Arts and culture in Ōtautahi Christchurch
Erin Harrington reviews We've Got So Much to Talk About, created and performed by Sally Stockwell, directed by Julia Harvie, at Lyttelton Arts Factory, 20 October 2023. Sally Stockwell’s excellent We’ve Got So Much to Talk About is one-woman multidisciplinary tour de force that grabs tightly onto the messiness of motherhood and maternal identity and… Continue reading Review: We’ve Got So Much to Talk About – a vital, defiant show about motherhood and identity
Erin Harrington reviews Dance Nation, written by Clare Barron, directed by Alison Walls, at the Court Theatre, Saturday 23 September 2023. The Court Theatre’s fierce production of Clare Barron’s 2018 play Dance Nation invites superlatives. The show, as directed by Court Theatre AD Alison Walls, offers us a bonkers, vulgar, hilarious, vulnerable take on A… Continue reading Review: Dance Nation – a banger of a play about fierce and feral girlhood
Erin Harrington reviews CLAS103: Greek Mythology, performed by Vincent Andrew-Scammell, and co-directed by Lucy Dawber, at Little Andromeda, Thursday 7 September 2023. There’s a moment quite early on in the semi-improvised show CLAS103: Greek Mythology where actor Vincent Andrew-Scammell, wearing a ridiculous bed-sheet toga and giving a flirtatious take on Greek god Hermes, mimes handing… Continue reading Review: CLAS103 Greek Mythology – a madcap romp through antiquity
Naomi van den Broek reviews Bluebeard's Castle, by Béla Bartók and Béla Balázs, as reimagined by Theatre of Sound, presented by New Zealand Opera and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, at the Christchurch Town Hall, Saturday 12 August 2023. Image credits: Latitude Creative. Bluebeard’s Castle, presented in collaboration by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO)… Continue reading Review: Bluebeard’s Castle – close to perfection
Erin Harrington reviews The Appleton Ladies' Potato Race, by Melanie Tait and directed by Anthea Williams, at The Court Theatre, Tuesday 8 August, 2023. In a review some years ago I described a show’s comedy and appeal as ‘broad’, and someone involved in the production got exceptionally cross with me. I meant it in our… Continue reading Review: The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race – rural social mores get mashed
Erin Harrington reviews Indian Ink's touring production of Dirty Work at the Isaac Theatre Royal, Friday 28 July 2023. Can you make art about the cyclical drudgery of office work – or, perhaps, most work – that isn’t fundamentally dystopian? Indian Ink’s charming production Dirty Work: Ode to Joy, which is set in the New… Continue reading Review: Dirty Work – finding joy in the absurd
Erin Harrington reviews Murder! At the Hotel Bon, directed by Georgie Sivier and Kat Forrester for Play Space Productions, at Riccarton House, Wednesday 26 July 2023. Play Space Productions’ immersive comedy Murder! At the Hotel Le Bon marries late 1940s Hollywood glamour with Hollywood squalor, as we – a group of film investors turned detectives… Continue reading Review: Murder! At the Hotel Bon – madcap Hollywood hijinks
Erin Harrington reviews the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra's concert Matariki Around the World, led by creative director Juanita Hepi and conductor Nathaniel Griffiths, at the James Hay Auditorium, Wednesday 5 July 2023. There is something very moving about the way that Matariki is being enthusiastically embraced on a national scale as something unique to this place,… Continue reading Review: Matariki Around the World – musicial storytelling about the things that connect us
Erin Harrington reviews The Good, The Bad, and The Completely Made Up, directed by Brendon Bennetts, at Little Andromeda, 2 June 2023. In The Good, The Bad, and The Completely Made Up, Rhiannon McCall improvises a terrific hour-long comedy Western in which she out-shoots John Wayne, out-squints Clint Eastwood, and outwits the combined cast of… Continue reading Review: The Good, the Bad and the Completely Made-Up – a hilarious solo improvised Western
Erin Harrington reviews Appropriate, written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins directed by Nathaniel Lees, at the Court Theatre, 6 May 2023. The acclaimed American dark comedy Appropriate starts in the massive living room of a decrepit Arkansas plantation house. It’s still, night, the atmosphere oppressive. The light changes almost imperceptibly through the oversized windows as the cicadas’… Continue reading Review: Appropriate – a provocative dark comedy about the meaning of inheritance
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