Review: Emily Writes, Rants in the Dark Rants in the Dark is a play based on the book, based on the blog by Emily Writes, whose rant in the dark “went viral” overnight, and led to her creating a space on the internet where Mums who occasionally (or regularly) say fuck can find their life experiences reflected and validated.

“Some of it I really liked and some of it I thought ‘What the Fuck’!!!”

I’m never sure when I’m reviewing a piece how much to find out about it in advance.  My approach in general is to let the performers have first dibs on telling me the story and to read as little as possible.

I feel almost a paternal instinct towards Eli’s comedy. I saw him in his Billy T nominated show ‘Faith’ in 2015, then again last year in ‘The Year of Magical Fucking’ and I usually will leave it at a couple of shows to review a comic before I move on to someone else.

I knew it. I knew Marcel Lucont would be a phenomenal show. I saw his show a couple of years ago when he was last in New Zealand and it was one of the shows I was most looking forward to

Massive sexual assault trigger warnings. There was a vehicle murder in Toronto recently. A guy drove his car into a large group of people and so far he has been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder and 13 counts of attempted murder. On his Facebook page, the attacker wrote “The Incel rebellion has begun”. And if you didn’t know what incels are then you’re probably lucky.

Lucy Roche and Ray O’Leary are a couple of NZ comics on the up and up. Lucy won the National Raw Comedy Quest in 2016 and Ray was a Billy T Award nominee last year. They both have a solid resume of shows and experience but there’s still a bit of work to be done.

Ah comedy fest. This year it’s started earlier than normal. In fact my first show was before the Comedy Fest has even started at all. I saw Seven Deadly Stunts last night at Circa 2 and had a ball.

As a first time reviewer I was both excited, and slightly nervous when I left work on Tuesday evening heading for Circa to see Joan, by Tom Scott. I wanted very much to like what I was about to review (does anyone go to the theatre not hoping to enjoy themselves?).