Life & Style

Stories

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  Break the farce

  THE Walworth Farce looks creepy. A father makes his two sons put on moustaches, wigs and ill fitting suits and do a farce. Since they were kids they have done this every day all the while cooped up in a rundown council flat in London. “That to me is a strange… Continue

• Season of concerts

  THE St Andrew’s Season of Concerts will bring interesting performers to Wellington. Building on a long history of lunchtime concerts at St Andrew’s on The Terrace, the organisers hope to recreate the buzz and camaraderie of previous festivals. The NZ International… Continue

• Jack chat

  The 2009 NZ Post Junior Fiction winner has just released another book, The Haystack. Jack Lasenby chats to Capital Times about his life and love. RAMBLING vines that droop from the veranda of a darling little townhouse are an appropriatley storybook welcome… Continue

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  All good in Wellywood

  IT’S official. We must be the Hollywood of the South Pacific because Wellington International Airport will erect a 28m long Wellywood sign to celebrate the capital city’s film industry. At least seven film-related companies are based on the Miramar peninsula.… Continue

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  The Fringe Cut

  ONE was a secret Spice Girl’s fan, and the other fell in love. Both are stoked to be named Downstage Theatre’s Pick of the Fringe. Fringe festival productions Wannabe and Back/Words will be reworked for the big stage, and enjoy a one-and-a-half week season at… Continue

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  Free love

  JAMES Coyle loves Newtown so much he will perform in the suburb’s annual festival for free, is helping organise it for free, and gave up his day job for six weeks in preparation for it. The Newtown Rocksteady band member, who fittingly performs a song with the… Continue

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  Write a letter

  I have a large TV-sized box filled with letters that friends wrote me while I was at school, stored in the roof of my parents’ house.  I can’t bring myself to throw them away. Playwright, producer and director Juliet O’Brien loves letters too. She can’t remember… Continue

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  Life is a skate park

  Go out to Waitangi Park on a sunny day in the weekend, and you will hear the swish of wheels rolling on concrete, crack of wood hitting the ground, and the occasional grunt of pain. Mostly though, you will hear cheers of triumph. Skateboarding is more than just… Continue

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  Empty talent

  As MTYLAND unfolded, I watched happiness, sorrow, regret, despair and pure madness. I was left feeling empty, but strangely ready to be full again. I couldn’t believe it had been an hour. CLAIRE O’Neil cried after watching a rehearsal of her own dance production.… Continue

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  McPhun with dogs

  AS a child, two of Ryan McPhun’s best mates were dogs. The lead singer of the Ruby Suns said one of the most difficult things about moving to New Zealand from America 10 years ago was saying good-bye to his pets. Fortunately they found a good home with dog-friendly… Continue

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  Stylish theatre

  ANYTHING can happen in a site-specific show, says theatre director Paul McLaughlin. During Hotel, the multiple award winning Fringe Festival show (2008) set in a hotel room, All Black Rodney So’oialo walked in. He was staying at the Museum Hotel at the same time… Continue

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  Keep Wright

  Homegrown ticketholders get ready to trek: this year the Dub and Rock stages are a 15 minute walk apart.  “IT’S a bit of a pain,” says Homegrown’s Kelly Wright referring to the new layout of the music festival on Wellington’s waterfront. “It was so… Continue

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  Gloom and Doomadgee

  CHLOE Hooper hadn’t heard of Palm Island in Australia before she got buried in a court case that was meant to go for two weeks, but is still continuing six years later. The writer admits she was naïve about Aborigine issues before she embarked on covering one… Continue

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  Funny girls

  SARAH Harpur and Jim Stanton recommend wrapping your child’s head in gladwrap. “I find it locks in essential moisture and keeps those nasty flies at bay. It is frowned upon in today’s society to have flyblown children with crow’s feet and liver spots,” says Harpur.… Continue

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  A mortal makes the most of it

  Capital Times movie reviewer Dan Slevin is a busy man for a mere mortal. He talks to us about how he does it, and The Immortals, his latest project. CAPITAL Times reviewer Dan Slevin has watched every commercial movie released in New Zealand since December… Continue

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  The perfect catch

  “HE’LL make you wet your pants,” said someone at the Film Archive when Capital Times organised an interview with Kiwi filmmaker Florian Habicht. He didn’t succeed, however snippets from his documentary Land of the Long White Cloud elicited laughter as well as… Continue

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  Pea hoarders and skin pickers

  BRIGID Costello jokes that people may need a massage after watching the Fringe Festival dance production she is directing about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Already, one of the dancers is displaying symptoms scarily like the character she is portraying, who… Continue

• The hills are alive

  ONE of New Zealand’s finest jazz composers has his fingers crossed the weather will be good so he and his 18-piece Big Band can let loose for a loved-up audience. Jazz trumpeter Vaughn Roberts is performing a free show on Valentines Day at Williams Park in Days… Continue

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  Deliciously Irish

  IT’S a common misconception that The Seven Irish Tenors are a group of fat opera singers, says one of the tenors Simon Robinson. “The truth is we are in good shape and have a good head of hair,” laughs Robinson. “When people hear ‘tenor’ they think of Pavarotti.… Continue

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  The Don with dreadlocks?

