Grab your passport and turn on your out-of-office, we’re heading to the airport. And you won’t even need to queue for security. Winner!

It’s Christmas Eve and we are introduced to Francis (Jackson Burling), a loveable but lonely airport cleaner. While scrubbing floors and cleaning up explosive post-curry messes, he dreams of a life where he is in the spotlight. We accompany Francis in his reverie away from this less-than glamorous existence, transported ourselves to a fantastical life of romances, far-off islands and numerous prestigious accolades for ‘best cleaner’ (seven nominations and seven wins, naturally).

As each new daydream unfolds, we can’t help but be swept away by the loveable character and his fantasies. The world Francis builds is so engaging that when reality inevitably comes crashing back, punctuated by every berating phone call from his boss, it’s not just Francis that has to wake up and smell the er… let’s say roses… coming from the toilet cubicle. The audience feels that deflation too.

Burling is such a stunning performer. He has an incredible command of his physical range and comic precision that will make you laugh and then break your heart in two seconds flat. This is most evident during a glimpse of Francis at, arguably, his truest self. He is at home, alone, no longer a cleaner nor living in his imagination. Just simply watching an episode of The Chase and heating up leftovers. An impactful and beautiful juxtaposition to the comic unfolding of Francis’ escapist fantasy, and yet so relatable – haven’t we all wished for something more?

There is little dialogue, but Burling’s impeccable physicality and expression, accompanied by the selective soundtrack and creative lighting (Genoveva Reverte), speak volumes. The synchronicity of these elements keeps the piece engaging from start to finish.

Brick Haus Productions are quickly becoming known for their thought-provoking work that asks us to think of our relationships with ourselves, our communities, and one another. CAUTION WET FLOOR is no exception.

The decline of Judy Garland (Ali Harper) in the months leading up to her death from an overdose in 1969 forms the basis of this tragic, yet darkly funny, play with music. Judy is staying at The Ritz along with her new, much younger fiancé Mickey Deans (Glen Horsfall) and besotted friend and pianist Anthony (Tom McLeod, who doubles as musical director), preparing for a five-week run of shows. She hopes her act will maintain her high profile, but she struggles with addictions to booze and pills and her complex and strained relationships with the two men.

Having witnessed Harper’s gift for vocal mimicry before, I had no doubt that she could carry off a convincing portrayal of Judy Garland in song, which she does magnificently. However, it is her acting chops that come to the fore in End of the Rainbow. She’s constantly on the move, a twitchy bag of drug-deprived nerves, with a sharp wit and a yen for manipulation. The men don’t stand a chance as she bullies and cajoles them into indulging her needs, by turns the acid-tongued adult and the petulant teenager she was when the Hollywood studio machine started plying her with drugs. This is clearly a passion project for Harper, one which she fully embraces with the skill and energy of a seasoned performer.

As her foils, Horsfall and McLeod support Harper superbly and Kevin Orlando steals the show with his brief appearances as a porter and stage manager. McLeod’s musical direction and piano playing are also excellent, as is the six-piece band that is perfectly balanced against Harper’s powerful vocals.

The production design (Ian Harman) is smart and unfussy with glittery costumes that belie Judy’s less-than-sparkly mental state and a simple but slick set. Jeff Hewitt’s lighting design is also highly effective, especially during the final number.

Don’t miss Ali Harper’s stellar performance of a falling star. This is one rainbow you’ll never want to end.

Opening night of the 2023 New Zealand Fringe Festival and the anticipation is building (pun intended). We’ve been invited to grab a hammer, take a smoko, and scoff a pie as we join the ragtag cast of builders in The Awkward Company’s brand-new play Nailed It – A Builder Play.

We open with the untimely demise of Pete-o, a 106-year-old tradie gone too soon. Knocking down the number of days without an incident from 3 to 0, Pete-o’s death summons the much-maligned safety inspector, Donald – or Quackers (Sam Lewis). I can still hear the audible sigh from tradies in the audience upon his arrival.

At the play’s heart, as is with most real-world tradie jobs, is the camaraderie. The audience becomes one of the work crew, as the loveable site manager Crusty (Tom Hayward) welcomes us, “Smithy, Robbo, Benny, Lenny…” to a new day on site. This is where we meet Pete-o’s replacement, the new apprentice Dylan (Aimee Dredge), but Dylan is not what the team expects. How will our boys handle their first woman comrade?  

