By Eleanor Meecham
Penguin, NZ$28 | Reviewed by Natasha Burling

AS THE NAME suggests, the backdrop for Llamas and Empanadas is South America. New Zealand-born Eleanor Meecham cycles almost the length of the continent, zigzagging between Chile and Argentina and reaching as far south as the remote island of Tierra del Fuego. She then heads north to the legend-steeped former site of a silver bonanza, Potosí in Bolivia. Meecham shows considerable grit and determination, cycling 5000km and overcoming challenges such as altitude sickness, exhaustion and loneliness.

MELODY NIXON finds joy in Will Oldham’s blackness; spirit, genius, and so many other things. She relays her devotion to the poet, actor, musician and neo-hillbilly folk singer – currently known as Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – in relation to his latest album, The Letting Go.

Circa Theatre
June 9-July 14 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

“Fags, Retards, Cripples, Fat People …”

“… We’re all just one step away from being what we despise.” So says the mercilessly cynical Carter in one of his tirades in Circa’s Fat Pig. I’ve always thought that despising someone or something is very close, if not akin, to fearing it. I think this is an underlying message in Fat Pig, amongst the others LaBute liberally scatters into his script, namely, what creates fear and what happens when you feel it? LaBute restricts the story to a single blossoming relationship, but the tentacles of the play stretch far – I’ve heard more than a few people (mostly my age) accuse this play of being superficial and shallow, but I left feeling rather unsettled – there was definitely more to ‘get out’ of this play than its surface content. If we keep on allowing our socially constructed prejudices to get in the way of genuine human intimacy, could this lead to our (emotional at least) destruction? This is certainly what the play is suggesting in its excellent apocalyptic final montage (without wanting to give away too much!)

Gryphon Theatre
June 22-23 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

Six Characters in Search of an Author is Luigi Pirandello’s much touted classic, often name dropped but rarely seen. Butterfly Creek Theatre Troupe, a community theatre group based in Eastbourne, now offers an opportunity to view this searchingly existentialist piece about the nature of Pirandello’s “sprightly young helpmate”; Imagination.

Hope Brothers
June 21 | Reviewed by Simon Sweetman

WE KNOW Don McGlashan from his work with The Mutton Birds, and before that with The Front Lawn. And for some, before that, with Blam Blam Blam. We know him for his work as a film composer (most recently No.2 – many moons ago, An Angel At My Table). We know him for his solo album Warm Hand and we know him because of his warm voice. But the Don McGlashan that took the stage with Seven Sisters (his new-ish backing band) was not necessarily the same man we know from his clever, colloquial songs. This was a fired-up McGlashan spitting out a barroom-rocking gospel as drummer Chris O’Connor churned a buttery backbeat and the empathetic basslines of Marie Thom (subbing for SJD, one assumes) were woven in and around the pedal steel lashings from John Segovia. It was a tight-but-loose sound and the first couple of numbers felt like they could be off a Dave Dobbyn Sings Grand Funk Railroad album. It was a different side of Don.

By Colin Cotterill
Text Publishing, NZ$37 | Reviewed by Amy Brown

IF YOU’VE read Cotterill’s first book, The Coroner’s Lunch, you may be pleased to hear that Thirty-Three Teeth is the sequel, and that it looks like Cotterill is far from finished with his unique protagonist, Siri Paiboun. If this is all new to you, Thailand-based Australian, Cotterill has created what some critics are calling the South East Asian answer to Agatha Christie’s Poirot. Siri Paiboun, a septuagenarian, forensic surgeon is not just Laos’ national coroner, but also a sprightly psychic. So, when a suspicious body ends up on the table in his morgue, he is well-equipped to solve the mystery.

By Barbara Else
Vintage, NZ$28 | Reviewed by Diane Spodarek

Wild Latitudes, Barbara Else’s sixth novel, is a first-person narrative told by Adele, an 18-year-old girl from England who finds herself a castaway on a beach in New Zealand in the 19th century. The story is told from a much older voice reflecting on how she was able to survive. Adele is a beautiful virgin with “corn-silk” hair, and highly educated. She knows how to catch fish and understands that the silver fern she finds, which she uses to cover up her torn undergarments, are sacred to the natives of that land. She soon discovers she is not the only white inhabitant on the island when she comes upon Scottish seal-hunters camping by a fire and waits until they are asleep to steal food, drink and a seal skin to cover herself.

