It's Christmas theatre reviews galore in the latest Theatreview Weekly including A Basement Christmas Carol, A Christmas Cracker (WIT), and The Eight: Reindeer Monologues.

See more recent reviews at theatreview.org, the NZ Performing Arts Review & Directory.
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It's Christmas theatre reviews galore in the latest Theatreview Weekly including A Basement Christmas Carol, A Christmas Cracker (WIT), and The Eight: Reindeer Monologues.

See more recent reviews at theatreview.org, the NZ Performing Arts Review & Directory.
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Gryphon, Wellington - A CHRISTMAS CRACKER (WIT): Lively skills tested in jeopardy

- reviewed by John Smythe

The Wellington Improvisation Troupe (WIT) is celebrating its 10th birthday and the festive season with a festival of formats: seven over four days (full details on the production page).

The opening night (Tuesday) kicks off with Battle of WITs, the first format they played with all those years ago.

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Globe Theatre, Dunedin - THE MIDDLEMARCH SINGLES BALL II: Potential buried by reported action
- reviewed by Patrick Davies

It’s that time of the year again – in Middlemarch anyway – when the ‘Love Train’ arrives bringing singles who want to mingle with the locals and the yokels.

The Middlemarch Singles Ball II is “…a sequel, the play stands alone and it’s not necessary to have seen the first one to enjoy the second”. The committee is back navigating its way through the fallout from last year’s events; through “a passing” [“a death” as Penelope keeps correcting]; and this year’s major stumbling block: the women.

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The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - A BASEMENT CHRISTMAS CAROL: Pop culture and corn

- reviewed by Janet McAllister

The Christmas play is a greatly anticipated Basement tradition, combining a volunteer cast on high rotate with loads of punny fun for a festive fundraiser.

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The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - A BASEMENT CHRISTMAS CAROL: What the Dickens
- reviewed by James Wenley

You know the silly season must be upon us when you find yourself thinking: “for the love of baby Jesus, not another Christmas Carol adaptation”. Dickens' morality tale has been trotted out so many times that you’d think they’d be no bah-humbing curmudgeons still left to heed the message. What is there left to say?

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The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - A BASEMENT CHRISTMAS CAROL: Good giggles and irony a-plenty in completely mad anarchic tone
- reviewed by Stephen Austin

Ebenezer Scrooge (Gareth Williams) is a penny pinching curmudgeon, presenting cheap knock-off Christmas hampers to the world, using cut priced meat cuts, while over-working and under-paying his sole staff member Bobbi Cratchitt (Bree Peters).

Faced with insurmountable debt and a son with every disease under the sun, Cratchitt tries to keep a shiny disposition through all of the hardship. The Ghost of the Mad Butcher soon comes knocking ...

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TAPAC Theatre, Western Springs, Auckland - ROBIN HOOD: Back in the Hood
- reviewed by Matt Baker

Following a twelve month hiatus, The Outfit Theatre Company returns to the stage with possibly their most commercially and critically successful of enterprises; the kids’ holiday show. The ensemble nature of the company’s management has been reduced to the show’s producers; Sarah Graham and Ema Barton, seemingly in exchange for a plethora of writers; Colin Garlick, Andrew Ford, Jatinder Singh, and Christ Tempest, who have been charged with penning yet another adaptation of the legend of Robin Hood.

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Taste Merchants, 36 Stuart St, Dunedin - THE EIGHT: REINDEER MONOLOGUES: Theatre that will shock and should be seen
- reviewed by Kimberley Buchan

I applaud Counterpoint and director Caitlin McNaughton for putting on a non-sappy play at this time of the year. It is possible to have nourishing thought-provoking theatre no matter what celebrations are happening at the time. And thought-provoking it is. It is a raw, visceral, wrenching script full of actors with a frantic gleam in their eyes as they nearly vibrate off the stage in their effort to communicate their perspective.

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TAPAC Theatre, Western Springs, Auckland - ROBIN HOOD: Really rather silly hilarity
- reviewed by Nik Smythe

A large empty black traverse stage sprawls before a giant white screen covering the large stage wall at one end. An audience seats itself in quiet anticipation, not much going on here, until suddenly there is.

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Circa Two - return season, Wellington - A CHRISTMAS CAROL: An immensely enjoyable addition to the Christmas preparations
- reviewed by Maryanne Cathro

Ray Henwood’s reading of A Christmas Carol is back this year, by popular demand. Christmas is a time for traditions and so this return season feels like something of a tradition in the making.

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See more recent reviews at theatreview.org.nz, the NZ Performing Arts Review & Directory

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