Dylan hopes to quickly gain their respect and no longer be seen as the ‘Sheila’ on site. But she must first fall victim to some classic tradie pranks of fetching ‘the long weight’ and the 1D10T planks.

The script is sharp as a tack, witty, and light-hearted, and performed stunningly by the entire cast. Still, rivers run deep with the writing; there is an underlying sensitivity which is highlighted in snippets of the characters’ bigger dreams and morals. Crusty loves to write musicals, Dylan doesn’t want to be a newbie forever, and Bubbles (Shauwn Peter Ethan Keil) is fiercely loyal to his trade and his team. There is also a highlight (literally, thanks to the hilarious utilisation of spot lighting by Ryan Holtham) of women in trade and apprenticeship opportunities from the play’s sponsors, BCITO.

A feel-good show with knock-out performances, pranks, pies, and Kiwi humour, The Awkward Company nailed it. Frank the Sentient Nail, the site mascot, was a bit wooden though.

We stare back at them as impressions from beyond the drawing room window. Never truly within but never without either, the audience and the actors both “hold as ‘twere the mirror up to nature”, as Shakespeare said. Or is it all just make-believe?

The eccentric yet quintessentially upper-class Lady Hermione (Sarah Barham) drapes herself artfully and aloofly over a chair, her loyal butler Roberts (Blaise Barham) in suspended animation until she pulls his strings to distract her from the tedium of a socialite’s existence. Set in the drawing room of a British estate in the 1920s, Wonderful is a witty and absurdist investigation into love, shifting values, and the lost generation. Discussing monocles, sex, bohemian Berlin, “what the actress said to the bishop”, and Lady Hermione’s play, the pair grapple with the inherited values that are no longer relevant and the utter disillusionment of a post-war world.

Writer and director Richard Huber describes Wonderful as “one part drawing-room farce, two measures of love, and a splash of the comedy of manners”. With only a chair and drinks cart for props, there is nothing for the characters to dance around except each other and their banter. Having known each other since childhood, Hermione and Roberts are in love with each other. She sees the entire relationship as a game, suggesting they run away to become “lesbians in Berlin”; Roberts, who fought in the Great War, is more cynical and realistic, knowing that a servant and a socialite don’t stand a chance against Britain’s entrenched classism. Therefore, Roberts and Hermione create a play within the play, where they can be together.

Using lighting (by Meko Ng and Jordan Wichman) to transition in and out of reality and imagination, the present and memory, Hermione and Roberts blur the lines between what is real and what is not for both themselves and the audience, making a space of their own somewhere in between where everything is Wonderful.

A warm, weird, and wacky welcome to the pure chaos of the Fringe season, The Big HOO-HA! is a competitive improv show originally founded in Perth some 20 years ago. It’s had great success in Melbourne and now, hopefully, Pōneke. By hopefully, I mean that it must stay here forever. I simply insist.

Our host Jennifer O’Sullivan introduces us to two teams: Hearts (Megan Connolly, Jed Davies, and Guanny Liu-Prosee) and Bones (Elliott Lam, Tara McEntee, and Malcolm Morrison). With the adept assistance of Matt Hutton on live keyboards (plural!), Sam Irwin on real-time lighting design, and Matt Powell on scorekeeping, the teams face off in a battle for glory by competing in timed rounds that feature various popular improv games. Challenges span storytelling, direction, narration, songwriting, muffin incorporation, and much more. Everything you see onstage is made up on the spot.

Group improv is, first and foremost, a team sport. You can be the wittiest, speediest, sharpest tool in the shed – and each one of these cast members is just that – but it doesn’t mean anything if you can’t collaborate, share the spotlight, and (to throw in an improv buzz phrase,) accept offers. Friday night’s Big HOO-HAA! players work beautifully together and there is a palpable camaraderie not just within the teams, but between them too. This results in a wild night of unbridled joy, silliness, and, of course, laughter.

