By Duncan Sarkies
Penguin, NZ$28 | Review by Sam Bradford

THE FRONT COVER of Two Little Boys features an endorsement from Jemaine Clement: “Twisted, surprising and very very very funny.” I can’t agree wholeheartedly with Clement, but his endorsement is an apt and honest piece of marketing. Sarkies writes deadpan comedy with a vein of Kiwiana, a sort of subgeneric space within which Flight of the Conchords also operate. (See also: Sarkies’ own Scarfies, the L&P ads Clement voices, the work of Taika Waititi who also, by golly, starred in Scarfies, directed Clement in Eagle vs Shark, and helmed an episode of the Conchords’ TV series.)

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM calls The Ruby Suns’ new album Sea Lion “riotous”, “celebratory” and “fun”. He talks to Ryan McPhun about influences, self-production, and musical tourism.

Fringe 2008, Gryphon Theatre
Feb 26-March 1 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

THE ORIGINAL title of this play, Real, had to be changed for legal reasons, which is a shame as it gives a much better indication of the subject than Location, Location. Real estate collides with real life and both have issues of equivocation, little white lies and great big dirty whopping deceit.

San Francisco Bathhouse
February 27 | Reviewed by Brannavan Gnanalingam

I HAVE rarely seen Wellington so animalistic. The first encore chant was something primordial, a desperate cry by an audience baying for more primitive rock n roll, more scalding guitarwork, more schizophrenic vocal stylings. Grunts, chants of “Ween” resounded with polyphonic clapping, hooting and stamping, bringing the band back triumphantly to face the adoration of a swollen San Fran. The second encore call-back was a little more sedate, like a beast that had gorged too much but was still pawing, hoping, to catch something in its half-hearted movements. The sweat-drenched audience wanted more violence, more carnage. When the band played their Irish drinking song ‘Blarney Stone’ with its Tourettes lyrics and casual violence it seemed a much more fitting end to the show compared to the first encore closer ‘Buenas Tardes Amigo’ with its lyrics of violence and revenge. The audience weren’t after sweet sentimentality. Ween had touched them somewhere else, somewhere darker, in their spirit. I suppose that’s what happens when people resist the dulling, interminable Dancing With the Stars.

Fringe 2008, Gryphon Theatre
Feb 26-March 1 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

BILLED as ‘a rather strange play written and directed by Dan Ashworth’, Lady of Tears doesn’t disappoint. The dialogue is highly stylised, the narrative is quirky and there are moments of bizarre surrealism.

Fringe 2008, Happy Bar
February 26-27 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

‘BOW CHICKA WOW WOW’ has polished up a fluid and extremely vibrant production of Alan Brunton’s Zarathustra Said for this year’s Fringe Festival. First performed as a graduate piece at WPAC, director Lilicherie McGregor and cast have moved the production to the moody space of Happy for two nights only, this week. Together with the revelling accompaniments of ‘Fertility Festival’ – musicians Gerard Crewdson, Warwick Donald and the fabulous Jeff Henderson – the show provides a wild melange of morality, hedonism, Christianity and poetry, all with a suitably avant-garde twist.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM attempts to break Wellington-based artist Sarah Jane Parton (and co-director Ellen Loui August) into revealing the mystery contents of their sci-fi multi-media cross-genre event, Belonging, part of Fringe 2008.

Fringe 2008, BATS Theatre
February 24-28 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

THIS IS A play of many debuts. Both actors, Natalie Medlock and Dan Musgrove, graduated from Toi Whakaari in 2007 and this is their first professional performance. They also devised and wrote the piece. The director, Sophie Roberts, is having her first outing in this guise, although she has a string of acting credits to her name. They clearly already have a following, as evinced by the full house and waiting list on opening night. It is a following that is richly rewarded.

