Herald has eight left columnists and one right one: Redux

Over at KiwiBlog, David Farrar has done a seriously low-effort post. Usually I wouldn’t demean myself by responding but I’m involved in the post, and it was such a pile of wrong that I couldn’t help myself.

Read More

Review: Meremere: a multi-media performance memoir  by Rodney Bell

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.

Read More

Comedy fest review: White Man Behind a Desk in WMBADx: Idea worth spreading

White Man Behind a Desk has scaled heights faster than most comedians get to. For the last wee while he’s been honing his Colbert/Stewart pastiche and delivering lefty sermons with humour from behind his desk and building quite the following.

Read More

Comedy fest review: Eli Matthewson in An Inconvenient Poof

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.

Read More

Comedy fest review: Wilson Dixon in What a Country!

I have been hanging out to see Wilson Dixson for years. There’s something super alluring about what he does. The cowboy shtick that he has down to a fine art, that soft picking at the guitar as he gently woos you with his drawl and his songs. This year was my first time seeing a full Wilson Dixon hour and I wasn’t disappointed.

Read More

Comedy Fest Review: Marcel Lucont in Etc. A Chat Show

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

Read More

Comedy Fest Review: Donna Brookbanks in You do you babes

What a joyous eruption of chaos, energy and laughter. Donna’s show You do you babes is crammed full with so much energy, so much material that it’s almost exhausting.

Read More

Redistribute my ass

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.

Read More

Comedy fest review: Alice Snedden in Self-titled: Volume II

Alice Snedden is a fucking good comedian. I try to get along to as many Billy T Nominee shows in Wellington as possible because I often don’t know much about the comics and so frequently unearth some gold, like Guy Montgomery from a few years back. Alice is like Guy in that I went in knowing little and left being super impressed.

Read More

Comedy fest review: Lucy Roche & Ray O’Leary in Young, dumb and full of comedy

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.

Read More

Comedy fest review: James Veitch in Dot Con

James Veitch is known for his hilarious emails, no not the guy who tried to pay his power bills with a spider-drawing, but for being the guy who emails back scammers. The Nigerian Prince types.

Read More

Comedy fest review: Seven Deadly Stunts

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.

Read More

Review: At the Wake by Victor Rodger

At the Wake by Victor Rodger, starring Lisa Harrow Circa Theatre Opening night 6:30pm, 21 March 2018

Read More

Review: Joan – A play by Tom Scott “about a wonderful mum by an ungrateful son”.  

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?). 

Read More

What to expect when you’re not expecting XXV: The end

I can remember the exact moment when Kim and I decided we were ready to have kids. We’d talked about it vaguely but we decided for real on a trip to Europe in 2014.

Read More

What to expect when you’re not expecting XXIV: Happiness is a high HCG

Last post was pretty grim huh? Apparently one of my sisters read it and rang my mum because she was concerned about my mental state.

Read More

What to expect when you’re not expecting XXIII: Purgatory

Someone messaged me and said they admired us for playing out the “horrors” of IVF so publicly so people could a) understand or b) if they were going through it themselves find some comfort that someone else out there knew how they felt.

Read More

What to expect when you’re not expecting XXII: Expecting?

Jesus, this is post number 22. That’s a lot of my dribble. Well mainly my dribble, some of it has been Kim’s pearls of wisdom. I’ve said this a lot but way back when we started writing we did it to help others.

Read More