Now for the highlights! Davies’ deliciously macabre delivery of 99 percent of his offers complements my favourite character of the night: McEntee’s Suspicious Moon, who turns out to be quite the perve in an encore appearance. Moon is made all the more ~suspicious~ by a great collaboration between Irwin and Hutton. Lam and Connolly write an absolute banger: Cry on my Face. O’Sullivan – who is generally a very charming riot – keeps mispronouncing Powell’s brilliant pun about bran muffins and Banksy (‘branksy’). Liu-Prosee takes a turn as a tiger hunter in possession of the famed, highly illegal ‘master bullet’, while Morrison’s wickedly disturbing tooth fairy sets… my teeth on edge. Sorry.

A big hoorah for The Big HOO-HAA!

Fog rolls over the island of Inisherin. The cold sets into your bones and the sea laps at your feet. Centuries of tradition and legend wrap themselves around your shoulders, shrouding the world in ancient mysticism and melancholia that seems only to exist in the realms of Celtic folklore and the fraught history of the Irish Isles. Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell) heads down to the local as he has everyday since forever, but his best friend Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) no longer wishes to speak to him. What ensues is a darkly humorous, bloody conflict with devastating consequences.

Set in 1923 The Banshees of Inisherin is an allegory of the Irish Civil War, a bloody battle pitting family and friends against each other. With the made-up island Inisherin translating roughly to “island of Ireland” and the plot revolving around a senseless conflict between Colm and Pádraic – best friends, brothers almost, who lose so much for so little, while the corrupt priest and brutal police officer stand by – the narrative is a powerful and beautifully crafted commentary on a dark moment in Irish history.

If I had the authority to give Barry Keoghan a supporting actor award for his portrayal of Dominic Kearney, I would fly to Ireland and personally deliver it to him. Rivalling Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Keoghan offers a compelling and tender portrayal of a boy on the spectrum, struggling to find his place in a world that doesn’t have much space for him. All the characters are so alive and well crafted. The relationships are a truthful representation of small, isolated communities. Cinematographer Ben Davis, designer Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh, and editor Mikkel E.G. Nielsen make a brilliant team.

I have so much praise for this work of art I could write pages. Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin has received nine nominations at the upcoming Academy Awards, and it deserves them. This film is cinematically masterful, so well acted, visually arresting, funny, touching, sad, and everything in between. It is also a love letter, a condolence, an Irish wake, a ballad to the people of Ireland.

Located on the heritage side of Wellington’s Naumi Hotel, Lola Rouge offers patrons a “journey to the Orient” right from their funky floral chairs, where they can enjoy views over Cobblestone Park while they dine on pan-Asian cuisine and sip signature cocktails. The restaurant is vibrant and colourful, utilising bold patterns and licks of flame red in its design, yet still decidedly chic.

Our night began as all the best ones do: with cocktails. I ordered the gin-based Lady Lavender, a sweet and balanced lime, lavender, orange, and butterfly pea tea concoction topped with a bubble of smoke that unfurls on impact.

After we were told the menu was designed for sharing, we ordered four dishes between us, expecting them to be tapas-size. Spoiler: they weren’t. The catch of the day would’ve filled me up on its own, but I listened to my stomach over our attentive server’s friendly warning that it was one of the biggest items on the Land and Sea menu. So really, I have only myself to blame! The fish was enjoyable but overshadowed by a chilli sambal sauce and didn’t stack up to our other three choices, all of which were exceptional.

I could eat either the Chongqing chicken – a traditional spicy Sichuan dish of chicken and dried red chilies – or the black tiger prawn and scallop dumplings in Galangal broth for every meal. The hero of the night was undeniably the Kurobuta pork belly, braised in fragrant master stock and served with ginger, scallion, peppers, sesame, and crispy leeks with a sticky black bean sauce. The meat was melt-in-your-mouth tender, and the dish hit the flavour profiles of sweet, salty, and spicy to perfection.

We might’ve been too full to move, but still couldn’t resist ordering dessert. Beautifully presented, the signature tasting plate featured a silky-smooth coconut, rosewater, and cardamom crème brûlée; a Whittaker’s 50% chocolate crèmeux, more sweet than rich; and a moist matcha cake, all tied together with a biscuit-nut crumb and edible decorations like tuille leaves, flowers, and chocolate buttons. What a finale!  

If there’s one thing that I think binds every human being together, it’s that we were all young at some point. We were all preteens taking our first steps into becoming independent adults and failing miserably at it.

