 reviewed by Janet McAllister (New Zealand Herald) 13 Feb 2012 |
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Campground comedy plays up class-cringe jokes For the second year in a row, the Auckland Theatre Company - a national "arts leadership" organisation - has opened its annual season with a deliberately crass and bawdy farce. Jokes about bums (some funny, some not) mean bums on seats, and those looking for an evening's light, tasteless entertainment will find much to enjoy here ... [more] |
 reviewed by Alan Scott (The Press) 13 Feb 2012 |
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Sondheim dated but marvellous Side by Side with Sondheim is billed as a musical entertainment and there is no arguing with that. Under Richard Marrett's skilful musical direction, Ali Harper, Juliet Reynolds-Midgley and Michael Lee Porter treat us to two hours of amusing engaging and often compelling renditions of Stephen Sondheim's compositions. [more] |
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reviewed by Adey Ramsel 12 Feb 2012 |
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You can’t argue with a theatre full of laughter A 2012 Kiwi ‘Carry On…’ movie for thinking grown ups, the play pits an academic couple complete with lovesick daughter in one caravan against working class Mike and Dawn and Dawn’s hormonal son Jared in another. [more] |
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reviewed by Lindsay Clark 12 Feb 2012 |
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Classy and ultimately uplifting Billed as a musical entertainment, this compilation of dramatically charged songs from the supreme master of musical theatre plays to a very different Christchurch and probably an even wearier world than the first time we experienced it at The Court a couple of decades ago. If anything, the wit seems even sharper, reflection more poignant, the music more engaging than before. [more] |
 SHORT + SWEET DANCE - WILDCARD GROUP at Concert Chamber - Town Hall, THE EDGE reviewed by Raewyn Whyte 12 Feb 2012 |
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Wild Cards? The "wild card" performers in Short and Sweet Dance Festival's third elimination programme (of three) are not so different from the works selected for Groups 1 and 2. They collectively present confident, polished performances, though choreographically, several of these works were not as successful in conveying their themes. [more] |
 SHORT + SWEET DANCE GALA FINAL at Concert Chamber - Town Hall, THE EDGE reviewed by Raewyn Whyte 12 Feb 2012 |
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Short + Sweet dances please the crowd Speculation was rife in the crowd waiting for the start of the Short + Sweet Dance Gala Final - after all, nobody out front knew who the finalists were. Everyone knew there would be some works from each of the three groups of 10 so far presented, but not how many. So the eventual roster held surprises, and some disappointment when particular works were missing. Awards were also not being announced til after the end of performances, so it was going to be a long evening. Eventually we discovered there were four works from Group 1, Five from Group 2 and one from the Wild Card selection. [more] |
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reviewed by James Wenley (Theatre Scenes - Auckland Theatre Blog) 12 Feb 2012 |
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Bringing back the cultural cringe Like many kiwis, I joined the yearly summer exodus from the cities, and went camping over New Years. The miserable rain-drenched ‘summer’ of 2012 had little to write home about of course, but it did provide me with one memorable experience: the family holiday train-wreck. Not my own, thank goodness. [more] |
 KITSCH IN SYNCH at BATS reviewed by Maryanne Cathro 11 Feb 2012 |
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Pure, uncomplicated and dazzling entertainment Lip-synching to artists as fabulous and diverse as Joan Rivers, Liza Minnelli and Joyce Grenfell, Polly portrays a tale of the unravelling of the post war housewife from Doris Day to Desperate. [more] |
 reviewed by Maryanne Cathro 11 Feb 2012 |
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Moving mastery All we know is that Sylvia Morton is a ballet fan who knows all the steps but has two left feet. In her attic room filled with crates of her daughter’s unwanted stuff and blown up photocopies of her favourite dancer, Alexander Karpovsky, she is frittering her life away. Then one day ... [more] |
 reviewed by Nik Smythe 11 Feb 2012 |
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Earnest and endearing ride to cathartic epiphany Council has enlisted the skills of young rising-star playwright Arthur Meek to form his very personal story which plays out in contrast to Sayles' clear cut fable of fame versus dignity, as a kind of Buddhist parable addressing the desire for material gain versus the freedom of detachment forced upon him by agonisingly ironic timing. [more] |
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