NZ Arts Festival 2008, Odlin Plaza
Feb 22-Mar 16 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

Secret feels almost like an anti-circus work – created and performed by Johann Le Guillerm (and his assorted assistants) it is dark and moody, almost hostile. Guillerm never speaks – he hisses like a lizard, twisting and turning his body around a myriad array of objects that he manipulates. Sometimes they co-operate, occasionally they do not and he hisses his displeasure. This is not what you would expect from a circus performance – perhaps this explains why about eight people left on opening night. However, if you discard your expectations in the lengthy queue for door then you will be in for a riveting evening.

IAIN BRITTON is published internationally. Recent New Zealand publications include Bravado, Blackmail Press, Takahe, Kaupapa: New Zealand Poets and JAAM. Forthcoming poems will appear in White Fungus and Poetry NZ. Cinnamon Press will be launching his first collection of poems on February 28 at the Poetry Society’s, Poetry Café, London.

MARIA MCMILLAN is a librarian activist tea-drinker who lives in Wellington and writes mostly poetry.

NZ Arts Festival 2008, Pacific Blue Festival Club
Feb 23-Mar 16 | Reviewed by Brannavan Gnanalingam

IT’S HARD to describe this one – was it music, theatre, acrobatics, physical comedy, dance? Hell, it was a bit of everything, an exuberant, carnivalesque, grotesque bonanza. It was one giant variety show that had the audience whooping like an orphanage, and departing with silly grins plastered on their faces. If you were going to go, and judging by the amount of the fun the audiences had (i.e. each night may sell-out quickly), I’d advise going drunk. It’ll quadruple the fun.

Fringe 2008, BATS Theatre
Feb 23-26 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

IN ITS publicity notes Charlie, a new play by Fleur Fitzpatrick, is described as “explosive, provocative theatre” that challenges “all your preconceptions and stereotypes.” These are pretty wild claims for any piece of theatre, one would think, but they mark the earnestness with which Fitzpatrick and her acting duo Jeanene Tracy and CJ Shelford approach this production. Anguish, screams, violence and non-stop, whack-you-over-the-head dramatics mean that audience members are left with no doubt whatsoever as to exactly how they are being provoked, and, sometimes, exploded.

NZ Arts Festival 2008, Opera House
February 22-26 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

INITIALLY, viewing one of Chekhov’s most masterful theatre pieces in its native tongue is a huge delight. The language of Three Sisters just sings from the lips of the all Russian cast. As the three hour play progresses, the smoky vowels and throaty consonants of ruski yazik add to Chekhov’s privileged and destitute characters that air of well aimed hopelessness the playwright has crafted so well.

François Séguin’s stage designs range from Cirque du Soleil spectacles to stage adaptations of Kafka to contemporary oratorio. He has been the production designer on award winning films such as The Barbarian Invasions and The Red Violin. At the New Zealand International Arts Festival for the double bill staging of Bertold Brecht’s The Lindberg Flight / The Flight Over the Ocean and The Seven Deadly Sins, directed by François Girard, Séguin talks with CATHERINE BISLEY.

From his early beginnings with the now legendary Neutral Milk Hotel, to collaborating with Beirut and Bright Eyes, to mining the music of the world, Jeremy Barnes has been at the forefront of musical experimentation over the last decade. He talks to BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM about Balkan music, being accused of cultural appropriation, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, and his brilliant band A Hawk and a Hacksaw, in Wellington for the New Zealand International Arts Festival.

San Francisco Bathhouse
February 21 | Reviewed by Brannavan Gnanalingam

CANADIAN supergroup Broken Social Scene, with their front man Kevin Drew, have had indie critics and fans frothing ever since their breakthrough album You Forgot it in People came out in 2002. With moody elements of post-rock mixed with an unlikely bedfellow, pop, BSS music is a melange of etherealness and intensity. Live though, and armed with a sizeable posse that crowded the small San Fran stage, it was their intensity which impaled the audience, a muscular, extroverted sound, at odds with the insularity that Kevin Drew expresses lyrically in the albums.

