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39 reviews
Gary Wilby himself regards his sound-creations as “miniatures and intimate”, echoing in a real sense something of poet William Blake’s respect for small things, with the latter’s words “a world in a grain of sand”, reflecting Wilby’s own…
I still remember the incredible excitement generated by the announcement back in early 1960 on our local radio station (2ZA Palmerston North) that there was going to be a special broadcast that evening, something which shouldn’t be missed!…
“The Wedding of Liesl and Duncan” – a fertile music-theatre brainchild of director Jacqueline Coats, which makes creative and heart-warming use of the manifold skills and attendant enthusiasms of musicians belonging to and associated with…
“What straightaway grabbed me was our vortex-like transition from foyer to auditorium at the Hannah Playhouse earlier tonight, vertiginously drawing us into what seemed like a different world – a journey which then never let up in its…
First staged in 2011, composer Jonathan Dove’s and librettist Alasdair Middleton’s adventurous adaptation of Jane Mansfield’s novel “Mansfield Park” has since achieved world-wide exposure, eventually finding its way to what author Adrienne…
(until 17 th February, 2024) You have to hand it to Ali Harper, right from her first “boots and all” appearance on the floor of Circa 1 as a delightfully enthusiastic and even somewhat engagingly dishevelled…
Wednesday, Ist November 2023 Helen Moulder’s and Sue Rider’s play “The Bicycle and the Butcher’s Daughter” is the most recent of four shows created by the pair, beginning with the uniquely special “Meeting Karpovsky” of 2002, which…
Saturday June 3 rd , 2023 “Myth and Ritual” was something of a concept-bending title, to my initial way of thinking, as a description of the programme Marc Taddei and his musicians put together on Saturday evening (June 3 rd) . Myth brings…
Saturday 22 nd January If you’re like me, you’ll still have a headful of songs playing away in your cerebral jukebox which instantly bring back nostalgic memories of different eras, but in many cases have neglected the “fine detail” of…
Featuring: Nick Erasmuson, Jason Chasland, Emily Burns, Bailea Twomey, Aine Gallagher, Jade Merematira, William Duignan, Fynn Bodley-Davies, Zane Berghuis, Rebecca Ansell, Lane Corby, Jared Pallesen, Pippa Drakeford, Patrick Jennings, Katy…
Until 23 rd December, 2021 My first thought upon hearing about the projected scenario for this year’s Circa Pantomime was surprise that a story with grim and murderous elements (Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Mermaid”) had been…
Sunday 25 th July, 2021 The perils of reviewer-conviviality are never so real as when one attends a concert of contemporary music, and sits next to someone in the audience one knows by sight but has never had a chance to talk with…
Ensemble: Devon Neiman, Emma Salzano, Nino Raphael, Katie Atkins, Isaac Andrews, Allegra Canton, Patrick Jennings, Michaela Cadwgan, Jackson Burling, Sinéad Keane, Minto Fung, Natasha McAllister, Fynn Bodley-Davies, Joanne Hodgson, Jason…
Saturday, 23 rd January 2021 I can’t think of another performer I know whose presentations give me more pleasure than do those of Ali Harper’s, for her unbeatable combinations of artistry, energy and sheer charisma! And here, at Circa…
(until 20 th December) A footnote to the show’s title above the cast list in the programme reads: “The performers you may or may not see, tonight….”. When putting the show together around the talents of three ninety-plus performers, Dame…
Until 20 December, 2020, then 2-16 January 2021 Two of the show’s actors, Simon Leary (Buttons the Rat) and Gavin Rutherford (Rosie Bubble, the Fairy Godmother) are the authors of this wonderfully irreverent “take” on the classic…
Monday 2 nd March 2020 Firstly, some background for the curious – the “King” of this concert’s title is King George III of England, who suffered from mental illness throughout his adult life, eventually being removed from his throne and…
(until 22 nd December, then 2-11 January 2020) This show was, I thought, an absolute knockout on the performance strength of the songs and their associated choreography alone! Michael Nicholas Williams’ skilled arrangements of no less than…
Wednesday, 6 th November 2019 (until 16th November) I thought, both for myself and for the readers of “Middle C”, I’d explore the colourful genesis of Circa’s current production “Meeting Karpovsky”, as it was something I for one knew very…