The graphic novel Booked follows the story of 12-year-old Nick as he navigates the perils of preteen life, including bullies, a blossoming romance, and a personal life that’s seemingly falling apart. While the story might be aimed at younger audiences, older readers might still like to give it a chance, as it does touch on some adult themes.

The illustration at first glance could be interpreted as simple, but this simplicity is what makes Booked so appealing and such a great read. Its bold illustration, with its clean lines and sparing use of one colour (green), helps draw the eye and makes Nick and his friends really pop off the page and come to life. All of this is thanks to illustrator Dawud Anyabwile, whose style complements the book’s narrative and the characters within.

Speaking of the characters, I have to say I loved them and actually began caring for them like real people. It was the combination of Anyabwile’s illustrations and Alexander’s strong storytelling that evoked this emotional response in me.

As said in the introduction, Booked and Nick’s adventures will be something that everyone can relate to, and I found myself absentmindedly chuckling more than a few times at the situations he found himself in. I mean, who hasn’t had that one teacher they couldn’t stand, or found themselves nervously face to face with their first crush?

While I loved what was going on in Nick’s school, it’s his home life that will really hit home for many readers. This was the part of the story with the most emotional meat. It’s these layers that add to the story, making Booked, in my opinion, worth much more than just a casual glance.

I needed to overcome a tad of scepticism when starting to read Joanna Gaines’ The Stories We Tell. ‘Story’ has become a bit of an overused word, due largely to social media. Even Facebook urges us to add to our story. What kind of stories was our writer referring to?

Gaines, a New York Times bestseller, is Korean American, raised near Wichita, Kansas. As a person of mixed race, she experienced teasing at school and even years later, continued to find it difficult to fit in.

A career in journalism, a successful construction and renovation business in partnership with her husband Chip, and a happy home life do not seem to have stilled persistent inner voices of self-doubt, fear, and unworthiness, feelings many readers can relate to. Nearing the age of 44, “things had gotten blurry” is how she describes it. She had one go at writing 20 years earlier, but here she is “a couple of decades later, longing once again to write everything down”.

And boy, does she! All 240 pages worth. They’re interspersed with pink backgrounded mantras such as “Looking up grounds me in gratitude” and “Growth is where my heart is”.

Self-help books offer special challenges to the author – chiefly how to keep reader interest while relating deeply personal feelings. Greater conciseness would better suit the author’s purpose here. We read at length about her guilt, regret and pain. Such confessions are no doubt useful to the writer, by helping to purge those feelings, but are they as useful to the reader?

Gaines has had a successful career and even a TV programme, both of which, she says, developed her understanding of story as a tool for growth, describing as it can the breadth and diversity of human experiences. Fair enough. That said, the declaration “Chip and I have become story-obsessed” is predictable so comes as no surprise!

Gaines’ experience of setting her personal journey down on paper has clearly been a salutary and positive one for her. She urges us all to tell our own.

I must be one of few people who’ve not heard of Ant Middleton because when I selected this book to review, I thought I’d picked a book by Ant McPartlin from light entertainment duo Ant and Dec. How wrong I was.

Instead, I received a book with an intimidating cover photo of a muscled man with piercing blue eyes staring out at me looking like an old-school personal trainer who yells and swears to motivate you.

For those of you who are new to this author, Ant Middleton is a former British SAS soldier who presents a TV series called SAS Australia and has published a series of books about mental toughness.

His latest book covers a series of themes that stand in the way of us reaching our potential with advice on how to smash through these limiting thoughts or behaviours. There’s nothing new here – it’s simply packaged up differently to align to the hard man, ex-soldier brand that Ant Middleton has become known for and references later in the book.

If you can get past the references to Australian celebrities (who I hadn’t heard of), the swearing, and the initially male-dominated narrative then the advice is pretty good. And if you stick with it, the author softens a little in the second half of the book.

There are stories of contestants from the TV series and readers to help illustrate his advice, and they can be easier to relate to than the author. One story that stayed with me was the contestant who had to overcome her fear of being in a car submerged in water. Amazingly she completed the challenge of escaping the submerged car without panicking by making one commitment at a time and breaking the challenge down into small, clear, but simple steps. This chapter alone was worth the price of the book.

I wouldn’t normally read a book like this and I’m probably not the author’s target audience. But despite that, I’ve taken away some of the advice and started to put it into practice.

What better way to start the new year than with a book that may just help you achieve the ultimate goal of happiness?

