An essay reprint, ‘Where the grass is green’, by JESSICA REID, appears courtesy of The Physics Room contemporary art space, Christchurch, New Zealand.

SARAH JANE PARTON’s ‘Guidance’ marries allusions to contemporary pop culture and failed utopian ideals, excessive cultural displays, political propaganda and the intentional blurring of ideological boundaries. These contextual layers acknowledge the wary and cynical minds of the post-baby boomer generation, whilst expressing a nostalgic longing for the promises and possibilities ideological constructs of the 20th century proffered.

Circa Theatre
May 26-June 23 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

FINALLY this year a play that is challenging and confrontational in terms of its subject matter and as a piece of theatrical performance, yet still feels entirely complete. Plays that present difficult moral questions with an accompanying refusal to present easy answers seem to be popular recently, but the production of Blackbird at Circa reaches a new level through its beautiful script, intelligent direction and performances, and astute design. All of these elements combine together for an unsettling yet satisfying experience. I was gripped for the entire hour and a half.

Auckland Writers & Readers Festival
May 26 | Reviewed by Amy Brown

Jean Anderson, the chair of a panel discussion titled, The Art of Translation, introduced the crux of the topic with a rather nice metaphor. She compared an original text to the wearer of a raincoat, and the raincoat to a translation. This, to me, clearly demonstrated the possibilities of literary translation. The translator’s treatment could be so subtle as to be transparent, leaving the original text still visible underneath. It could be bulky and unflattering or tailored and elegant. It could be so large, bright and distracting that the original text would be almost forgotten. Although I was enchanted with this analogy, Anderson wisely refrained from taking it too far and began introducing her panel of speakers.

Te Whaea Theatre
May 25-June 2 | Reviewed by Shruti Navathe

Infinite Thread, currently on at Te Whaea theatre, is a performance comprising thirteen short dance pieces choreographed and danced by second and third year students. The NZ School of Dance students have worked in collaboration with entertainment technology students of Toi Whakaari NZ Drama School, to impressive result.

Auckland Writers & Readers Festival
May 26 | By Amy Brown, Catherine Bisley & Alexander Bisley

Amy Brown, Catherine Bisley and Alexander Bisley discuss An Hour with Richard Ford, chaired by John Campbell.


AB: My first impression was of John Campbell’s Chuck Taylors.

Auckland Writers & Readers Festival
May 26 | Reviewed by Catherine Bisley

Tim Winton has worked out how to get the camel through the eye of the needle. Here are his instructions, in three simple steps:

1) Kill the camel
2) Boil the camel
3) Spit it though the needle’s eye.

Auckland Writers & Readers Festival
May 26 | Reviewed by Amy Brown

STEPHANIE JOHNSON introduced Shane Koyczan to the several hundred strong audience as “the best poet in the world!” Quite a promise. My first cruel impression as Koyczan took the stage was that he could possibly be the biggest poet in the world; his large stomach and loose chin reminded me of a bullfrog. He’d brought his own bottle of coke with him, which sent a small flock of festival helpers into a flurry of clearing the Pellegrino water and glasses off the stage table.

Auckland Writers & Readers Festival
May 25 | Reviewed by Amy Brown

THIS SESSION bundled three short story writers of the festival together on a panel, chaired by Tina Shaw. Tim Winton, Carl Nixon and Charlotte Grimshaw are all Antipodeans, and all short story writers, but the similarities seemed to end there. Winton, with twenty-five years of experience under his belt, and a swag of accolades for Shaw to list, was by far the veteran of the group. He read with marvellous timing a story from his latest collection, The Turning, called ‘Immunity’. His prose, with its almost invisible style, revealing no seams, loose threads or dropped stitches, appeared effortless until Winton stumbled over the phrase “crisp rolled-up sleeves”. “If you can’t say it, don’t write it”, he said in a sheepish aside to the audience, which the other writers smiled at. Winton is among the best at what he does – it was relieving to see him make a mistake, even only one. The rest of the excerpt he read was brimming with his characteristic humanism and humour. Nixon and Grimshaw, both younger and less experienced, listened attentively.

MARK AMERY surveys two current exhibits at Pataka in Porirua: New Painting: Digital Age and Arts Society: Judy Darragh.

San Francisco Bathhouse
May 23-26 (Wgtn) | Reviewed by Nick Henry

A THREE comedian show was a good bet I thought. Even if one’s terrible, there’s two more to go. This show did turn out to be a bit of a mixed bag, but overall a good night.

