Arts and culture in Ōtautahi Christchurch
Creon Upton reviews Da Da Honk Honk The The Dry Cleaning of Père Ubu, presented by Free Theatre, directed by Peter Falkenberg, at The Pump House, Thursday 8 October 2026. One of my most memorable gigs of the past decade was Delaney Davidson playing at St Stephen's Church in Onewhero in 2017. Tickets were available… Continue reading Review: Da Da Honk Honk The The Dry Cleaning of Père Ubu – a witty and wild cabaret that’s whatever you want to make of it (and that’s okay)
Creon Upton reviews The Passionate Puritan, devised and directed by Peter Falkenberg, presented by Free Theatre, at The Pumphouse, Thursday 16 October 2025. Every postcolonial people is unhappy in its own way, rent between a present no-one can correct and a past the settlers wouldn’t return to if they could. One feature of the unease… Continue reading Review: The Passionate Puritan – a riveting postcolonial drama unafraid to take risks
Lisa Allan reviews The Cat Eleonore, by Caren Jess, translated and directed by Peter Falkenberg for Free Theatre, at the Climate Action Campus, Wednesday 7 May 2025. It is a brisk night and Avonside’s Climate Action Campus is mostly dark, creating a sense of adventure as my theatre-mate and I seek out the Free Theatre’s performance space… Continue reading Review: The Cat Eleonore – an elegant meditation on the failures of humanity, and the joy of being a cat
Erin Harrington reviews The Deadbeat Opera, presented by Free Theatre, adapted and directed by Peter Falkenberg, at the Pump House, Friday 6 September 2024. Where Free Theatre’s 2023 adaptation of Woyzeck offered misery on tap, their new companion work, The Deadbeat Opera, is presented to us overtly, in the show's opening preamble, as a low-life,… Continue reading Review: The Deadbeat Opera – a low-life comedy about crime, grime, and uncertain politics
Erin Harrington reviews Free Theatre’s production of the avant-garde musical Woyzeck, directed by Peter Falkenberg, at The Pump House, 544 Tuam Street, Friday 14 April, 2023. Free Theatre’s production of Woyzeck is an adaptation of Robert Wilson, Kathleen Brennan and Tom Waits’ musical adaptation, first performed in 2000, of Georg Büchner’s fragmentary, unfinished 1836/7 play.… Continue reading Review: Woyzeck – an avant-garde musical about misery