Fringe 2008, BATS Theatre
Feb 18-22 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

THEATRE MILITIA’s second Fringe offering Sensible Susan and the Queen’s Merkin is an intelligent but hilarious adaptation of the medieval morality play. The story follows Susan, a prudent woman with a love of schedules and order, on her quest through the Underworld to rescue her captured husband, Simple Simon. On her way she encounters many strange and bewildering Underworld inhabitants, most with a fascination for the nether region that shocks and challenges Susan’s orderly outlook. However, with the help of Queen Elizabeth the First’s golden merkin (a wig for the “patchless snatch”) and gumption she never knew she had, Susan triumphs, in what turns out to be a voyage of self discovery in more ways than one...

Edited by Bill Manhire and Peter Whiteford
VUP, NZ$40 | Reviewed by Sarah Jane Barnett

A FESTSCHRIFT is a traditional way for academics to honour a respected colleague through the publication of a book of original essays, presented to the honouree on a notable occasion. Each essay intends to reflect on the significance of the honouree’s contribution to their field of work. A Festschrift may sound in danger of being a little dry – unless of course it is for Vincent O’Sullivan.

Fringe 2008, Downstage Theatre
Feb 18-20 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

2 b or nt 2 b? takes six characters from six classic plays and re-envisages them as 2008 teenagers, replete with cell phones, computers and plenty of angst. Writer and director Sarah Delahunty wrote the play for her senior drama class – obviously to extend their knowledge of classics, but also to help them connect with the feelings of characters without complexities of language or changing social mores getting in the way. If this diverse mix of tragic heroes and heroines could correspond today, what would they say? Despite my initial doubts this turns out to be an incredibly successful exercise, with the six young actors of the cast throwing themselves into their roles with enthusiasm and skill.

Fringe 2008, BATS Theatre
Feb 17-20 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

WITH Babycakes, Georgina Titheridge has written a Kiwi version of Closer. That’s not to say that it is derivative, but that it shares the same tight script and cutting-edge characterisation of the award-winning play and subsequent film. Four people, who have not been together as a group since they all worked at a Westpac call centre, get together at the wedding of an acquaintance.

Fringe 2008, San Francisco Bathhouse
Feb 17-28 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

GUY CAPPER has apparently spent 15 years making claymation figures, and he has combined his talents in animation and improvisation to perform a stand-up show at the Fringe. Based on last night’s example at the San Francisco Bathhouse, he is a lot better behind the screen than in front of it.

Fringe 2008, Blue Note Bar
Feb 14-17 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

THE PROGRAMME told me: “The Journey is a song and dance cycle that explores the human life span.” I was warned at the door that it did not fit any genre neatly. The score was composed by Suzy Hawes, an experienced composer of music for past theatrical productions that have featured in the Fringe, such as The Bowler Hat and After Kafka. It is performed by a group of singers/musicians, with two of them doubling as dancers/actors as well. They file into the Bluenote Bar, barefoot and in evening dress and take the stage, launching into their first number, “Paradise Introduction”. They proceed to offer up a show that is far more sophisticated than the usual fare of the venue. He several drunks present quickly leave.

Fringe 2008, Paramount Theatre
Feb 15/22/29; Mar 1 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

THIS SHOW must have the most apt title in the Fringe. After 45 minutes of sitting in tight conditions I still had no idea where the comedy was. Hence I left early – catching my last bus home seemed a higher priority than sitting through any more of this painful sketch “comedy”. This makes Where’s the Comedy the only show I have ever walked out of. Despite an audience that was drunkenly eager and supportive, their enthusiasm died down progressively as the jokes got worse and the performances got flatter. I wasn’t drunk – perhaps that was part of the problem? However, drunkenness just seemed to induce heckling. This gave me an insight into what TV would have been like had actors in the US just decided to go on and make it up during the writers strike.

Fringe 2008, Paramount Theatre
Feb 12-March 1 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

CONNECT Productions’ Familiar Strangers leads its audience on a journey around Courtenay Place and its fringe. During our map guided walk we encounter diverse performers who inhabit these spaces. They are outsiders, fringe dwellers; the kind of people that you would normally avoid or ignore. But the message is that these people are valuable members of our communities, who can offer unique insights into living and loving in Wellington.