Ben Hurley opened the show with a good demonstration of why not to sit in the front row at comedy gigs. Lured by the comfy couches, these punters got the piss systematically taken out of them. The usual small talk of introductions: “what’s your name?”; “what do you do?”; “where are you from?” became an opportunity to make fun of people for being an accountant, coming from South Africa, or calling themselves by their initials. Nothing too flash, but it warmed things up.

Auckland Writers & Readers Festival
May 24 | By Amy Brown, Catherine Bisley & Sam Bradford

Catherine Bisley, Sam Bradford and Lumière Books Editor, Amy Brown, are in Auckland for the Writers and Readers Festival. Their journey to Auckland was packed with eye-spy, a brief foray into car cricket and “guess this animal,” a new and exciting game involving animal impersonation. Sam surprised them all when he guessed Catherine’s Friesian cow on first go. Well done Sam! Bulls was their first stop, where they were bombarded with Bull puns. Incompara-Bull cultural cringe. A multi-coloured, fake rusted gumboot sculpture in Taihape was a hit. The Desert Road was dark and wet and long. At De Brett’s the weary travellers paused for the night and were comforted by the hot pools. The following day they stopped in Tirau for great coffee but too much corrugated iron and a castle called Pamela. Why Pamela? If you know, please enlighten us. They did not linger in Hamilton. The seafood pies in Huntly were middling. And then they arrived in Auckland, just in time for An Hour with C.K. Stead.

By Leonard Cohen
Viking Penguin, NZ$45 | Reviewed by Simon Sweetman

SPANNING thirty-five years, Leonard Cohen’s latest – long-awaited – book of poetry sees the writer covering familiar ground. He is still obsessed with women and intrigued by himself. He is still full of wicked, sly humour – sometimes laugh out loud, sometimes filled with pathos – and he is still capable of having his inimitable voice fill every page with his indelible mark, his indemonstrable spirit. The sensual side of Leonard Cohen has always overpowered the personal side. We know who he is as an artist, but who is he as a person? Book Of Longing comes close to providing a real answer for fans; several of the prose-poem and short-essay pieces are extremely autobiographical, no huge surprise there, but, aged 70, we now have a man contemplating his mortality, rather than merely navel-gazing and contemplating his humility.

Bodega; The Classic Studio
May 15-19 (Wgtn); 21-26 (Akld) | Reviewed by Jacob Powell

THE CLASSIC STUDIO is a great wee space with a brick wall along one side and a smallish corner stage facing the L shaped room. Into the midst of the full-ish, idly chatting crowd burst the concentrated ball of energy that is Jamie Bowen. Talk about getting the audience going, this guy has enough dynamism to get two rooms going and perhaps power a small town on the leftovers! Although seemingly gob smacked by this insane twig of a man, the audience got onboard for a frenetic hour long exploration of the truncated life and times of Jamie Bowen esq.

Academy Cinema; Paramount Theatre
May 11 (Akld); 21 (Wgtn) | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

CANADIAN Lonny Goosen, who has almost $3,000 in unpaid parking fines, sets out to make a documentary about parking enforcers. He is obviously coming from an extremely biased standpoint and intends to lampoon the institution, but the humanity of some of the people he meets alters his opinion; soon he is involved in their plight to keep the streets safe from motor vehicle infringements.

The Classic
May 21-26 (Akld) | Reviewed by Jacob Powell

HOW DOES someone with their mouth taped shut make you laugh? Is it through the kind of physical comedy reminiscent of old-time silent movies? God, please don’t let it be an hour or so of straight mime!

By Seb Hunter
Penguin, NZ$35 | Reviewed by Simon Sweetman

SEB HUNTER’s self-effacing approach to the memoir was brilliantly realised in his confessional story of how he tried his best to be a rock’n’roll star and generally loved and lapped up anything – and everything – to do with heavy metal. Hell Bent For Leather (Confessions Of A Heavy Metal Addict) was hilarious – and spot-on. Hunter’s dry tone allowed him to mock anyone and everyone – particularly since he picked on himself the majority of the time. Happy with the success of his first foray in to book-length writing, Hunter has reinvented himself as an author. And Rock Me Amadeus sees this Bill Bryson of the music-scene still engaging with the world in his unique, observational way. This time he’s turned his attention to a higher art form: Classical music.

Silo Theatre
May 17-June 16 | Reviewed by Imogen Neale

IT’S FAIR to say that most people have some sort of reaction to their partner’s ex-partners. It could be shock as ‘my god, but s/he is so average/mad/stunningly beautiful/hideously rude... or it could be disbelief ‘but he’s a she and I’m a he’... Whatever it is, it’s really hard to imagine that other, not-you person, fitting with your partner (who, hopefully, now fits so perfectly well with you).