Circa Theatre
May 26-June 23 | Reviewed by Simon Sweetman

SCOTTISH playwright David Harrower has, with Blackbird created a frank – intimate almost to the point of claustrophobic – look at innocence and guilt; at how the dynamics behind human relationships are never entirely what they seem; particularly when, as an outsider looking in, the truth of any situation tends to turn on itself as more is revealed. When you have two people both telling their version of the truth it is even trickier. This is what the audience is faced with when enduring Blackbird, an amazing theatrical experience that is most certainly not a light-hearted night out at the local playhouse.

Downstage Theatre
June 16-July 14 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

I HAVE ALWAYS bemoaned the fact that New Zealand’s myths of national identity are bound up to a large extent with rugby – a game that (to my mind) lacks intelligence and subtlety. Finding Murdoch, a play based around the media pursuit of a rugby legend, Keith Murdoch, suffers from the same failings. The play’s central character is in fact not Murdoch, but “Jane”, an ambitious young female journalist struggling against the old boys club to track the big man down in order to get her big break in TV production. Sounds clichéd? It is. My main gripe about the show is, that despite being a solid production, Downstage has once again this year (see my musings on The Graduate) brought us a play that, although slick, just seems largely pointless as a piece of theatre.

Circa Theatre
June 9-July 14 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

Fat Pig, by enduring funny man Neil LaBute, is a deeply satirical look at the possibly human and definitely Western drive to categorise, define and dismiss other people. This Circa production of LaBute’s script is a New Zealand premiere which successfully and clearly conveys the play’s essence. An essence that, most likely, will not incite viewers to outrage, or provoke major introspection. However, Fat Pig may help to chip away at the block of image obsession and body pressure that holds mantle over our media-shaped lives, and provide a prompt for some questioning of our values in relationships.

BATS Theatre
June 15-30 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

EARNEST and searching, The Life, Death and Afterlife of Felix Unfortunate begins this year’s Young and Hungry spread with an Orwellian look at conformity. Next in the line-up, Fitz Bunny, Lust for Glory presents a surprisingly entertaining musical about the corruptive nature of power, and bunnies. And The Henchman is a witty, action-filled boys’ play, the stage equivalent of a superhero spoof film.

Touring New Zealand in August, Bob Dylan’s legend continues to endure. A Dylan latecomer, BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM argues for the man’s genius, his lyrics, and his undying cool.

Downstage Theatre
April 28-June 30 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

CHILDREN’s theatre works best when it involves the people it is aimed at – the children. Friends Forever, on at Downstage every Saturday until the end of this month, weaves storytelling and strong acting to produce a fun and lively show. It could go further however to utilise its greatest asset – the kidlets in the audience.

By Jonathan Tropper
Orion, NZ$27 | Reviewed by Laura Fergusson

I ARRIVED home after flying in from London and found the review copy of this novel waiting for me. I began to read it in the vague, dazed state of anyone who has been up for 40 hours, flown 12,000 miles, and is looking for something to distract them until it is permissible to go to bed, and anticipated that within ten pages I would be asleep, no matter how good it was. Instead, I finished the 341st and final page over lunch the following day.

AMY BROWN and CATHERINE BISLEY double-team Aussie author Tim Winton – whose acclaimed works include The Turning and Dirt Music – during his recent visit to New Zealand for the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival.

TOM FITZSIMONS talks to writer Richard Ford – author of The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land – recently in the country for the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM trawls the music calendar to bring us the month’s best gigs. This June: The Sneaks and The Whipping Cats (plus Disasteradio), Age Pryor, Guns N Roses, The Taliband, Gridlock.

By Patti Smith
Virago, NZ$36 | Reviewed by Simon Sweetman

PATTI SMITH’s poetry is her music – and her music is her poetry. She writes poems as lyrics, whether they become ‘songs’ or stay on the page, it is always Patti Smith’s voice. And even reading these new poems – her first volume in many years – it is impossible not to imagine Patti Smith performing them; her voice giving life to these words. Stuffier critics might not appreciate Smith’s abilities as a poet for the page, but Auguries of Innocence deserves to exist as a volume of poetry.