Fringe 2008, BATS Theatre
Feb 15-19 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

PATRICK (John Hui) is a security guard on the ‘King Kong’ boat, who feels removed from all the excitement going on around him. Approaching 43, he is lonely, bored and depressed. His wife has left him because she no longer loves him and he has fallen for Kelly (Raquel Sims), a girl he went to school with who has become a prostitute. He wallows in his misery – “I live on a boat in a parking lot in Miramar” – and is haunted in his dreams by his imaginary childhood friend, Murky Merv (David Goldthorpe).

Fringe 2008, Te Whaea Theatre
Feb 13-16 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

Vula is one of the most visually stunning theatre experiences I have ever had. The show, which explores the relationship between Pacific Island women and water, is performed by four women and an off-stage puppeteer, on a stage flooded with water. This gives rise for multiple opportunities to cast reflections and shadows of the performers and the various items they manipulate on the water and to use movement to disturb its surface. The effect of the performance, lighting design and sound design together left me with only one word to describe the show: beautiful.

Fringe 2008, BATS Theatre
Feb 14-17 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

STEPHEN TOWNSHEND, who played the beguiling Septimus Hodge in Toi Whakaari’s graduate production of Arcadia last year, is the probing pen, person and performer of The Nominal Space. Townshend explores a stirring and effective range of facial expressions and bodily movements as he jolts through the repeating stories of Nominal Space, drawing on mathematics and mood swings to chart the uncharted – that vague and exciting area between potential futures.

Fringe 2008, BATS Theatre
Feb 12-16 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

WHEN THE audience enters the theatre, they find Marjorie McKee writing on pieces of paper before screwing them up and hurling them away in disgust. She is Becky, a New Zealander who has returned from a round-the-world trip and is struggling with her creativity. She crosses the stage, wraps a shawl around her head, and she is Nadezhda, the Russian widow of the great poet, Osip Mandelshtam, killed when his poetry fell foul of the Stalinist regime.

Reviewed by Tim G

Little Bushman’s Pendulum sends me back to a poignant moment in my musical education. The latest offering from the Wellington blues-infused psychedelic rock band reminds me of the time I discovered my father’s vinyl collection; echoes of Electric Ladyland, Zeppelin II and The Wall radiate. The essence of these LPs I dusted off at the age of 14 has been resurrected by Bushman and inspired a unique and instantly compelling album.

San Francisco Bathhouse
Feb 12 | Reviewed by Brannavan Gnanalingam

I’D ALWAYS assumed I’d be deaf by the age of fifty, smug in the knowledge that smart people will have discovered a cure for deafness by then. After the performance by Explosions in the Sky, I’m assuming I’m going to have to endure a premature period of silent solitude first. It was loud, in an arresting, charming way. And boy could they play their instruments, the drumming in particular was unbelievable, and the often visually co-ordinated guitar work thrilling. But it was the sweltering loud moments that will be the lasting memory of the gig, as Explosions in the Sky proved that post-rock, despite that ‘genre’s’ patient jamming, and occasional mathematical build-up, is a thrilling thing to witness live.

Fringe 2008, BATS Theatre
Feb 11-14 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

MAGNILOQUENT: characterized by a high-flown often bombastic style or manner. Tap That II was billed as a dance/comedy fusion, the follow up to the popular Tap That presented by the Magniloquents in the Dance Your Socks Off Festival last year. This group was “brought together by a shared love of tap dancing, booty-shaking, musicals and bumping and grinding in the living room.” The original show was the result of a six month crash course in tap dancing for most of the performers. The idea is to present a lighter side of tap dancing, almost verging on sketch comedy at times. It’s explosive, saucy and just generally fun.