Cracking the Happiness Code was not, at first, a particularly alluring book. Something about the cover and the subject matter felt overworn, i.e. another book on happiness, that oft-elusive emotion. However, it turned out to be an impressive and meaningful delve into the mechanisms of achieving happiness.

In Cracking the Happiness Code, author Pamela Stoodley, a medically trained doctor, neuropsychologist, and counsellor, is well placed to offer insights into happiness and how and why it might elude you.

The first half of the book is the why, highlighting the thoughts, behaviours, and circumstances that may be contributing to unhappiness. The second half details the how; the strategies and practical changes that can ultimately lead to a happier life.

The chapter titles can sound a little harsh: Victimisation, Infestation, Retribution, and Elimination, to give you an idea. Elimination got me thinking. As a large consumer of news, both good and bad (possibly more bad), I wondered could I ‘unconsume’, go on a ‘news diet’? Stoodley suggests liaising with an equally minded friend who also partakes heavily in a media-saturated environment, to update you with news truly relevant to you each week, and to do this with no emails, no forwards, and no screenshots. You will find that the news that’s actually important to you will significantly diminish. Stoodley says to connect with real humans and learn about their real stories first-hand.

Cracking the Happiness Code contains real-world strategies. There’s even a chapter called Consumption, which takes a look at how nutrition can affect our moods. With vast skill and experience, the author outlines what keeps us from happiness and ways to help us achieve the deep-set emotion most of us strive for, but do not always obtain.

The first step, says Stoodley, is action – it’s not about what has caused you to be unhappy all this time, it’s about taking charge and doing something about it.

Summer Shakespeare is an institution in the city and an annual highlight of our arts calendar. The Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington Season of The Tempest sees many a happy camper sprawled on The Dell lawn to enjoy an eco-ethical production of William Shakespeare’s tragicomedy that asks what maketh man a monster, and what maketh monster man.

The Tempest is set on an unnamed island, where the usurped Duke of Milan Prospero (James Bayliss) and his daughter Miranda (Tori Kelland) have taken refuge. Prospero has enslaved the island’s only other inhabitants: the half-fish, half-man Caliban (Rachel McLean) and a host of otherworldly beings commanded by the spirit Ariel (Maea Shepherd). When a storm sees Prospero’s brother Antonio (Tom Vassar) and other members of the Naples royal family shipwrecked on the island, Prospero seeks his revenge. 

Shakespearean language can be hard to wrap your head around – even for someone who studied it! For me, the key to understanding the dialogue is in the vocal delivery of it, and it’s clear here that each cast member has a good grasp of their character’s intent. I want to give a particular shoutout to the imperial Bayliss; Shepherd, who has the most stunning singing voice; and the impassioned McLean for helping me to follow the action with the exceptional delivery of their lines. Another special mention to the hilarious Philip Nordt as the drunken butler Stephano and Anna Kate Sutherland as the jester Trinculo for the comedy gold they sprinkle into an already-sparkling sea of talent.

Megan Gladding’s production design makes for a magical viewing experience and works in harmony with Neal Barber’s lighting design, a treat to watch come to life and light as the sun goes down. Sarah Bell’s costume and wardrobe design is outstanding, particularly when it comes to Caliban’s floating fish head, which has a huge bearing on the way the audience relates to the character.

I did find the background spirit dancers a little distracting, but overall this was a totally absorbing production that gave me a much-needed break from reality – to an island far far away, where magic and mayhem reign supreme! 

After introducing himself in the mic from the wings, Guy Williams comes charging out on stage to Dark Horse by Katy Perry, energy and enthusiasm up the wazoo. When our lacklustre response is not to his satisfaction (in our defence, it’s Wednesday and we’re not tiddly), we’re barraged by a relentless stream of insults and expletives. Wellington sucks, we’re told, as we’re called f-wits and the like.

I bloody love it.

I’m a big fan of Guy from 7 Days, Jono and Ben, and New Zealand Today, but had only seen his stand-up in small bursts as part of gala nights. I was interested in seeing how he might structure an hour-long set and fare in a long-form comedy setting. He nailed it.

