St James Theatre feels bright and cheerful tonight, already shrugging off Wellington’s crisp winter chill as we prepare for a summer romp in an 18^th‑century country estate. Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro is an opera that never loses its ability to delight, packed with theatrical momentum and comic invention, yet finding moments to blossom into extraordinary beauty.

Conducted by James Judd, New Zealand Opera’s production celebrates the work’s subversive qualities, shifting attention even further away from aristocratic dominance and towards the servants and women who drive the action. Director Lindy Hume has achieved this in simple and highly effective ways. The ensemble of servants open the production, busy with tasks and bustling around the stage for the whole of the overture, and remain visible onstage throughout as they eavesdrop and gossip.

This evokes a household thinking and acting together, an effect supported by the set design (Tracy Grant Lord). Modular transparent panels, echoing palace walling, are reconfigured swiftly to suggest new spaces. They are used particularly well to allow concealed eavesdroppers to remain visible to the audience from all angles. However, the stark white surfaces set against a dark backdrop fail to evoke the sun-drenched summer day in which the action unfolds.

The principal cast work with notable generosity. Their responsiveness to one another gives the performance a sense of spontaneity and flow. Julien Van Mellaerts is wonderfully comic and expressive as the Count, capturing both the character’s arrogance and his underlying fragility with deft precision.

Felicity Tomkins is a standout as the Countess, her voice both powerful and gorgeously controlled. Every line is delivered with poise and emotional clarity, filling the space without ever losing intimacy. She’s also a comic powerhouse, especially in the scenes with Cecilia Zhang’s Cherubino, where she establishes an authentic, quietly charged connection that is both sensual and barely restrained. During the wedding scene she is entrancing as she dances a defiant pasodoble with Mellaerts.

Throughout, there is a palpable sense of shared momentum as the cast bring this intricate social world to life, ensuring the opera continues to feel vivid, generous, and completely entertaining.

This evening’s programme offers a carefully graded emotional journey, moving from introspective delicacy through virtuosic intensity to full‑blooded theatrical sweep. Under Benjamin Northey, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra navigates these shifts with clarity and purpose, allowing each work to establish its own atmosphere without losing an overarching sense of cohesion.

Kenneth Young’s Douce Tristesse opens the concert, unfolding in soft pulses and drifting lines, creating an impressionistic wash of sound that would not feel out of place underscoring a turn‑of‑the‑century period drama. The orchestration is luminous without ever becoming showy, and as the piece eases into silence, I hear murmurs ripple through the audience: “pretty, so pretty.”

Samuel Barber’s Cello Concerto provides a striking contrast. I didn’t know the piece or soloist Li‑Wei Qin prior to this performance but I fell hard for both and became enthralled within a few phrases. Barber’s language is at once muscular and tender. There’s a sense of forces in flux, repelling and aligning in turns as the music pitches through complexity and full‑bodied romanticism, and in rare, sublime passages emulsifies intellect and sensuality into delicious combinations. Qin plays with a masterful ease as the concerto’s taut rhythms and brooding intensity melt into more overtly lyrical, sweeping gestures and back again.

This intensity primes the ear beautifully for Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet selections. Heard in this context, the suite’s rich harmonic language and dramatic contrasts feel especially meaty. Northey brings an additional degree of confidence and fluency to the Prokofiev and draws out the pleasure and flavours in the music. The programme includes well-loved excerpts alongside less familiar material, opening on the rich, self-assured menace of the iconic Montagues and Capulets. Throughout, the string section carries much of the work’s emotional and rhythmic weight with impressive stamina, catching the bite and precision required. Meanwhile, the brass and percussion relish Prokofiev’s more dramatic edges, delivering passages of formidable power.

By the end of the evening, we are warm, nourished, and satisfied. This is a concert that understands how to sustain indulgence and interest, leaving the audience, quite simply, well fed.

It seems only fitting that Wellington Repertory Theatre’s centenary production (Mike Poulton’s stage adaptation of The Other Boleyn Girl) is royal, indulgent, and completely lavish.

