Author of Live News, a collection of short stories, and currently working on her second historical novel, Maxine Alterio took the time to speak with JENNIFER VAN BEYNEN on the phone from Dunedin about her first historical novel, her writing process, the disparity of her narrators – gender-wise and culturally – and what it takes to produce a book so historically, culturally, and emotionally rich.

Comedy Festival 2008, Auckland Town Hall
April 29-May 3 | Reviewed by Jacob Powell

Mark Watson is an interesting blend of manic energy and nervous awkwardness. All gangly limbs and eager looks, one moment he’s spinning lines so fast he’s approaching the speed of sound, the next he has paused; tentatively eyeing his audience like an embarrassed child. Thankfully the overall effect is ultimately endearing and provides a good launching platform for his free-form story telling and adlibbing.

Comedy Festival 2008, SkyCity Theatre
April 29-May 3 | Reviewed by Darren Bevan

“You’ll be none the wiser by the end of the night.” —Jimeoin.

You have to admire that kind of honesty – and being brutally frank by the time the Irishman left the stage I was none the wiser – although I did realise that all of the idiosyncracies and absurdities that were mentioned throughout his performance, some of them I did actually identify with.

Visiting New Zealand in May, Malcolm Middleton opens his doomsday pamphlet to BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM, talks Arab Strap, and about becoming a One Hit Wonder.

Comedy Festival 2008, The Classic; San Francisco Bathhouse
April 19-May 3; 6-10 | Reviewed by Darren Bevan

YOU HAVE to admire an international comedian who still does his own opening lights show and introduction – although with Ben Hurley you sense it’s more from necessity than desire. And yet, as Ben made his way to the corner of the Classic Upstairs (“If you don’t like me, there’s nowhere for me to go” he remarked early on) there was a feeling he could take on anyone – and anything.

Comedy Festival 2008, Auckland Town Hall
April 23-26 | Reviewed by Darren Bevan

YES, he’s Dave and the only one actually representing the Flight of the Conchords phenomenon at this year’s Comedy Festival. And yet, Arj Barker is very dissimilar to his TV persona – preferring instead to head off on slightly surreal flights of fancy and weird tangents which actually make a lot of sense.

MICHAEL HALL has had poems published in a number of publications, including Landfall, Snorkel, Poetry NZ, and NZ School Journal. He has completed a manuscript of poems, provisonally titled Map to the Next Room.

HELEN LEHNDORF has published work in various literary journals, in poetry anthologies (most recently in Kaupapa (Eds. Hinemoana Baker and Maria McMillan) and in the forthcoming anthology on parenting, edited by Emma Neale, Swings and Roundabouts. She has also had short fiction produced on National Radio and feature writing published in The Dominion Post.

Comedy Festival 2008, BATS Theatre; The Classic
April 22-26; 29-May 3 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

Rubber Turkey is a strange play to be part of the Comedy Festival as it is incredibly dark at its heart. Yet it is also the perfect play for the festival too – it is genuinely funny in parts and shines an interrogatory light upon what makes us laugh. Coming from the pen of a young writer, Eli Kent, who also directs, it is incredibly intelligent and astute, and as much of a “eulogy” for lost innocence as a 20 year old is capable of producing.

Downstage Theatre
March 26-April 19 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

Marilyn: Forever Blonde captures Marilyn Monroe as her star is beginning to fade. A voice over tells us it is 1962 and Monroe has turned up to a photo shoot upset and wanting to share the details of her life following the collapse of her third marriage and filming on her latest movie. She is both candid and coy as she relates her story, “in her own words” as the programme proclaims, as well as singing some of her famous songs.

On the back of WOMAD and a self-titled EP, Auckland-based An Emerald City are set for bigger things. BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM talked to Sam Handley, guitarist, one of the key founding members of the band.

Comedy Festival 2008, San Francisco Bathhouse
April 22-26 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

THE BRITISH press from The Financial Times to The Sun have referred to Janey Godley as ‘the female Billy Connolly’. It’s easy to see why. She is uncompromising; she came from a tough background in Shettleston, Glasgow, where life expectancy is 55 – it’s 65 in Baghdad – and she reveres the oddball, finding comedy in the darkest of situations.

Comedy Festival 2008, Herald Theatre
April 22-26 | Reviewed by Jacob Powell

FUSING musical comedy, classic stand-up, one-liners, and a little bit of improv, Dublin’s David O’Doherty crafts a show that consistently had me at least smirking or smiling when I wasn’t outright laughing. After pleasantly mocking the audience, himself, and even the venue in his opening address, O’Doherty spent the rest of the evening erratically jumping from topic to topic as the mood took him. Despite this lack of cohesive flow in his delivery he still put us all at our ease and kept us with him (or at least trying to catch up with him) the whole of the show.

TIM G talks to the intense, intelligent, deeply determined Henry Rollins, ahead of two Spoken Word performances in April.