  One Love organisers hope to broaden the music festival’s reggae-focussed appeal by adding Kiwi singer songwriter Don McGlashan to the bill. WHEN Don McGlashan heard he was to headline Radio Active’s One Love music festival he was sure there had been a mistake.… Continue

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  Into the wild

  Professional photographer Rob Suisted has a catalogue of around 50,000 incredible images taken around the world, some of which feature in his latest book Majestic New Zealand, and photography isn’t his passion? ROB Suisted has been to Antarctica 12 times… Continue

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  Walk on the high side

  The boat sheds in Oriental Bay are Wellington icons, and the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club, which has been open for 126 years, even more so. Capital Times joined a harbour sail and saw Wellington from the sea – one of the best ways to get into summer. … Continue

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  Summer Magic

  THE ASB Gardens Magic Concert Series will celebrate 30 years in business this summer. The free musical event, which started in 1980 and was simply called Summer City, was originally held in the dell at the Botanic Garden. The programme then included a frog puppet… Continue

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  Christmas stocking filler

  BARNEY Montgomery is a Wellington doctor who enjoys stripping down to his Superman undies, or “supies”, in odd places around the world. It’s something that he and a group of mates have always done during their travels for a bit of a laugh. But when one of… Continue

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  You’ll get a charge out of this

  You’ll get a charge out of this? A New Zealand company has created a clean technology that will “take the world by storm”, and Wellington will be one of the first cities in the world to trial it. UniService, a branch of Auckland University, led by Dr Anthony… Continue

Columns

• Holmes sweet Holmes

  SHERLOCK Holmes is a cot case. When he first came to literary life in 1887, he was a revolutionary breath of fresh air.  Readers found him entrancing, victims of the justice system saw him as a beacon of hope, and forensic science really took off. The most… Continue

Reviews

• Lucky 13

  13 Most Beautiful, Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests, Town Hall, reviewed by Garth Wilshere WHAT a fascinating look inside the cinema images From Warhol at the Silver Factory in New York circa 1964–66. The 13 Screen Tests chosen are a cross-section of… Continue

• Like an onion

  The Letter Writer, Circa Theatre, reviewed by Lynn Freeman. A world weary man who emotionally closed off himself, helps people find the right words to express their own emotions, finds himself the keeper of a terrible secret. This man, who can manipulate… Continue

• What a bargain

  New Zealand International Arts Festival. Sutra, St James Theatre, March 3rd, and Echoa, Soundings Theatre, March 7, reviewed by Deirdre Tarrant. A great idea having all the dance programmes in one place with the Festival dance works all bound together –… Continue

• A perfect tail

  Fringe Festival wrap, reviewed by Lynn Freeman WOW, pick of the Fringe so far for this critic is A Love Tail written and performed by Toi Whakaari grads Aroha White and Matariki Whatarau with director/co-writer Kate McGill. It’s not only a new twist on… Continue

• For Real grunty theatre

  Fringe Festival Wrap, by Lynn Freeman IN the mobile classroom/container that hosts Who’s Neat? You! , we become primary school students. We are told to believe in ourselves, to practice our tolerance skills, not to crumble to peer pressure, ka pai! But… Continue

• Byrd song

  The Tudor Consort, Sacred Heart Cathedral, reviewed by Garth Wilshere IN this first concert of the choral year, The Tudor Concert made glorious sound from just 10 voices. The clarity of vocal line was impressive as they sang a selection of motets from 16th… Continue

• Full-frontal assault

  Jitterati, by Grant Buist, reviewed by Martin Doyle THIS is more than a book review. Partly because the book is more than a book: it comes with a wonderful CD.   Such an “added aspect” is almost what you’d expect from the complex and intriguing creativity… Continue

• Universal appeal

  The Seven Irish Tenors, Opera House, reviewed by Garth Wilshere THE phenomenon of grouping voice types together got international recognition and the famous Three Tenors became an astonishing marketing success. Here we have The Seven Irish Tenors, based… Continue

• Slevin passes with flying colours

  The Immortals, directed by Geoff Pinfield, Pit Bar, Bats Theatre, reviewed by Lynn Freeman WHETHER or not he is what he claims to be, immortal, Martin Amis’ character is far seeing and his pessimism well founded, based on human history. Theatre doesn’t… Continue

• Modern day Hamlet

  Vernon God Little, directed by Willem Wassenaar and Sophie Roberts, Downstage Theatre, reviewed by Lynn Freeman TANYA Ronder has done a miraculous job of adapting DBC Pierre’s novel for the stage in a way that makes it unforgettable. You can’t help but… Continue

• Hart seduction

  Grant Hart, San Francisco Bathhouse, reviewed by Aaron Watson BEFORE Nirvana “pioneered” alt rock in the mainstream, there was a US hardcore band called Husker Du. The first alternative band to win a major label record deal (just ahead of Sonic Youth),… Continue

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  Bloody good

  AC/DC, Shihad, The Checks, Westpac Stadium, reviewed by Dawn Tratt “IS there blood on my face?” a guy asked my mate before AC/DC started playing. Not only was there a circle of blood seeping from his cheek, but the wound was surrounded by little teeth marks.… Continue

• Camp times

  Campus A Low Hum, Flock House, Bulls, reviewed by Dawn Tratt BLINK is a genius. The Wellington-based events manager, photographer and editor, born Ian Jorgensen and now known by everyone as Blink, has helped put Wellington on the map by pioneering a unique… Continue

• A killer play

  Mo + Jess Kill Susie, directed by Murray Lynch, Bats Theatre, reviewed by Lynn Freeman GARY Henderson’s play about two women who kidnap a police officer is as deeply disturbing and provocative today as when I first saw it a decade or so ago. Since it was… Continue

• Why so angry?

  Why?, with Grayson Gilmour, San Francisco Bathhouse, reviewed by Dawn Tratt THAT tool who stood on my foot as hard as he could then growled at me when I squeezed to the front of Why? ruined the start of the concert. Then some weirdo screamed at my mate,… Continue

• Can you Handel?

  Handel’s Messiah, conducted by Guy Jansen, Sacred Heart Cathedral, reviewed by Garth Wilshere THIS year’s Messiah in Wellington was an imported presentation from the Kapiti Chamber Choir. This performance was augmented by former members and friends of Bel… Continue