The cost of living is diabolical right now, and that means less bums on seats everywhere. The EatClub app offers a solution. Patrons can get up to 50 percent off their food bill, and restaurants, bars, and cafés can fill otherwise empty tables. Hospitality venues choose when to go live, so if they’re already staffed but the place is quiet, they can hop on the app, send out an offer, and see who bites. Enter Maddi, a practiced biter.

So, how does it work from a diner’s perspective?

The setup is straightforward but does require a few minutes and an NFC-enabled smartphone that can make contactless payments. Once you download the app, you link in your credit or debit card (with higher discounts available if it’s a Mastercard) and the app generates you a special digital card that you add to your Apple or Google Wallet. This part was a bit finnicky, due in large part to Google’s online security protocols, but I’ve used EatClub Pay without a hitch since.

When you’re ready to eat, you open the app and look for offers near you. It might be new to Wellington but there’s already a huge range of restaurants available. I’ve been to five so far, three of which I hadn’t dined at before. I’ll go back to all of them – EatClub deal or no.

Once you find an offer (typically ranging from 30 to 50 percent off the bill), you accept it, enter your details (time of arrival and how many people), and just rock up. There’s no booking and you don’t need to say your name or mention the app. Ask for a table, make your order, tap to pay the bill with your EatClub card, and that’s it. Stupidly easy for such amazing savings.

I can verify the reported statistic that EatClub users dine out 70 percent more frequently. Through the app, I’ve had a killer steak at The Welsh Dragon Bar, the butteriest Danish at Black Lion Bakery & Café, the most succulent fried chicken at Winner Winner, flavour-bomb Mexican blackened fish tacos at Superfina (with a jalapeño salsa to die for), and the insanely artful avocado toast pictured here at TRA Coffee and Eatery. I’ve saved an average of 43 percent and couldn’t recommend it more.

If you love dining out but need to guard your pennies, join the (Eat)Club!

“One of New Zealand’s most successful bands has potential.”

So Bret McKenzie implored reviewers to write after Flight of the Conchords made another hilarious mistake at their first gig in eight years – minus a few warmup shows at Meow Nui back in April.

“I’ve got an idea, Bret,” Jemaine Clement quipped around the halfway mark. “We should do some warmup gigs in a smaller venue before we do this one.” His next idea was that they should “rehearse more than once every eight years.”

Every moment like this just added more mango to an already mother-ucking delicious fruit salad. Sprinkled with dry Kiwi comedy cornflakes and stirred with self-deprecation, Flight of the Conchords’ hallmark deadpan humour was in full force from the first fzzzfz of the opening number The Distant Future. This ‘recently written’ song about the year 2000 had been updated to include references to AI and how rude we are about its art. Afterwards, Bret told us our applause was “probably a bit generous for what we just did.” “Yeah,” Jemaine informed us, “that wasn’t a good start.”

Clearly, we begged to differ.

I didn’t mean to get straight down to business time – before Flight of the Conchords took the stage to rapturous reception, we were surprised and delighted by Wellington’s iconic saxophonist tree. Woody played three songs with aplomb and the occasional hip wiggle before shuffling off the stage. How much more Wellington can you get?

Quite a bit more Wellington, actually. Not only did Woody come back onstage for The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room and a red-lit, raunchy rendition of Business Time, but another local icon stepped in for Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros: King Home Boy. A certifiable Beatboxosaurus! Another surprise – this one unplanned – was the crowd-wide Happy Birthday singalong for Sadie, an audience member who kicked off a tea-towel distribution chain. “If it’s your birthday take a tea towel, if it’s not pass it on,” Bret said, and we happily complied.

Highlights were too numerous to mention, so sticking to my top five seven, I enjoyed the other ‘recently written’ track Frodo, Don’t Wear the Ring, which the band hopes to hear in the first Lord of the Rings movie; Jemaine’s assertion that “We’re vincible” in Hurt Feelings; Bret’s warning not to touch the banana in Iain and Deanna, where they tried something new – “one of us standing up”; multi-instrumentalist Nigel Collins’ ukelele moment; Jemaine’s bellowed line “There’s microplastics in my semen”; the appearance of the 1985 Casio SK-1 in Inner City Pressure; Brarbra Streisand; and every second of my new favourite song, Seagull.