Rutherford House
May 24 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

ACCORDING to Joanne Harris, you can tell a lot about people by looking at their shoes. The eponymous lollipop shoes of her latest novel are talismanic; intensely desirable although totally impractical, with mythic connotations like Cinderella’s glass slippers or the ruby red ones worn in The Wizard of Oz. The title comes from a previous short story called Faith and Hope Go Shopping in which Faith and Hope are two elderly ladies, one blind and one in a wheelchair, who escape from an old folk’s home to go shopping. The blind one wants a copy of Lolita which is deemed unsuitable for the library, and the one in a wheelchair wants to buy some fabulous fetishistic shoes which are the same tantalising red as the lollipop the ingénue holds on the cover of the book. She believes the shoes will magically transform her into something else, just as people without character needn’t make an effort; just buy a pair of eye-catching shoes.

San Francisco Bathhouse
June 6 | Reviewed by Brannavan Gnanalingam

AS A RAPIDLY balding man, I must say the concept of a hair model seems quite fascinating. Turns out that’s what Pop Levi used to be. Though just in case you thought that, plus coupled with his indie-pop meets glam sound, would mean a rather pleasant (if fast-paced) twee show, you’d have left San Fran last night rather puzzled. Instead the crowd was witness to a totally different sound most people were expecting. His music is manic instrumentation meets pop hooks. Last night it was just manic. Jams replaced the much tighter album, and the vocals took a back seat to the full force of his band.

BATS Theatre
May 29-June 2 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

WHEN I THINK of connections to the land in Aotearoa I think, first of all, of Mãori turangawaewae and spirituality. Pakehã connections I make more tenuously with the ¼ acre block and cultural icons like holidays at the beach and puriri fence posts. Which isn’t to say Pakehã land connections aren’t spiritual; just that they’re not often explored in a spiritual way. Landlies, by Picket Fence Productions, attempts to present the ‘all kiwi’ perspective on land sale in New Zealand, and in doing so raises important points about capitalist society and individualism. To its detriment it does not present a deeply spiritual or emotional perspective on the issue however, and could strengthen its examination of responsibility.

Studio 77
May 3-June 3 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

THIRD YEAR theatre students from Victoria University set the bar high for themselves in taking on this multi-layered, zeitgeist script by Maxim Gorky. Ultimately the examination of ruling class-working class relations in pre-revolution Russia provided the students with a thorough platform to sound out and experiment with possibilities of theatrical presentation.

The Auckland Writers & Readers Festival was rather terrific. And not just the big four: Richard E Grant, Richard Ford, Tim Winton and Pico Iyer. Lumière Associate Editor ALEXANDER BISLEY picks a baker’s dozen of sure-to-rise quotes.

By Matt Lucas, David Walliams & Boyd Hilton
Ebury Press/RH, NZ$40 | Reviewed by Simon Sweetman

WRITTEN with the help of journalist (and friend) Boyd Hilton, Inside Little Britain documents a year in the life of the show – and its co-creators/performers, Matt Lucas and David Walliams. With three television series’ behind them, having grown from a radio show, the pair decided to set out and take Little Britain all around Great Britain – a live stage-show. This book is part travelogue and part official biography. Ostensibly, Hilton’s fly-on-the-wall observations form a travel diary – documenting the surreal and the mundane, the literal day-to-day problems (both technical and personal) and offering an amazing glimpse in to just how popular Walliams and Lucas have become in their home country.

Edited by Andrew O’Hagan
Ebury Press, NZ$27.95 | Reviewed by Benedict Reid

IN 2000, the Daily Telegraph organised a group of eleven writers to spend a couple of days in Africa and write a short piece, fiction or non-fiction, inspired by their trip. The finished book won the WH Smith Travel book of the year and raised thousands for charity, as all royalties went to Unicef. The Weekenders: Adventures in Calcutta is an attempt to repeat that success. However, it is far less satisfying despite the return of many of the original authors.

Laurence Aberhart Photographs;
Essays by Gregory O’Brien and Justin Paton
VUP, NZ$125 | Reviewed by Andy Palmer

THE LAST FEW years have seen a proliferation of survey shows and publications of New Zealand photography and photographers – Marti Friedlander, Anne Noble, Peter Black, Ans Westra, Gary Blackman, and Wayne Barrar. Most of these photographers began their photography as part of the documentary tradition: the photo-journalist, the street photographer, think Magnum, think Robert Frank, Walker Evans etc.