On the night, the atmosphere is heady. There’s something period-accurate about the chaotic press of fellow theatregoers refusing to queue as we are swept towards our seats from the packed foyer of the Gryphon, but it’s once we’re inside the theatre that we’re really transported. Soft lute music plays, the smell of church incense burns, and the three leads (Ava Wiszniewska, Yasmine Alani, and Joseph Corbett as the Boleyn siblings) lounge onstage in silky undershirts and stockings, brushing each other’s hair. This is the first and last time you’ll see them enjoying each other’s company. Conniving, back-biting, sexual taboos, family dysfunction, and intimate personal betrayals rapidly ensue in this audacious historical melodrama set in the royal court of Henry VIII.

The production is extravagantly costumed by Anne De Geus in a wealth of colour and texture, with a little dash of humour. Highlights include the outrageous, hot-pink glitter explosion used to garb Anne Boleyn (in period-accurate silhouette, by the way), and pale, pouty goth Jane Seymour (Livi Dalley), whose skirts are adorned with black lace skulls. 

If you’re not familiar with the story, the script is bonkers (there are gasps and nervous giggles in the crowd as some of the more extreme beats play out), but it’s executed with verve by the cast. Alani is a bold and charismatic Anne, whose performance alternates between pride, vindictiveness, foot-stomping tantrums, and the occasional crackle of vulnerability. Wiszniewska plays the titular ‘other’ Boleyn sister with sensitivity and dignity, providing a grounded centre to the mad drama swirling around her. Meanwhile, the supporting cast populate the world with lovers, enemies, political rivals, and worst of all, family. The machinating Boleyn elders (played by Kevin Hastings, Catherine McMechan, and Mark Wilton) are a particular joy to watch. 

It’s a fun, ambitious, production and a rollicking good way to celebrate the centenary. Congratulations Wellington Repertory Theatre (and here’s to another hundred years)!

Jamie McCaskill wrote Not in Our Neighbourhood while working at Te Whāriki Manawāhine o Hauraki, the Hauraki Women’s Refuge. The play features five characters: documentary filmmaker Maisey Peters; Moira Makarere, who runs the Women’s Refuge Safehouse; and three of its current residents, Sasha Miller, Cat Rakiura, and Teresa Cummings. Drawn with permission from the experiences of wāhine living in the safehouse during McCaskill’s 18-month tenure, the three women – one fiery, one stoic, one reserved – could not be more different but have each survived domestic violence. In the play, they have agreed to feature in a documentary about Hauraki Women’s Refuge and are speaking with Maisey about their experience.

Bringing all five women to life with masterfully quick kick-ball-changes and heightened physicality is Hariata Moriarty. Moriarty’s performance style is elevated and theatrical, especially during moments of direct address. The gifted actor starts at 100 and doesn’t let up. Her energy is impressive, her passion palpable, her compassion and conviction clear. The whirlwind is breathtaking but dizzying. Due to the intimacy of Circa Two, and how close even the back row is to the stage, more moments of softness and stillness would serve to contrast against – and therefore amplify – the heavier scenes. I feel that dialling the delivery back in parts would allow the dialogue to breathe, thus giving vital messages more room to unfurl, to echo through the space, to impact. 

Vital it is. Not in Our Neighbourhood is deeply affecting, and everyone’s incredible mahi – from the wāhine and the refuge to the consultants, creatives, cast, and crew members who have brought it to the stage, both now and in the past – should be commended and celebrated. One particularly powerful scene sees Moriarty sensitively deliver Cat’s victim impact statement amidst a gorgeous and striking lighting state change from Emile Commarieu. This highlights one of the work’s central tenets: the way we stigmatise, blame, and shame the victims of family violence needs to change.

Presented by Taki Rua Productions, Not in Our Neighbourhood says it is in our neighbourhood. It is in our community. But there is help, and with that comes hope.

I’m hectic by the time I arrive in the foyer of The Hannah for James Mustapic’s newest solo show. I’ve been battling the bus timetable, one of my jobs has just imploded, my date cancelled last minute, and I’ve got a little smear of hoisin sauce on my shirt, which I’ve spilled out of a bao bun over dinner. So, I am primed and ready to experience James Mustapic.