I might be in the business of words, but no matter how many unhinged specifics I give you, I don’t think I can come close to conveying how much fun, how wonderful, the Flight of the Conchords concert was. More than once, I caught tears of laughter streaming down cheeks that ached from smiling. I’ll remember it always as one of the best live shows I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing.     

With a spectacle so operatic and layered, it’s difficult to know where to start with La bola negra [The Black Ball], directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. This maximalist cinematic feast intertwines three storylines across three eras in Spain – pre-Francoist 1932 through to the Civil War and into the 2010s – depicting the shifting, painful environments in which queer love manifests itself. Based on an unfinished play written by Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, who was murdered by Nationalist forces before he could ever finish it, the film is a poetic treatise on the endurance of queer desire in the face of intolerance and decisive, ideological violence.

Each scene was composed like a renaissance painting, reminiscent of the opulence of Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. Yet the Odyssean scale of the film and its emotional grip could be compared to the likes of The Great Gatsby. Where it stands entirely on its own is the sophistication of the structure, braiding together the storylines so deftly I was left winded when the penny dropped.

Love and war have been positioned side by side in stories for thousands of years, but the outright starkness between eros and despair, hope and desolation in La bola negra modified the atmosphere of the cinema. I thought the entire cast was fabulous, but my standouts were Guitarricadelafuente’s bittersweet portrayal of Sebastián – made all the more spectacular knowing it was his first acting performance outside of music videos – and the ever-magnetic Penélope Cruz as Nené Romero, whose electric cabaret act before a wolfish crowd of troupes offers a small glimpse into a more tolerant and free society.

Spain is in tatters; entire towns are collateral in a war that piles boys up on the back of trucks and dumps them at makeshift hospitals. The film is testimony to the total disintegration of a country, and what that means for people who must accept they will never get a shot at love, that that is for the next generation.

And yet, there is the turn of the century, both light-years and only two generations away; neither perfect nor complete, but more fertile soil. While there were moments where something beautifully implicit was later overstated as though the directors didn’t trust that the audience would ‘get it’, it’s hard to fault La bola negra. Its colour, grandeur, and tenderness put wings on my heart.

Strap into your seat and prepare for a wild ride. This is not your ordinary comedy thriller. Beginning in a cottage in Dartmoor, the air is filled with the hint of adultery and murder. What unfurls is a mystery that even the greatest sleuth would struggle to solve. Leaving you perplexed at almost every moment, you are going to need a warm footbath of Epsom salts to help process this one.

As quoted in Accomplice, ‘Stan Slavsky’ once said, “a single prop can ground an entire show”. Each of Megan Laybourn’s props has a significance and believability that, without spoiling the plot, grounds us deeply in the unfolding narrative.

Jack Thompson’s set is, like the show, full of surprises and feels very homely; fitting considering this is to be the house of the incredibly content married couple Derek and Janet Taylor. There is absolutely no tension between them (or anyone else) at all… Not one bit!

“Expect the unexpected, and you won’t be disappointed” is an apt description provided by the president of Wellington Repertory Theatre, Kevin Hastings. This show relies on many twists and turns to engage the audience, and all four actors do such a fantastic job of suspending reality to allow for these to happen.

It is difficult to compliment the cast members individually without spoiling character truths or important moments, but Jonathan Ensor, Catherine Pryce, Kevin Hastings, and Phoebe Day are fantastic at playing terrible actors. All their performances are incredibly believable in a very meta way. It’s not often that the person responsible for ‘public announcements’ is credited in the programme, let alone mentioned in a review; however, I feel that Gary Hollier deserves a particular commendation for their work.

Filled to the brim with surprises, Accomplice makes it hard to distinguish what’s real and what’s not. This suspenseful slow burn is sure to be all the rage in Wellington, just as it is in Crawley. Ensure you book tickets to the final show of Wellington Repertory Theatre’s centenary season as soon as possible, or else your fate may be left to poison, knives, hairdryers, or other such devices.

Midge Ure is primarily known as a new wave and synth-pop artist, formerly of the bands Ultravox and Visage. As well as being a successful singer-songwriter and record and video producer, he is also an accomplished guitarist, temporarily joining hard-rock band Thin Lizzy in the late 1970s. This concert had been delayed a year due to Ure’s health issues, and the full-house audience were certainly more than ready to party!

Support act Cole Stacey, whose strong vocals and energetic mandolin-playing folk songs were the perfect warmup, is also a member of Ure’s touring band. His version of Mary Hopkin’s Those Were The Days from 1968 was a highlight, with many of the audience in full voice showing their generation.