Comedy Plus Time Equals Tragedy has Guy take “a break from arguing with people on the internet to try and make the world a better place”. Conversations billed are racism, colonisation, and misogyny, but we’re treated to much more taboo topics too. While some comedians broach these subjects just to shock and provoke their audience, and I’m personally someone who’s very easily offended (nothing wrong with that), Guy’s comedy is somehow… charming? It’s random and clever, padded with layers, context, and bizarre segues that make very little sense but wind up being my favourite parts of the show. His loud, somewhat erratic delivery keeps the momentum going and the laughter flowing well after the curtain call. In this case, the curtain call is WAP by Cardi B feat. Megan Thee Stallion.  

My only feedback is that I’d love to see Guy get a little more personal. I’m thoroughly entertained but want to feel something a bit deeper too – as if comedy isn’t hard enough, right? Although it’s oddly timed (about a quarter of the way in), Guy’s support act and sister Maria Williams’ set resonates with many of us. The heartfelt interlude means that by the end of the show, all my boxes have been ticked.

I snorted, bark-laughed, and had a brilliant evening with a comedian at the top of his game. Cheers, Guy.

For those of you who haven’t been to a Caburlesque show, think of it like cabaret meets burlesque… then pour a pound of glitter over it and amp it up to a thousand. For Rock & Rhinestones, we have SpongeBob SquarePants meeting Billy Idol, pole dancers meeting shotgun weddings, Tina Turner meeting rhinestone cowboys, and oh so much more. The theme is rock music, and the dress code? Sparkles, sparkles, and more sparkles.

The night opens with a warm welcome from our shiny-silver-suited MC Sadie Von Scrumptious, who has a good sense of timing and a knack for reading the room. Between acts, she engages us with terrible jokes (excellent) and witty banter but never for too long, keeping the momentum flowing at all times. Sadie also hosts air-guitar and best-dressed competitions straight after half time, a tried-and-true Caburlesque format that gets us involved and helps us release some of the energy and over-excitement we’ve built up over the past hour. The energy in the room is electric from start to end.

Some absolutely stunning acts take the stage over the course of the evening. Pandora Cherie mesmerises the crowd with a sensual, silky burlesque dance to Disturbed’s cover of The Sound of Silence, while Pip E-Lysaah & The Red Queens: Gold Edition sizzle with an incredible showcase of strength and agility on chairs. Also showing a chair who’s boss is Velma Cherry, who puts on one of the most charismatic, infectious performances I’ve ever seen to Do You Wanna Touch Me? (Oh Yeah) by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts. Fun and fab Felicity Frockaccino finds the naughtiness in Tina Turner’s Simply The Best, and a moustached Maree & Giada set my jaw a-tumblin’ to the floor with remarkable pole feats as hilariously aloof cowboys.

There’s a reason these are the longest-running regular burlesque variety shows in Wellington. Get your bling on and go see for yourself.

If you loved Singing in the Rain but wished it had been a bit more debauched, decadent, and depraved, then Babylon is the film for you.

Written and directed by Academy Award-nominee Damien Chazelle, Babylon tells the story of three Hollywood dreamers during the rise and fall of the silent film era, from the 1920s through to the 50s. Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) is the king of silent films, but his talkies prove less popular. Nellie La Roy (Margot Robbie) knows she’s a star before she even steps foot in Hollywood; she gets a lucky break when she sneaks into a party but falls hard when cinema adds sound. Manuel Torres (Diego Calva) slowly climbs the ranks through his determination and commitment, but will his devotion to Nellie be too much to endure?

Cinematographer Linus Sandgren and editor Tom Cross are truly a match made in heaven. Sandgren has a way with light and colour as demonstrated in Chazelle’s La La Land, and his influence on Babylon is evident. Sandgren’s visuals combined with Cross’s fast-paced editing creates a thrilling rollercoaster ride that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Perhaps the biggest praise however should go to production designer Florencia Martin, who creates a world as fantastical, complex, diverse, grotesque, and saturated as a Fellini film.

Though beautiful, exciting, and undeniably entertaining, I think the film is decidedly unoriginal. The story seems more like a rip-off than a tribute to Singing in the Rain and The Great Gatsby. The underlying theme of Hollywood’s brutality, in which fame is delusional, and cinema is a business that uses creatives in its machine, is not only tired and over-used, but executed in a way that leaves no room for redemption or sympathy.