Downstage Theatre
May 12-June 9 | Reviewed by Ewan Kingston

AT THE CLIMAX of Shakespeare’s Othello, the Moor muses aloud on his plan to kill Desdemona. He kisses her while she sleeps, ceases, then utters “one more, one more” before kissing her again. When some of the school students watching Jonathon Hendry’s production at Downstage saw that action, they chuckled, rather than wept. I had sympathy for them. I was not emotionally hooked by this play. All night my attention had periodically wriggled free of the action on stage. It was no wonder Othello’s struggle between devotion and rage didn’t hit us where it hurt.

By Charlotte Grimshaw
RH/Vintage, NZ$27.99 | Reviewed by Laura Fergusson

Opportunity is a patchwork quilt; a collection of stories each absorbing and thought provoking in its own right which combine in a fascinating whole. Characters marginal to one story reappear as the central voice of another, granting the reader fresh perspectives and a glimpse of unsuspected motivations. The overall effect is a cross section of Auckland, an exploration of intertwined lives and the unexpected impact each of us has on the experience of those around us.

Paramount Theatre; Auckland Town Hall
May 18-19 (Wgtn); 23-26 (Akld) | Reviewed by Jessica Manins

Heavenly Burlesque took away the award for the Best of the Fringe in 2006, and there has been a lot of hype surrounding the show. Needless to say, last night’s performance was sold out and the Paramount Theatre was full of eager audience members struggling to find a seat in time for the night of devilish decadence.

AMY BROWN follows Alexander Bisley’s lead and shares her Auckland Writers & Readers Festival favourites.

Gryphon Theatre
May 16-26 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

THE PRESENTATION of these two one-act plays, both with a wartime theme, is a spectacle of two halves. Both plays make us reassess our values, as today’s attitudes differ greatly from those presented of 60 years ago. The crackling recording of wartime melodies helps set the scene as we are transported back to a time when life was precious but precarious.

San Francisco Bathhouse
May 10/17/24 (Wgtn) | Reviewed by Jess Manins

Best of the Fest was a whole lot of good old naked entertainment. The San Fran was spilling out of its seams with eager punters ready for some highlight performers from the Comedy Festival.

The Drake
May 16-19 (Akld) | Reviewed by Jacob Powell

THERE WAS a buzz, albeit somewhat muted, as the miniature throng settled into their seats upstairs at The Drake in Auckland’s Victoria Park. A small venue and an even smaller, Wednesday night, crowd didn’t bode well for the opening performance of A Russian Guide to Culture. Don’t be fooled, however, by the title of this gig, as you’ll get three ‘culture guides’ for the price of one, the line up consisting of a Russian, Tongan, and English immigrant each sharing their own unique take on life and culture in New Zealand and beyond.

ALEXANDER BISLEY picks six authors not to be missed at this year’s enthralling Auckland Writers & Readers Festival.

By Tony B. Anderson
Random House, NZ$24.95 | Reviewed by Laura Fergusson

A BRIEF WARNING: you might not want to read this book in public. Nor for fear of the glances unenlightened strangers might bestow on an adult conspicuously reading an alphabet book – you might get a few but it’s worth it. Not because it will make you snort with laughter loudly and frequently, though it might. But because it is virtually impossible to read this book in your head, and if you try you are missing out on its greatest pleasures.

Bodega; The Classic Studio
May 15-19 (Wgtn); 21-26 (Akld) | Reviewed by Ewan Kingston

IF YOU WANT to be cool, guys, you know what to do. Talk in a slow, suave voice, move with the speed of a narcoleptic snail, and maintain that passive, slightly bored face. Not like Jamie Bowen. Avoid mentioning the following: that you live with your parents, you are afflicted with impotency at crucial times, you beat up kids. Not like Jamie Bowen. Cool Schmool. Auckland’s Jamie Bowen is entertaining, talented and hilarious.

An array of Wellington-centric music videos and album cover designs fill out the Michael Hirschfeld Gallery this May to coincide with New Zealand Music Month. MARK AMERY tunes into Radio With Pictures.

Westpac St. James
May 9-13 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

Maui: One Man against the Gods is a storytelling spectacular in which the legends of Maui are interpreted through dance, music and theatricality. The effect is an evening of powerful and visceral beauty and emotion, as well as a too rare opportunity to view a professional show presented mostly in Te Reo Maori.