Because, as it turns out, James Mustapic has been having a hard time too. The full story unfolds over the course of the hour in a gloriously labyrinthine, multimedia yarn of new boyfriends, poorly received Seven Sharp segments, driving lessons, chlamydia, deranged flatmates who may or may not be on meth, exorcisms both metaphorical and literal, and a plethora of other failures and vulnerabilities, including his own mum showing up late to the show. “Janet?” he asks the packed theatre, hopefully. No answer.

The show is extremely personable, and desperately relatable throughout. I was invested in every trainwreck flatmate who moved in, and felt gleefully malicious towards every commenter on Mustapic’s Facebook post. I laughed maniacally all through his opener, which was essentially a PowerPoint presentation about being unpopular with old people on the internet. And when Janet finally joined us, 20 minutes in, we all went wild.

James Mustapic Yourself Up And Get Back On That Saddle Girlfriend is a show that’s fundamentally about trying, and failing. Correspondingly, the tone is casual, haphazard, and genuinely intimate. Mustapic leaps between bits, occasionally stopping to show you a captioned text message or a funny video, and it’s all a little like listening to your very funniest friend telling an anecdote. Although Mustapic is, I think, a deceptively organised storyteller. Structurally, the wandering anecdotes always come back around, building surprising connections and landing increasingly esoteric punchlines. “And that’s what air fryers have to do with being gay.” Mustapic says triumphantly at the show’s conclusion. By the time you get there, it all makes perfect sense.

GRAMMY^®-winning Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel is touring his 2025 album Living in the Light. Such is the quality of his musicianship that five of the 11 tracks were recorded in one take, then finished and mixed in one day. 

The vibrancy of Black and White To Colour made it the perfect track to start. After Young Travelers and A Drowning Heart, also off this new album, Tommy said “No list here, I’m making it up as I go along”. Guitar Rag followed, then segued into Nine Pound Hammer with Tommy saying “Take it boys” then proceeding to make a percussive, washboard sound by scratching his pick on his guitar while playing a rolling bass, accompanied by his deep, rough-edged vocals. Amazing. 

He preceded Endless Road with an explanation of a period in his life, when deep in pain and grief, his music kept him going. The Sharon O’Neill classic Maxine followed, with Tommy’s vocals evoking the sadness of the lyrics. On The Beatles’ Michelle, the harpsichord-like harmonics were breathtakingly beautiful.

The vocal intro for Angelina, written for his daughter, was an added treat, as the original album track was instrumental only. Nat King Cole’s Mona Lisa, in the jazz idiom and a favourite of Tommy’s, was gorgeous. On Mombasa, that he wrote in Africa, he hit a light brush on his microphone while using his guitar to create complex percussive African rhythms. This jaw-dropping, almost indescribable technique left him breathless. Auckland singer Phil Madsen took up Tommy’s challenge to sing John Farnham’s divine Burn for You. Voice and guitar were superlative. Tommy then quipped “Here’s a celebration of a band I was once in”, launching into a blistering version of Dragon’s April Sun in Cuba, with the crowd joining in raucously.

Tommy welcomed back to the stage the superb support act, English finger style guitar player Mike Dawes, for Sting’s Fields of Gold and Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. For John Mayer’s Slow Dancing in a Burning Room, Tommy said “we’re going to play a song to take you out tonight which will just leave us all in a good vibe, man. Just enough room for some hokey pokey ice-cream, oh yeah... my drug of choice!” A good vibe indeed had by all.

The Origin of the Harp (Thomas Adès) was a true origin story. No harp in the music but conductor Gemma New did evoke the watery environment of the nymph and her transformation into a harp. New is a great storyteller, setting the scene for us and drawing the story in sound with confidence and clarity.

New suggested to us Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto in D major was sweetness and sentimentality, perhaps a reference to the strong influence his writing of film scores had on his classical works. Celebrated for bringing classical musical language to the movie soundstage, his Violin Concerto borrows back from some of his film soundtracks.

Soloist James Ehnes had every musical avenue covered whether sweet, sentimental, or serious. Ehnes’ technique was impressive. There are some seriously virtuosic parts, especially in the final movement, and he played with a thoughtful and considered interpretation of the many aspects of this work. His encore, Eugène Ysaÿe’s Sonata for Solo Violin in D minor, is a dazzling and spectacular performance piece and Ehnes’ performance was as dazzling and spectacular as anyone could wish.

Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D major, Titan is an interesting musical miscellany. Mahler composed a symphonic poem, included previously written work, and subsequently revised and altered it over several years before it settled into the form we know today. Over four movements we traverse the natural world, a rustic community setting, an uneasy, distorted view of life and death, and a glorious finale.

New and her players had a lot to work with. Through clever interpretation and expert performance, they brought order to the somewhat jumbled narrative. New’s open arms and open-hearted direction could be heard in the orchestra’s sound, from the delicate opening harmonic in the violins, through a grim, minor key version of Frère Jacques with klezmer interlude, to a glorious finale, complete with standing fanfare of seven horns.

Known for his spare, emotive black-and-white portraits of the denizens of queer, creative, and intellectual circles in 70s and 80s New York, Peter Hujar’s Day is a verbatim account of a certain day in the photographer’s life. Directed by Ira Sachs and shot on Super 16mm film stock, the film is a quiet yet commanding time capsule, a chance to eavesdrop on a dramatic reimagining of a tape-machine recorded interview between two friends, the writer Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall) and Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw).

The warm tones of the film, with deliberately janky cuts and scratches, shows them moving around Rosencrantz’s stunningly dressed apartment, shifting with the sun from table to couch to rooftop to kitchen while Hujar describes in detail what he did the day before. It is gentle and meditative, affectionate and slow. The pace gives space to the audience to consider the mechanisms of memory and legacy, the sieving effect of time, and the tragic loss of not only a brilliant photographer, but a human being with aches and pains and concerns around money, health, and work – just like the rest of us.

What marks his day as different from anyone else’s are his phone calls with the likes of Susan Sontag and Fran Lebowitz, his appointment with Allen Ginsberg to photograph him for The Times – who was cool, distant, and took to chanting at every available moment – and his plans to photograph William S. Burroughs the following day. Otherwise, he takes several naps, puts off his work, eats Chinese takeout, and only seems to come alive after midnight, when he practices Bach on the harpsichord.

While perhaps only compelling to fans of Hujar, or audiences interested in artistic process, Whishaw and Hall do an incredible job of what would be a complex performance to pull off: the subtle embodiment of quirks and mannerisms of two historical figures to make it appear effortless and documentarian. Each frame feels like a picture, and for me the 76-minute runtime was the perfect length. Running like an alternate reel the entire time is a sense of loss, knowing that Peter Hujar, among many of the friends he photographed, died of AIDS in 1987 in the midst of the crisis, the devastating effects of which had profound effects on his artistry and legacy.

The show begins as a rambunctious Oliver Pol runs centre stage, and as soon as this happens, we know that we are in for 60 minutes of pure chaos. Oliver Pol: Featherbrained is a no-holds-barred comedy set destined to make you honk with laughter.

Pol has unwavering confidence and is unabashedly himself, which makes his set feel more personal and, as a result, more engaging. By the end of it, we know the details of his life, perhaps even more intimately than we bargained for (in a good way). He connects us to early 2000s culture in New Zealand, exploring the struggles of obtaining a pen licence in primary school, the 2007 Guinness Book of World Records, and the Fish and Chip Song, which was, apparently, the major craze at every school in the country apart from mine.

Pol is not afraid of the tricky stuff. He finds the humour in hard-hitting topics with tact and sensitivity – a delicate balance to strike. At the same time, he doesn’t hesitate to talk about whatever seems to spring to his mind, giving the show a spontaneous and authentic feel. He will make you question the morality of a seagull eating a pigeon. His flair for comedy will leave an imprint on you like a hickey. I absolutely adore his unhinged comedic stylings.

Using props and a presentation screen adds to the performativity of the routine and further illustrates the passion Pol has for the topics he discusses. If only there was ventriloquism involving a goose… though that would reveal the innermost thoughts of said goose, in turn uncovering a brain possibly even more wonderfully chaotic than Pol’s. And besides, this is a show about him, not about geese (though they do feature a lot).

This show will make you laugh more than an article on drunken geese in the 1881 Lyttelton Times. Oliver Pol: Featherbrained is a wild ride, and you would be a silly goose to miss its run at BATS Theatre this NZ International Comedy Festival.