thu 25/04/2024

New Zealand

Top of the Lake, Series Finale, BBC Two

“Everything you think you are, you’re not,” pronounced Holly Hunter’s inscrutable GJ in the final episode of the chilly Top of the Lake. Certainties crumbled as the series progressed, with Elisabeth Moss’s Robin Griffin discovering that almost...

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Top of the Lake, BBC Two

Jane Campion's much-anticipated series is set amid hauntingly beautiful scenery on New Zealand's South Island, which in its remoteness seems to shake its head gently at the antics of the sparse human population. The people themselves are like a...

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theartsdesk in New Zealand: WOMAD Taranaki

I've been to countless UK Womads yet have never before made it WOMAD Taranaki. Which is almost something to be ashamed about considering I'm a Kiwi. But this expat is never in the South Pacific mid-March. Until, that is, this year. The 11th New...

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Edinburgh Fringe: Camille O'Sullivan/The Road That Wasn't There

 Camille O'Sullivan: Changeling, Assembly Rooms *****The Assembly Rooms may have reopened for this year's Fringe following a very swanky refurb, but someone obviously forgot to put sufficient thought into the practicalities of getting people in...

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CD: Opossum - Electric Hawaii

Kody Nielsen is possibly best known outside his native New Zealand as the producer of singer-songwriter Bic Runga, but since her star shines very much brighter at home than in Europe, that isn’t necessarily an especially high profile. He has also...

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Globe to Globe: Troilus & Cressida, Shakespeare's Globe

So, what's the "problem"? All is right with the world - or the theatre at least - in the Maori-language staging of Troilus and Cressida from the Auckland-based Ngakau Toa troupe that pierces right to the troubling heart of this first of...

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British ballet's secret weapon, funny and dangerous

You hear the names of the princes and romantic heroines in ballet, but the global success of 20th-century British ballet had much to do with its dramatic acuity and nuancing, the unexpected side characters who in the ballets of Ashton and MacMillan...

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Royal New Zealand Ballet, From Here to There, Barbican Theatre

Simmons's 'A Song in the Dark': Simple, graceful moves with spacious shape and depth

All ballet companies dream of finding a genuine creative talent among their ranks, and the Royal New Zealand Ballet, visiting from the farthest end of the world ballet map, have one in Andrew Simmons. The unknown name on their triple bill on this...

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The Boy With Tape On His Face, Touring

The mistake was probably that I hadn’t tanked up beforehand. Clues were there. Soho Theatre is over a pub. 9.45pm start. Who’s going to turn up in those circumstances completely sober? Who would be mad enough to turn up in Soho at 9.45pm stone-cold...

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Spartacus: Blood and Sand, Bravo

I always liked that line in the 1960 Spartacus movie when Spartacus's lover Varinia (Jean Simmons) is bidding a silent farewell to the crucified rebel gladiator. "Tell da lady no loidering," growls the Roman sentry standing guard nearby. I can'...

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Crowded House, Usher Hall, Edinburgh

When the moment finally arrives for the Great Rock Reckoning, it’s hard to say where Crowded House will figure. There was a time, around 1993, when they looked like heirs apparent to U2 and R.E.M., ready to make the step-change up to the out-of-town...

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New World theme for Edinburgh International Festival 2010

Jonathan Mills has announced the programme for Edinburgh International Festival 2010, on a theme of modern culture in the New Worlds of the Americas and Australasia. Ranging from California to Canberra, New York to New Zealand, from Santiago to...

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