San Francisco Bathhouse
May 11-12 (Wgtn) | Reviewed by Ewan Kingston

STANDING in a line; Lovegrove in T-shirt and black undies, Messrs Gonzales-Macuer, Wrigley and Henwood starkers but for the cylindrical advertising hoardings they clutched.

Late Laughs has shifted venues. Last year it was at Downstage. This year there was a large queue outside the San Fransisco Bathhouse for the sold-out Late Laughs: Week 1, 2007. They were expecting the raunchy and the raw. They were not disappointed.

Circa Theatre
May 10-15 (Wgtn) | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

IMPROVISATION is never easy, and relies largely on audience participation. This was evidenced last night as the barely half-full theatre didn’t manage to encourage a stellar performance from the cast of The Improvisers.

Opera House
May 11-12 (Wgtn) | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

Ed Byrne is a classic stand-up comic; he doesn’t tell jokes as such, but relates humorous anecdotes. Touching on a wide range of the typical comic’s armoury he discusses religion, homosexuality, porn, class, relationships, and alcohol, amongst other things. He says the things that you want to but daren’t because of the era of political correctness we live in. This is fairly straightforward but immensely popular, as the audience at his sell-out performance verifies.

JAMES ROBINSON makes easy work of Dylan Moran’s hard reputation, interviewing a man who comes across as focused, polite and seemingly content – despite having made a living out of adding genuine comedy to being hacked off and generally hungover.

BATS Theatre
May 8-12 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.

SkyCity; San Francisco Bathhouse
May 11-12 (Akld); 15-19 (Wgtn) | Reviewed by Imogen Neale

MIKE KING first built his reputation by telling scandalous jokes involving Maori. Thing was, as Mike King is Maori and as the jokes were therefore self-depreciating, our society seemed to think it was okay to let him get away with it just this once.

San Francisco Bathhouse; Auckland Town Hall
May 9-12 (Wgtn); 23-26 (Akld) | Reviewed by Helen Sims

APPARENTLY Brendhan Lovegrove doesn’t like opening nights. They have a weird awkward “vibe”. If he hadn’t told us this at the end of his one hour show, I would never have known. Lovegrove is a confident, if self deprecating, stand up performer. He was more than up to the task of keeping the (full) audience at the Bath House amused. He did settle into the performance as time went by – and interestingly his use of expletives diminished as a result!

St James Theatre; Westpac St James
May 9-10 (Akld); 15-16 (Wgtn) | Reviewed by Darren Bevan

SOME COMEDIANS have an art of making the perfectly absurd seem perfectly normal. One of these is Dylan Moran, star of TV’s Black Books and erstwhile raconteur on stage, who hit Auckland for the first of three shows last night. At the same time, Moran’s absurdism is also the sign of a highly polished show which threw curve balls to the packed crowd left, right and centre.

BATS Theatre; The Classic Studio
May 9-12 (Wgtn); 14-19 (Akld) | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

Jeremy Elwood comes across as the kind of nice bloke you could have a good laugh with down the pub. His material is interesting, if safe, and pitched expertly at his audience – he works out where they’re all from with a clap-o-meter at the beginning. Fortunately there were no Americans in the full house, or if they were, they were keeping quiet, because they came in for a good bit of bashing. As did everybody.

Auckland Town Hall
May 8-12; 15-19 (Akld) | Reviewed by Jacob Powell

AND THE WINNER is... England.

Australia – 6; Canada – 1; New Zealand – 7; England – 9; The Big Show – 7.

That’s about how I score the show now that the dust has settled.

Paramount Theatre
May 8 (Wgtn) | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

THE 2007 New Zealand International Comedy Festival opened last night in Wellington, with the frantic annual mêlée of stand-up that is First Laughs. “Vagina” was the word of the evening, rivalled only by “Racist” and “Americans”. What is it about kiwi comedy that means the most debased and puerile humour gets the most laughs?

By Vincent O’Sullivan
VUP, NZ$25 | Reviewed by Simon Sweetman

I SOMETIMES find Vincent O’Sullivan’s world too oblique; not instantly accessible. The title poem in this latest collection is a classic example, a strange wee story that seems to exist in its own world, occupying its own space. I find that rather cool – even if I don’t always understand exactly what’s going on. It’ll keep me coming back to the poems – a clever trick from a seasoned hand, no doubt? But just as often I’m dazzled by his superb, abrupt images. Short, simple statements that expertly paint the picture: “Wind pretty much tatters what’s left/of the puddle in the driveway” begins the poem that takes its title from that opening line. Facing it on the next page is the poem ‘Sizing up the bones’ where O’Sullivan documents “A goat’s skeleton like the struts of a small hut”. In the poem ‘New Year’s Eve, Carterton’, one reads of how “A moth quivers, the ecstasy perhaps/of not being here tomorrow’. This is the perfect description – yet it’s stated as a near-question of pure opinion, but it sums up the situation, creates a universal image.