Friday, April 12 th , 2019 My first reaction to the news that Orchestra Wellington was planning to give the New Zealand premiere of Hector Berlioz’s Lelio, or “A return to life” in its properly-ordered place as a sequel to the well-known…
Saturday 23rd February (until 22nd March , 2019) I’m not exactly a veteran of live performances of Stephen Sondheim’s musicals – New Zealand Opera did a splendid “Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” in 2016 (which production…
Thursday 29 th November 2018 The venue really brought it all alive, in a way that I thought a more conventional concert-chamber-like place wouldn’t have done. In the most positive way we in the audience seemed to be “put at ease” by the…
Sunday 18th November, 2018 A director’s note in the programme from Susan Wilson paid tribute to the late Paul Jenden 1955-2013), actor, dancer, director and author of this and several other pantomines performed by Circa over the years,…
Saturday 4 th August, 2018 To my consternation, I learned after the performance on Saturday evening was completed, that this was to be the only “outing” for Eternity Opera’s production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo! On a number of counts, this was…
Sunday, July 8 th , 2018 Having previously enjoyed Ali Harper’s one-woman shows Legendary Divas and A Doris Day Special, I was eagerly looking forward to my “latest” theatrical outing in her presence, which I imagined would be her “take”…
Firstly, a note of thanks to Cynthia Fortitude and Gertie Rallentando – Thank you both, for your indefatigable energies and your irrepressible buoyancies! Together, you were as a matching pair of Courtenay Place street-lamps to our…
(until 23rd December, 2017) Now here was fun heaped up in spadefuls onto classic, tried-and-true fantasy with a splendid pantomimic treatment of J.M.Barrie’s play “Peter Pan: the boy who wouldn’t grow up”, beloved of generations over a…
Friday 14 July 7:30 pm Iolanthe is one of the operettas admired by many who take it upon themselves to judge musical worth, and it doesn’t rank among the most popular, with Pirates, Mikado, Gondoliers and Pinafore . The company last staged…
Fortunately for us here in Godzone, that intrepid duo of Pinky Agnew and Lorae Parry, having tasted blood in the run-up to the 2014 election with their expose of the goings-on in the “swinging seat” of Port Nicholson give these…
Though Roger Hall’s script had some occasional over-worn moments, it was enlivened by the unflagging energy and interactive spark of the characters, buoyed up by frequent topical references to circumstances in the “real world”, some of…
Wednesday, July 27 th , 2016 I came away from singer Ali Harper’s and musical director Michael Nicholas Williams’ “Legendary Divas” opening night presentation at Circa Theatre feeling as though I had been seduced in the nicest and yet most…
Lead singers: William McElwee, Orene Tiai, Laura Loach, Charlotte Gartrell, John Goddard, Malinda Di Leva, Georgia Jamieson Emms, Mark Bobb, Chris Whelan,
Saturday, 22nd November, 2014 That old wizard of stage and screen, Noel Coward, was right when he famously quipped, “….how extraordinarily POTENT cheap music is……” – that is, if the response of the “half-century-onwards” hearts that were…
Wednesday, 22nd October, 2014 Encounters with exotic art-forms and performance-styles which are unfamiliar can have profound consequences – one thinks, for instance of the effect upon the composer Claude Debussy of the Paris International…
Review by Frances Robinson and Peter Mechen This was an evening which, on the face of things, promised much, with a presentation that, right from the outset, looked terrific, but then didn’t go on to adequately develop the musical and…
Production, semi-staged, by the New Zealand Festival with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya, and directed by Sara Brodie
Saturday, 15th February, 2013 This show – an hour’s worth of stunningly-wrought, cheek-by-jowl evocation by just two performers, of an episode in Wellington’s musical, colonial and imperial history – is a “must see”. Writer and director…
Sat.12 th October 2013 This was a matinee concert devised specifically for children, and it was great to see so many of them at this well attended event. Rugby legend and classical music enthusiast Anton Oliver introduced the programme,…
At Circa Theatre to 3rd August 2013 This remarkable production follows Paul Jenden’s own journey from his diagnosis with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia, through the rigours of treatment, and on to an eventual state of remission.
