Eccentric characters, constant deadlines, lust, envy, loyalty and betrayal, all in the sealed environment of a newspaper newsroom. Charmian Smith talks to Simon Cunliffe about his new play, The Truth Game which opens at the Fortune Theatre next week.
Wine lovers who enjoy the exciting, but often frustrating, game of wine options will want to get back into practice for the last time.
Jonathan Lemalu's career as an international opera singer may be escalating, but it's nothing without family, he tells Charmian Smith.
London's longest-running play, Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, is to be staged at the Mayfair Theatre in Dunedin. The play has been running in London for 59 years, but only rarely has anyone else been allowed to stage it.
The most striking memorial in Dunedin's Northern Cemetery once again soars proudly heavenwards after years of neglect, vandalism and desecration. Charmian Smith reports on the restoration of Larnach's tomb.
A production of a rarely performed Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera is a treat for fans of their delightful works. Charmian Smith finds out about the Really Authentic Gilbert and Sullivan Performance Trust's production of Utopia (Limited).
At 22, Molly Birnbaum was an aspiring chef about to start a course at the Culinary Institute of America when she was hit by a car and badly injured. She tells the story of her slow recovery, not only from broken bones but also from the brain trauma that resulted in a devastating loss of smell and the resulting inability to taste flavours.
When the Caroline Plummer fellowship in community dance was established in 2003, it changed Lyne Pringle's ideas about dance. "I got really inspired and thought, how does the practice ...
Many people associate gypsy music with Hungary. However, two separate but interwoven strands - gypsy and folk music - form the background of Hungarian music, according to Gillian Ansell,...
Avenue Q is essentially a parody of Sesame Street and various childhood myths, but it's an adult version with puppets doing things you'd never see on Sesame Street, says director Shane Anthony. ...
Identifying birds is sometimes difficult, especially if you can only hear them, but New Zealand Bird Calls, (New Holland), a slim book with a CD, will make it easier.
Werner Andreas Albert's conducting career started with a bang in Mannheim, Germany, on February 26, 1961. He was studying with Herbert von Karajan, who organised the young conductor's first...
Some artists are interested mainly in exploring the possible boundaries of their subject, but others are also interested in the real world and how it relates to their art, according to Christchurch artist, Ross Gray.
Fiona Farrell was brought up reading books of all kinds and encouraged to write as a child, but her fury at being made redundant from Palmerston North Teachers' College in the early 1980s actually catapulted her into writing.
Cellists have a real passion for the sound of their instruments, says Heleen du Plessis, William Evans executant lecturer in cello at the University of Otago. "You cannot live without...
Figuring out what's behind the music and bringing that into the performance is Dane Lam's aim. Charmian Smith talks to the Australian conductor about the three 20th-century works in his concert with the Southern Sinfonia this weekend.
A hard-living self-made millionaire, a PC-lefty teacher and a rebellious spoilt teenager together on stage make for a lot of belly laughs but also leave you thinking, according to Patrick Davies....
On Saturday, fairytale insect costumes and giant lanterns will brighten the longest night of the year in Dunedin's annual midwinter carnival as dancers, musicians, stilt-walkers and children with lanterns they have made at the annual workshops parade around the Octagon.
Kyle Mewburn isn't interested in reality. He admits to mythologising his work, creating stories about its origins to satisfy those who want to know where his ideas come from. This year's...
There are many sorts of mozzarella cheese, from yellow pizza cheese to cow's milk bocconcini, but at the top of the range is pure white buffalo mozzarella.