St James
May 5 (Akld) | Reviewed by Darren Bevan

THIS YEAR’s International Comedy Festival is seeing a return of comedians to our shores, with Ed Byrne back after four years away and now Ardal O’Hanlon back for just one night after a 12 year absence.

With no support (I never really understand why comedians have a support act) Ardal heralded his own entrance and walked onstage to rapturous applause. To that, he retorted people had better lower their expectations and in a curious way, he was right.

Circa Theatre
April 28-June 2 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

CHEKHOV is known as one of those playwrights whose work you feel you really ‘should’ see. Susan Wilson directs a performance that you actually want to see, as she encourages the cast to bring out the humour in the melancholy. The small audience (the theatre was less than a quarter full on the night that I attended; a testament to the perception of the playwright) appreciated the shades of relief, laughing at the self-indulgent characters and the lighter moments.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM trawls the music calendar to bring us the month’s best gigs. This May: Chick Corea, The Haints of Dean Hall, The WBC.

Embedded in the painting of Simon Edwards and Dean Venrooy is a distinct evocation of Canterbury, writes MARK AMERY.

Bruce Mason, SkyCity + Opera House
May 3-10 (Akld), 11-12 (Wgtn) | Reviewed by Darren Bevan

Ed Byrne is an angry man – well, in an affable sort of way. Returning to New Zealand after 4 years absence, the show was a prelude to his residency in Auckland as part of the International Comedy festival. After a fairly average warm up by Paul Ego – a man whose act never really got going – Ed came out on stage to rapturous applause, and it never really stopped from there.

Bruce Mason, SkyCity + Opera House
May 3-10 (Akld), 11-12 (Wgtn) | Reviewed by Jacob Powell

A LONG-TIME favourite, I remember seeing Irishman Ed Byrne when he was in New Zealand a number of years back and he was doing his “travelling the world and apologising for Riverdance” and “Alanis Morissette” routine. He was bloody clever and bloody funny then so I was keen to see how he was going to go over this time around.

There’s more to Craig Potton Publishing than Nicky Hager’s must-read The Hollow Men, you know. Southern Man David Eggleton speedily answers ALEXANDER BISLEY’s questions about his handsome, recommended tome Into the Light: A History of New Zealand Photography.

By Andrew Johnston
VUP, NZ$25 | Reviewed by Tom Fitzsimons

THERE’S just no doubt that Andrew Johnston can write.

Anyone who tells you that the days you inhabit, which seem so insistent and monotonous, ‘are only trying / to make things clear – / shifting the light around, / summoning rain’, is good.

Anyone who knows that ‘some things that concern us / don’t concern us’ and can tell his young son that ‘soon you will wake / in the present, which is full of consolation’, is worth listening to.

BATS Theatre
April 27-May 5 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

IN THIS adventurous play by Gavin McGibbon the ultra talented Erin Banks teams up with the self-possessed Robert Lloyd to bring a tale of real love, kiwi style. That means emotional repression, manipulation, and a not unbefitting alcoholism. As Freddie (Lloyd) battles with his need for love versus his fear of opening up, his girlfriend Anna (Banks) struggles to accept that their love is doing them both harm. All this is conveyed via a series of domestic scenes and stand up routines in which the jokes ring increasingly hollow.

Circa Theatre
April 28-June 2 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

THE CIRCA crew who brought us Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard in 2005 are back this year with a production of the Russian master’s challenging and problematic comedy Uncle Vanya. Full of wry remarks, frantic speeches and seething desperation, Uncle Vanya is an unsettling comedy about the search for meaning in life, via a thread of old age and destruction. In true Chekhovian style it is also a story about love in which ardour never actually occurs, but is left floating in the space somewhere between two hapless lovers.

San Francisco Bathhouse
April 28 | Reviewed by Brannavan Gnanalingam

The Phoenix Foundation are embarking on what many New Zealand bands have attempted (and lamentably failed) to do, and that’s try and crack the US market. With a new record deal, and a couple of album-full of tunes worthy to make the cynical folks on American indie websites take notice, they stand a reasonable chance of doing something. They are after all, the best proponents of melody that we have currently operating (maybe Bic Runga excepted). Last Saturday’s gig was a chance to raise some much needed coin, and an almost full San Fran ably obliged by contributing to the passed around hat.