30 minutes later, Ure together with Stacey (keyboards, bass, backing vocals), Russell Field (Ure’s long-time drummer) and Joseph O’Keefe (keyboards, violin) arrived on stage to rapturous applause.

The first song Dear God set the tone for the night. Again We Love blended into Call of the Wild, after which Ure said, “I have to apologise, we’re a wee bit late – about a year!” On Passing Strangers, the audience were encouraged to clap along. The huge solo hit If I Was followed and had the crowd singing the choruses. Ure commented on the venue’s unique design: “We’ve never played in half a yacht before!”

After the gorgeous Tom Rush ballad No Regrets, Ure said (with a hint of sarcasm), “Isn’t it classic that something I didn’t write gets the best applause!” The heavy guitar-laden Led Zeppelin-esque Monster segued effortlessly into crowd-favourite Vienna, featuring a stunning violin solo by O’Keefe.

Reap the Wild Wind again had the crowd in full voice as did Fade To Grey, with Ure switching from guitar to keyboard. For Dancing with Tears in My Eyes, the band quietened down for the crowd to sing the choruses on our own! This was a band clearly enjoying themselves, and Ure happily engaged with the adoring audience.

The first encore, the instrumental Yellow Pearl, led beautifully into the final song Hymn. Then it was over, the crowd leaving tired but sated.

From the team that brought us Transmission and Transmission: Beta comes After God, a new verbatim play described by its writer Stuart McKenzie as a “mash-up of philosophical dialogue, medieval morality play, divine comedy, and absurdist drama in the spirit of Waiting for Godot”. For an audience, it’s a high-energy theatrical machine gun of ideas marshalled by a disciplined and beautiful production design and imaginative direction.

With a hungry mind and burning questions, McKenzie (mostly Andrew Paterson) hits the road, travelling from Wellington to Kathmandu, London, and New York. Along the way, he encounters a vivid cast of real-life characters: theologians, Tibetan rinpoches, philosophers, cosmologists, taxi drivers, hotel receptionists, a famous singing nun, and his own mother. Each has their own radically different way of making sense of human existence. As he travels, he is in constant conversation with theologian Mark C. Taylor (Michael Hurst), the author of the play’s subtitle, ‘Hope is an act of defiance’.

Assisting the two leads who expertly anchor the narrative are Kali Kopae, Roy Clark, and Tara Canton, who all do stellar work as the many other voices along the path of the two men’s journey towards understanding. The moment when the whole cast joins in song is divine.

Mark McEntyre’s elegant set design consists of two black platforms with steps either end and a gap in between so actors can move freely around the space. Five hanging strips of muslin, hand-pulled by the actors, provide a dynamic backdrop for Chris Bleackley’s visuals of helpful text and evocative photographs of hands. Natasha James’ lighting design, which makes excellent use of side light and colour, adds mystery and meaning to the play’s sense of place. Alongside Chris Ward’s atmospheric sound design, William Philipson’s original music complements with depth and rhythm.

Filled with existential questions and answers that leave much to ponder, this is ultimately a satisfying and superbly realised story of friendship between two men searching for God in a confounding world.

It’s hard to choose a favourite from three courses of sublime music. Often, it’s the entrée for me but the second course was my pick from this feast.

The entrée, Elfrida Andrée’s Andante Recitative for strings, was wonderful. A romantic violin solo, hesitant and broken over sustained lower strings, melody passing between cello and violins, a thick almost chewy sound, rising from the deep to finish on sustained violin. Delicious.

The second course was Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27. Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason played with the perfect level of dominance in her right hand, her left almost unnoticeable at times but always guiding our ears towards the melody. She played with astonishing fluidity and an admirable confidence in the face of the complexity and challenge of a well-known Mozart concerto.

The last movement, Allegro, perfectly combined Mozart’s originality with Kanneh-Mason’s incredible talent. In lesser hands, Mozart’s harmonic variations might sound repetitive, but multiplied many times over by the factor of Kanneh-Mason’s talent, this was infinite variety and inventiveness condensed into a few too-short minutes. Kanneh-Mason made Mozart her own creation, surely one of the hardest things in the world. A divinely played version of I Say a Little Prayer was her equally impressive, wow-factor encore.