Fringe 2008, BATS Theatre
Feb 9-13 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

And They Did marks the third Babyshads venture, using their combination of “anti-dance” and theatre, to put a surreal spin on a concrete theme. All three co-founders (Milo Haigh, Jake Preval and Sherilee Kahui) perform and fill various production roles, and they are joined by new comer Jaci Gwaliasi. In their production note they describe this as their “most overtly political work yet.” It’s billed as an exploration of the relationship and politics of exploitation between employers and employees.

JENNIFER VAN BEYNEN is a Wellington writer, reviewer and librarian. In March, she will begin an MA in creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters.

SARADHA KOIRALA is a Wellington poet and teacher. In 2007 she completed her MA in Creative Writing at Victoria University.

Fringe 2008, BATS Theatre
Feb 8-11 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

AS HE DID with last year’s Antigone’s Death writer/director Jaime Dörner takes a classical text as the basis for his theatrical exploration. This time the story of Ulysses (aka Homer’s Odysseus) is used as a base to concentrate on themes of exile, immigration and journey-quests. The characters and plot are roughly the same as the original, with selected episodes concentrated upon and the addition of a girlfriend for Telemachus. However the text is thoroughly modernised and several episodes are invented so as to examine the perspectives of the more marginalised characters of the myth (Calypso, Penelope and her lover).

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM trawls the local music calendar to bring us the month’s best gigs. This February: The Ruby Suns, Explosions in the Sky w/ Eluvium, Interpol/The Dead C w/ Surf City, Sonic Youth w/ The Dead C, Broken Social Scene, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Ween, Chemical Brothers.

The Print Factory, Wellington
Jan 31-Feb 10 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

Sleep/Wake is an intriguing blend of science and performance. It is the product of collaboration between the Massey University Sleep/Wake Research Centre directed by Professor Philippa Gander and director Sam Trubridge and his company The Playground NZ. It ranges through dance, oration, Greek myth and scientific charts to explore the mysteries of sleep, particularly its “circadian rhythms”. This natural cycle, lasting about a day, is part of the physiological process of all living beings. The philosophy is that our circadian rhythms are often interrupted by the over stimulation we receive in modern life. Reflecting this thesis is a production that is incredibly visually, aurally and mentally stimulating as it charts the stages of sleep.

“By far the most beautiful place I’ve ever played,” the legendary drummer Bill Cobham enthused ‘bout WOMAD. “The best welcome I’ve ever had,” Portugese sex bomb Mariza described the powhiri. The venue, Pukekura Park and the Brooklyn Bowl, is gorgeous. The Bowl’s acoustics are dynamite. The flags are hope. The atmosphere is aroha. The kai is mean. And then there’s the music. Bloody brilliant. My 2008 picks include Cesaria Evora, Mavis Staples and SJD. The Lumière Reader’s past WOMAD coverage includes: interviews with WOMAD 2008 stars SJD and The Phoenix Foundation, and from 2007, Mr. Scruff and Billy Cobham; WOMAN 2007 reviews by ARJUN HARINDRANATH, BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM and CATHERINE BISLEY; and WOMAD in Images, from the lens of CATHERINE BISLEY. See womad.co.nz for full event details.—Alexander Bisley

San Francisco Bathhouse
January 24 | Reviewed by Diane Spodarek

The Wellington Comedy Club presented two of the 2008 Billy T Nominees, Steve Wrigley and The Lonesome Buckwhips, hosted by MC Benjamin. Transforming the space with tables and candles for this standup event was audience friendly. But you have to book a table in advance or sit on the side, which is okay unless like my friend, Kazz Funky Blue, you have nowhere to put your drink and wedges.

Kings Arms
January 17 | Reviewed by Tim G

THE BIG NIGHT IN has become as much of an institution as the event it precedes. It’s the perfect night to satisfy those excited butterflies in your stomach. Tonight gave those unable to see Kiwi icons The Clean a chance to catch them, along with SJD, before the next day’s sensory overload. Also sifting through the crowds at the Kings Arms were various members on Flying Nun royalty, chatting, laughing and sipping beers together as if it were a Flying Nun reunion – an extra special complement to the night.