Comedy Festival 2008, San Francisco Bathhouse
April 21 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

THIS dysfunctional ‘family band’ from Corstophine, Dunedin brings an original act to the New Zealand International Comedy Festival with their charity gala to raise money to send a South Island band of their choosing overseas. The four-piece band comprises Gary (Gareth Williams) on keyboards; Miri (Miriama Ketu) on guitar and fiddle; Arty (Arthur Meek) on lead guitar and Benny (Ben Hutchison) on bass. They are not bad musicians, as they range through a variety of pop and country-style music, even employing a tambourine in an over-zealous fake religious song, and they are certainly talented singers; some of those four –part harmonies are excellent.

By Luke Davies
Allen & Unwin, NZ$38 | Reviewed by Amy Brown

LUKE DAVIES, one of Australia’s favourite poets, novelists and now screenwriters, does an excellent job of characterising Howard Hughes, America’s favourite obsessive-compulsive aviator, in his latest novel, God of Speed. Even if you haven’t seen Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator, you may be familiar with Howard Hughes from the episode of The Simpsons in which Mr Burns has an aeroplane called the Spruce Moose, and locks himself away, growing a long beard and fingernails.

Comedy Festival 2008, Opera House
April 20 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

First Laughs kicked off the Comedy Festival in Wellington at the Opera House which is a great and salubrious venue, despite John Fothergill remarking he had never played in a ‘satanic wedding cake’ before. Dai Henwood hosted the evening, delivering some very entertaining comedy patter of his own and introducing the fourteen acts, who each had about ten minutes to give a sample of their act.

Various Authors/Illustrators
Lopdell/Random House | Reviewed by Andy Palmer

REVIEWING children’s books is unusual for me. I don’t have kids of my own, and I can’t pretend to be down with what the kids are into. Nor can I really claim to know what makes a good kids book. Reading some of these books, I couldn’t help but have my sensible, logical adult brain get in the way of fully accepting the story or wondering how children would react to them. No doubt some kids will like them and some won’t. I do, however, have some children’s books in my library because I like them as books, as stories. And I really like some of these.

Comedy Festival 2008, The Classic
April 19-May 10 | Reviewed by Darren Bevan

I REMEMBER Paul Tonkinson from my student days while back in the UK – he was a big part of a student hangover show on a Sunday morning and was a star in the rising then. So to find him still on the scene some 17 or so years later is not really a surprise – and to see him winning awards is easily comprehended after seeing his opening show at the Classic.

Returning Lumière photographer CATHERINE BISLEY surveyed the colour at a new year’s WOMAD with camera in hand. We present the best of her images in gallery format.

The New Dowse
April 12-August 17 | Reviewed by L M Wallace

“Visiting Antarctica was one of the most significant and important experiences of my life.”
—Chris Cree Brown

POWERFUL work from thirteen leading New Zealand artists and writers collides in Sinfonia Antarctica, an exhibition at The New Dowse, celebrating art inspired by experience; a result of the Artists to Antarctica programme.

Dudley Benson’s debut album, The Awakening, “could prove the beginning of a ridiculously talented maverick,” reckons BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM. He talks more with the charming chamber-pop musician, whose most recent tour completed a circuit of historic New Zealand churches.

By Annie Villiers and John Z Robinson
Longacre Press, NZ$30 | Reviewed by Sarah Jane Barnett

THE OTAGO Rail Trail is the first New Zealand rail trail to be dedicated to cyclists and walkers. Its 150km length cuts through some of the most memorable scenery in New Zealand, a landscape that is already well represented in art and literature.

By Eion Stevens; introduction by David Eggleton
Longacre Press, NZ$35 | Reviewed by Sarah Jane Barnett

EION STEVENS’ paintings are like visual summaries of an emotion or an event, where the guts of the matter is left for the viewer to create. His tragic and comedic figures depict a staged inner-life, his visual choices symbolise anti-heroes, and parody famous people or himself. The viewer is given a tantalising snapshot that is as likely to be ironic as it is tender. Enough about his work though, let’s talk about this book that combines poetry with painting – published to coincide with an exhibition at Dunedin Art Gallery – and why you might like it.

Te Karanga, K’Rd Auckland
April 10, 17 | Reviewed by Renee Liang (Contains Spoilers)

“POISONOUS people taint situations; they leave a residue of poison wherever they go,” says Claire Van Beek, the writer and director of this new Kiwi play, which had its world premiere last week. Dead Meat explores three types of poisonous relationships: those of family in a failing country farm; those of workplaces in (appropriately) a small-town butcher’s shop; and finally, those experienced by a couple at the end of their lives. It is really three separate short plays, linked (perhaps tenuously) by two common characters.