Don’t get me wrong, the actors and crew all did a phenomenal job on the technical side of this film. The first two-thirds are engaging and decadently beautiful. However, I feel as though the final segment of the story somehow lost its way. Nevertheless, Babylon absolutely deserves a watch and some Oscar buzz.

Director James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water continues the saga upon the moon Pandora. Ex-human, ex-marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) has established a family with Na’vi partner Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) and they live in prosperous happiness. However, when the humans return to Pandora to extract its resources, Jake and his family are hunted. They escape to the safety of the island nations of the Metkayina people… or so they thought.

Centered heavily on the importance of family, Avatar also highlights themes of bravery and loyalty, underscoring the importance of doing the right thing and staying strong in the face of adversity. Avatar continues its commentary on environmental destruction, paralleling the ruination of Pandora through resource extraction to the devastation of our own planet by a common enemy: humans.

Avatar: The Way of Water is a visual tour de force and, unsurprisingly, a milestone in the world of CGI and VFX. Featuring new technologies from Wellington’s own Weta Workshop, the film is exceedingly beautiful. With an immersive seascape as the setting for this episode of the Avatar series, every new creature, every element of flora, every tiny detail is saturated with vitality and vibrancy; every being breathes with the eager effervescence of new creation. Russell Carpenter’s cinematography paired with a 3D experience, well balanced to be immersive but not overwhelming, ensures the viewer experiences the story from within Pandora herself, dripping and oozing with life.

Though Avatar is visually arresting and undeniably groundbreaking, the exceedingly lengthy runtime – of which a substantial amount is taken up by a repetitive unending final battle – leaves much to be desired. The dialogue’s informality feels incongruous and distracting. Though the story itself has some poignant and interesting moments, it essentially mimics the first movie with the classic trope of human vs Na’vi, good vs evil. 

Nevertheless, Avatar: The Way of Water is an incredible and unparalleled visual experience that is definitely worth a watch.

Improv is one of my favourite things to watch. Often integrated into the action, the audience becomes one giant sponge, absorbing the adrenaline coursing through the cast as they scramble to make up scenes on the spot. It’s thrilling when things go right and equally so when things go wrong. It’s a communal experience for both its makers and those witnessing their creation: a show that can’t be repeated, will never be seen, again.

When you line up some of the best improvisers in Wellington – in this case, Alayne Dick, Jennifer O'Sullivan, Dianne Pulham, Matt Powell, and Wiremu Tuhiwai, with special guest David Correos from Christchurch – you’re pretty much guaranteed a great night.

Interestingly, the players only take one audience suggestion (the theme, Easter), instead of prompts for each scene. While I’ve seen the latter more often, I prefer the Summer Improv format – without interruptions, the action has more momentum than a bear devouring an entire jar of manūka honey that its flatmates were entitled to two-thirds of. Big shoutout to Tuhiwai here, whose portrayal of a bear that can’t get its scat sorted at home or work is one of the highlights of the night.

Animals – both fictional and real – become a recurring theme. We have the Easter Bunny (but of course), not one but two bears, and the Squirrel Squad – Trash Squirrel, Ocean Squirrel, Air Squirrel, and Forest Squirrel, a gang pictured here that I desperately wanted to assemble again. While I did fight the urge to cry out for a Squirrel Squad encore, the players incorporate many a great hark-back, consistently getting the audience in on the joke.

Just a few more gold nuggets include O’Sullivan’s wise-man Mark, Pulham’s gaslighting mother, Correos’ sober driver, Dick’s incompetent manager, and Powell’s irate flatmate. Matt Hutton’s improvised keyboard soundtrack and Sam Irwin’s snappy lighting transitions tie it all up neatly in a bow befitting for a young girl named Gavin.

Summer Improv is on for one more Friday in January, though I hope to see it become a regular fixture on our stages. It’s certainly earned its place!

I thought I knew some stuff about Gaylene Preston but I knew nothing! This book is a great insight into the way the world has moved on since the early days of filmmaking in New Zealand, especially when directed by a sheila. Gaylene was pretty resilient to get through some of the tough shoots and situations unscathed. She’s tenacious as nothing came easy, and boy did she fight for it.

