no doubt they are equally as talented and wish them the best for the season. It’s great to see young actors supporting the cast.

The set (Rob Romijn) is a perfect backdrop for the show. The two different sets between acts cleverly represent the characters’ development. Costumes managed by Cathy Lee epitomise each of the characters and give them even more depth.

This side-splitting show about mother-daughter relationships and the ambitions that can get in the way is not to be missed. You would be ruthless to skip out on this wickedly funny musical.

Here’s a Thing! presents a hand-picked cast of directors from across the New Zealand Improv Festival to make improvised mayhem, magic, and madness together onstage.

The great thing about reviewing improv is that it’s not possible for me to drop any spoilers. It’s made up on the spot and no two shows can ever be the same. If it’s done by sharp, funny, agile performers who work as a team, it can be one of the best and most bizarre things you’ll ever see. A real communal experience, where everything is an inside joke between the cast and the audience.

That’s just what we have here. Together with Matt Powell and Jim Fishwick as hosts, performers Christine Brooks, Katherine Weaver, Bec Stubbing, Matt Armstrong, and Noelle Greenwood bring us the love story of a frog and a caterpillar, the fatal rivalry of a barbershop and a barbershop quartet, the jams of a heavy metal band called Clockwork Banana, Goldilocks and the great Porridgegate scandal, the journey of a blunt arrow across the French-English Channel into a king’s right eye in 1063, and other Things. Each director possesses an innate sense of comedic timing, cutting almost every scene at the perfect moment. Not too short, not too long, just right.

With Matt Hutton creating a live soundtrack on keys and D’ Woods as lighting operator, the most jaw-dropping scene sees Powell and Fishwick invent and perform a Shakespearean ballad about space exploration in real-time. Another highlight for me is when Brooks prompts the audience for a process that happens in nature and I call out “Photosynthesis!” without realising I don’t actually know what it means. When asked to elaborate, I stutter “Sun!” and “Plants!” before a kindly audience member comes to my rescue. What follows is exactly what you’d expect from a photosynthesis prompt: a scene set in a world where everything is good and right, where lattes no longer cost $15 and the patriarchy is dead. Ahh, the joys of improv.  

Here’s a thing: if you want to laugh till your belly hurts, watch wizards weave worlds out of thin air, and be a part of something special, inimitable, then catch as many NZIF shows as you can.

“Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.” A quote originally attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte has now taken on greater meaning in 2023.

Starting in 1972 when the New Zealand Government and the China Communist Party (CCP) formally opened diplomatic ties, our country has had to increasingly step carefully between extracting the best possible outcomes from this relationship without incurring the wrath of an increasingly powerful entity.

A curious glance at some news stories might give you a rather jaded view of China and how it interacts with the world at large. However, nothing is ever that simple, and in fact, there are some historical reasons that help to explain what’s happening here.

For me, the most interesting part of Sam Sachdeva’s The China Tightrope was finding out about China’s ‘century of shame’, a period in their history where they felt they were at the mercy of much larger countries. That so-called shame may play a pivotal role in the country’s modern-day mindset – the idea that they will no longer take a back seat to anyone.

Sachdeva’s background in journalism shines through. He does not take sides, nor is he pointing fingers, and there are no villains. Instead, The China Tightrope gives readers the facts, letting them know there’s more to this relationship than what we are told.

As China gains more power and comes into more conflict with others as a result of that power, a better understanding of the country and its government is essential. Think of this book as a brief field guide on the relationship that China and New Zealand enjoy in the 21st century.

If you see it, I implore you to pick it up. While our relationship politics are anything but simple, The China Tightrope is a surprisingly quick and easy read that will give you a much better understanding of this new world we find ourselves in. Essential reading.