As far as the NZSO’s institutional memory and archives can tell, the orchestra has never performed Serenade No. 1 in D Major by Brahms. Six movements show off his versatility and creativity in what is considered his first published orchestral work. Conductor Tianyi Lu’s interpretation, coupled with the orchestra enjoying the challenge of something less familiar, established a lovely light-heartedness throughout this piece. From the opening few bars, it was clear something joyful was coming, followed by something martial, romantic, playful, and confident. The finishing Rondo felt like a cantering horse was slowing to a fast trot, skittering slightly and coming to a happy standstill.

NAZA is an Israeli military acronym for nezek agavi, a Hebrew term for ‘collateral damage’ that creates an unsettling moral detachment from the realities of mass civilian deaths in Gaza.

This chilling investigative documentary from Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor takes place under the cover of night on Tel Aviv rooftops where Abraham carries out clandestine conversations with 24 Israeli Defence Force soldiers and intelligence officers. Produced by The Guardian, the whistleblowers provide testimonies about the military operations in Gaza that have killed over 73,000 people, describing in detail the artificial intelligence tools and complex automated surveillance systems used by the IDF to target homes and buildings and knowingly calculate the number of NAZA that would die as a consequence.

The interviews plunge viewers into 77 minutes of darkness, with the silhouetted profiles of the interviewees set against the lit-up cityscape. This stripping of the senses centres the voices, which have been altered to protect identities. Every now and then a loud plane flies overhead or sirens go off alerting the city of a nearby strike. The documentary is interlaced with footage peering through the windows of apartment buildings where people live out their daily lives, sitting on the couch watching TV or standing in the kitchen cooking dinner. It shows an enormous skyrise building being constructed at pace – a stark contrast to the descriptions of the strategic flattening of entire suburbs and towns just 60 kilometres further down the coast.

Some interviewees draw rudimentary pictures of weapons-screen interfaces and describe the inaccuracies of the AI tools used. Another describes the surveillance of a child’s phone to gather intel on when her suspected father will be home and therefore when to strike. The documentary is impactful in its specificity. It doesn’t attempt to draw a bigger picture, and it reflects the unsettling ways the IDF personnel viewed themselves within the much larger and highly granular war apparatus. One of them describes his role as merely “technical”, another says, “if I didn’t do it, someone else would’ve”.

Never have I experienced such a weighted silence as the credits rolled. The must-see film received the Special Jury Prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival. After its screen run, it will be available for free on The Guardian website in late November.

In Big Orb Improv, Caitlin Penhey, Criss Grueber, Ciarán Searle, Trubie-Dylan Smith, and Brendon Bennetts make up stories from audience suggestions, with just one hour to show the titular Big Orb the breadth of human experience. The show is fully booked and a few guests can only attend via standby tickets. A promising start!

The strategy is straightforward: the actors ask questions and use our answers as inspiration for their improv. Questions include the viewers’ biggest childhood dreams and fears, the recollection of a scary event, or the place where one feels most peaceful. The variety of answers leads to a hilarious mix of storylines: a serene surfing trip transforms into a woman (Penhey) getting stuck in her wetsuit while her would-be saviour (Bennetts) is eaten by a whale; meanwhile, a boy (Bennetts) trying to strike a deal with the devil (Searle) to bring back his deceased cat Misty ends up calling Baby Spice of the Spice Girls for guidance.

The more absurd the story gets, the better. It is amazing to witness the group’s ability to transform audience responses into comedic scenes, their success driven by the way they mine us for additional details to draw on. Especially satisfying is the way they bring each plot together at the end, never missing the perfect moment to drop an almost-forgotten reference from earlier on. Throughout, the Big Orb signals its pleasure or displeasure by changing colour. For example and much to our amusement, it glows green when asked whether underage drinking is acceptable.

A highlight is the seamless integration of the pianist Finn McKinlay and the lighting and sound technician Campbell Wright, who shape the plot in many unexpected ways. For instance, McKinlay may randomly change the music, forcing the actors to adapt accordingly, while Wright’s voice resounds as that of an incorporeal entity.

I would be interested to see what would happen if audiences were called upon later in each scene, especially to have a hand in the storyline’s twists and turns. But ultimately, these players from Christchurch’s Court Jesters interpret and integrate our responses in a way I’ve never seen before, resulting in a hilarious show. Go to Big Orb Improv to have a good laugh with friends and see great improvisors doing what they do best.