Green Fire Islands is a unique and historic collaboration between Irish and Maori/Pakeha artists, which “sets out to build a musical bridge between two creative island cultures, Ireland and New Zealand.” RENEE LIANG caught up with Creative director Bronwen Christianos, recently at WOMAD.

Smackbang is the hottest young thing in Auckland theatre right now. It’s a new theatre collective that aims to keep actors acting, directors directing and writers writing – with an emphasis on growing the local theatre scene. RENEE LIANG interviewed Smackbang’s Charlie Unwin.

Enjoy Public Gallery
April 3-19 | Reviewed by Thomasin Sleigh

I WENT to Mitre Ten Mega on Easter Sunday. It was a big mistake; the places are absolutely terrifying. All I had to buy were some picture hooks, but it was like finding a needle in a haystack. They sell everything there. I experienced my usual sense of mega-chain-store-panic when confronted by so many products, so many people and so much space.

Te Karanga, K’Rd Auckland
April 5 | Reviewed by Renee Liang

ALTHOUGH not as famous nor as Pulitzer-prize winning as his other plays, Edward Albee’s The Play About the Baby pulls his trademark psychological punch. It’s a classic black box play: for most of the story the audience is kept on tenterhooks wondering what will happen next, and what is really happening. Some audience members don’t like to be kept dangling over an uncertain dramatic precipice; I personally loved every minute of it.

Before departing for the United States and Europe, Nik Brinkman of Over the Atlantic spoke to BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM about sound shifts, album Junica, and the Bermuda Triangle.

AMY BROWN talks to Brigid Hughes, judge of the Prize in Modern Letters, about literary magazines, the qualities of a good editor, and judging New Zealand’s richest prize for new writers.

Gavin Hipkins Photographs
Rim Books, NZ$20 | Reviewed by Andy Palmer

OKAY, so some days I’m a little slow. Recently Gavin Hipkins had an opening at Lopdell House in Auckland and used that occasion to launch a book. The show was called Second Empire, the book Empire. I knew little about the work except that the new show was a development of an earlier series. Naturally (I believe) I assumed the book was of the exhibition. Being in Wellington I haven’t yet seen the show, and it was only some days later, while re-reading Empire that it occurred to me that the work in this book was that of the earlier series. The different titles should have been a giveaway but... some days I’m a bit slow.

In Eighth grade, NATHAN POOLE played the French horn and learned to drive in his grandfather’s Deville. He currently lives in Columbia, South Carolina, where he runs an independent print-making company. His fiction has also appeared in loom and The Bastard Press.

SAM GASKIN is a Pulitzer prize-wanting magazine ‘journalist’ living in Shanghai.

Paula Green’s book Making Lists for Frances Hodgkins is described as a poetic memoir ‘in the light of art’. JOAN FLEMING and SARAH JANE BARNETT caught up with Green during Writers and Readers Week at the New Zealand International Arts Festival to ask about the process of writing, her love of Italy and the dialogue she has created between poetry and art.

St. Mary’s of the Angels
April 4 | Reviewed by Brannavan Gnanalingam

I HOPE I don’t put the mockers on him, but Dudley Benson is going to be big. And by god would he deserve to as well. It’s rare to see someone so endearing live, so flagrantly talented, and unique in his craft actually start to get recognised in New Zealand. The last time I saw him was when he opened for the Animal Collective and he was dressed in a safari outfit doing hip-hop break-dancing by himself. This time he was still dancing, but had a choir, a string quartet, and a baby-grand piano at his side. It was a totally unconventional performance, and one done with humour, charm and verve. And the full audience savoured the soaring use of space that the church provided, and the lovely acoustics that his chamber-pop deserved.

Auckland Town Hall, THE EDGE
March 27-April 19 | Reviewed by Renee Liang

THIS PLAY has been adapted from Samoan writer Sia Figiel’s award winning coming-of-age story, set in a Samoan village in the 1970’s. Entering the modified space of the Auckland Town Hall, one has an immediate sense of expectation. The normally sedate Concert Chamber has been transformed with stadium seating into something that resembles a boxing arena, with rows of audience members facing each other across a platform stage. As the five cast members enter singing and dressed in white, the stage shimmers into light. It’s a magical entrance.

Craig Sherborne, whose essays, poems, and two powerful memoirs, Hoi Polloi and Muck, have brought him to Wellington for Writers and Readers Week at the New Zealand International Arts Festival, talked to AMY BROWN in between signing books.

During Wellington’s Writers and Readers Week at the New Zealand International Arts Festival, SAM BRADFORD talked to English-born David Mitchell, the author of four generally acclaimed novels: Ghostwritten, Number9dream, Cloud Atlas and most recently Black Swan Green.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM trawls the local music calendar to bring us the month’s best gigs. This April: Marystaple, Dudley Benson, The Bats w/ Minisnap, Delaney Davidson, Ragamuffin Children, Henry Rollins, Ratatat.