It sounds like she had a lot of fun along the way and ‘faked it till she made it’. She did time in the UK, as is the Kiwi way, and worked in psychiatric wards putting on shows. I thought that was very brave but when you are young and fearless, you can do anything. She has worked with the best in New Zealand including Alun Bollinger, who she fondly refers to as AlBol (I always think of champagne). In those days you had to fill the cinemas across New Zealand and so she bought the Paramount for two weeks for $6000 to accomplish this. The Paramount, now sadly closed, used to show soft porn in the afternoons back then, but not when there was a Preston movie to screen.

Her family is her strength and she shares fond memories of her parents, even providing a sausage roll recipe from Tui (her late mum). The recipe starts: “Go down to the dairy and get frozen puff pastry, taking care to have a yarn with the shopkeeper about more than just the weather.” My kind of recipe and I will try it out.

As a storyteller, she has a great turn of phrase: “With the financial jersey not unravelling any further, we were sailing again.” “Tui was named after that dark metallic rainbow bird that swaggers and coughs through the New Zealand bush.”

I learned a lot about filmmaking and Gaylene’s successes from Gaylene’s Take. It took me back to a simpler time before tech got in the way. Happy days.

For someone who has never thrown a punch in their entire life, watching The Karate Kid for the first time in the 80s was pure wish fulfilment. And now with Ralph Macchio’s new book Waxing On, we get to see how all the stars aligned to create what many consider to be one of the best movies of 1984.

From his very first audition for the role of Daniel LaRusso, to meeting the late great Pat Morita for the first time, Waxing On goes in depth into what it was like making The Karate Kid trilogy and the impact it had on Macchio’s life and subsequent career.

His down-to-earth personality bleeds onto the page and is reflected in his writing style, which makes him a more relatable storyteller. There are no airs or graces that you might associate with a Hollywood celebrity here, nor are there the kind of outrageous stories about wrecking hotel suites or extramarital affairs that plague other memoirs. Instead, he’s humble about his achievements, honest about his mistakes, and thoroughly entertaining along the way.

Little anecdotes litter the entire book. I interpreted some as teachable moments, while others were fun little titbits that had me gasping for joy as a huge fan. One such story that caught and held my attention was the almost universal concern people had about Pat Morita’s match fitness for the role of Mr Miyagi. Even Macchio admitted to harbouring concerns about Arnold from Happy Days in one of the leading roles. Fortunately, Morita blew them all away with his audition and the rest, as they say, is history. It’s stories like these that make Waxing On such a pleasure to review.

And on that note, I always try to approach my reviews and give feedback in a balanced way, but I really can’t find any downsides to Waxing On. If you have the opportunity to pick this up, don’t hesitate – just do it. It is a must read for 2022.

The Rarkyn’s Familiar is the story of Lyss, a human bonded and inextricably entwined in a blood pact with Skaar, a creature, some say ‘monster’, from the Otherworld. Their unholy union borne from a fight-for-life encounter binds the Rarkyn to Terresmir, and to Lyss as her familiar.

In Nikky Lee’s fantasy novel lives a world where the horrors of creatures from the Otherworld threaten to breach the boundaries of Terresmir. Embroiled in a reluctant bond with a fearsome monster, Lyss experiences a symbiotic melding of powers and energies with Skaar, with the ever-present threat that “control will fall to whoever has the strongest magic”.

Each carries a secret burden as they travel to the Illredan Empire in a desperate quest to find a cure before the inevitable madness of their blood pact becomes all-consuming for Lyss. Otherworld beings, the elite soldiers of The Order, and wayward mancer Archer threaten to derail them along the way.

Skaar will fight for freedom in his bid to escape the clutches of Archer again, the cursed mancer who had once held him captive; driven to cruelty by guilt and despair, and a madness-filled quest to save someone long gone. Lyss will fight to avenge her father’s death.

The Rarkyn’s Familiar will have you questioning who is the monster – is it the one who fights for freedom? Or the one who fights for retribution?

In Skaar and Lyss, Lee has created impressive character arcs, fleshed out and splat out, where horror, fantasy, and magic collide.

Through their shared fight for survival, and as they hone their minds and magic across hugrokar (a telepathic sense) to share their thoughts, feelings, and attack plans with no need for spoken words, a reluctant regard for one another develops.

Though Lee says it took 16 painstaking years for this book to come to fruition, I got to the end of The Rarkyn’s Familiar feeling like the story and adventures of Lyss and Skaar are far from over.