Rueben’s Hot Sister

I haven’t been to Choice Bros in, like, ages. Why not? It’s centrally located on Ghuznee Street, brews their own beers, and is open during the week. Years ago, it was a regular stop for me for a burger and beer when I was taking tours. But then, something changed…they decided, without consulting me, to change to an all-chicken menu. Yes, the only burger available was a chicken burger. Now, I don’t mind the occasional chicken burger, but when I want a beef burger, that’s what I want…so I stopped going.

Earlier this week, whilst reading reviews of Burgers Wellington, I came across their offering, and observed that it was, in fact, made with…beef. Well, blow me down! A quick investigation revealed that they’ve abandoned their whites-only policy, and are now back in the business of offering proper burgers. Again, they did not consult me on this decision, so I don’t know how long they’ve been missing out on my custom.

 After my work on Saturday I decided to drop by and sample their effort.

Rueben’s (sic) Hot Sister is described on the Burger Wellington website like this: Smashed beef patty with hot honey–cured beef short rib, smoked provolone, spiced pickled cabbage, pickled onions and spicy Russian dressing in a Cottage Lane brioche bun, with housemade kettle chips and Kāpiti brie bacon cheese dip.

It looks like this: 

There is no DVB beer match as, again, I’m in a brew pub so I’ll have whatever they recommend – in this case, Choice Bros Perfect Day low carb lager.

There was a bit of a wait for the burger as it was a popular choice and the bar was, if not full, at least reasonably patronised for a Saturday lunchtime. When it came though, it was good. This is a proper burger made by people who make proper burgers. All the necessary ingredients were there, and there was none of that extraneous “salad” that some insist on including in the burger. The pickled cabbage and onions provided some necessary crunch and flavour, and the cheese was tasty. The housemade (apparently; they tasted like they were out of a packet) kettle chips had, hover, gone a bit soft. Nevertheless they fulfilled their function of scooping up the brie and bacon dip. I felt, however, that just sticking to chips might have been a better option in this case. I scored it 7/10, because although it’s a good burger, it’s not an exceptional burger. I’m really looking for that one that blows your socks off to score higher.

 

Bosh

OK, now for something a bit different. After bridge we went out to lunch at Café Polo, one of our local eateries which could soon become the best café in the area. Why do I say that? Well, the best café in the area always used to be The Larder, but a short while ago Jacob & Sarah sold up, and it is now under new management. So far, nothing has changed, but we’ll have to keep a weather eye on it.

Café Polo’s offering is called Bosh, and is something a bit different to your usual burger: It’s a pork and prawn patty. Say what? Yes, you read that right. It’s described on the Burger Wellington site like this: Harringtons pork and prawn nugget with sweet and sour sauce, pineapple, pickled capsicum and onion, coriander, spring onion salad and crispy chilli mayo in Cafe Polo’s housemade sesame seed milk bun, with salt and pepper chips. The DVB beer match is The Classic lager.

It looks like this: 

How did it taste? As you can see, there’s a lot going on here, so much so that it’s held together with a stick...this is a burger for tackling with a knife and fork. According to the chalkboard description, the patty is 80% pork. The sweet and sour, and the pineapple combine well together, and the whole thing just zinged off the tastebuds. Unlike some burgers that have had the kitchen sink thrown at them, this is one that’s well thought out, with sweetness, sourness, spice, crunch and flavour. The chips were crunchy and generously seasoned, too. This is the best burger I’ve had so far this year, and I’m scoring it a 8/10. It’s not quite a perfect burger - pickupability, flavour and patty composition all play a part; as has been mentioned, I’m a hard man to please!

The Coastal Rogue

Another local excursion for a burger at the weekend, and this time we picked perennial favourites Little Sprig, a branch of the Sprig & Fern chain of pubs. Their offering is called The Coastal Rogue, described on the Burger Wellington site thus: Grass-fed beef blend patty with liquid cheese, crispy onions, bacon-jalapeño jam and Sprig sauce in a housemade brioche bun, with shoestring fries.

It looks like this:

Yes, I borrowed this pic from the website, as I forgot to take my own pic. 

There is no DVB beer match, because Sprig & Fern are a brewery and don’t sell other people’s beers.

There’s not much different to this burger, except the liquid cheese – effectively a cheese sauce rather than a slab of cheese on top. The crispy onions were a nice touch, and the fries were different to their usual, which are normally handmade and can veer to the soggy side on occasion. But not this one! They were crispy and well-seasoned.

This is as good a burger as the Burger Liquor one, so I’m giving it a score of 7/10.

 

Smokey’s Girl

Burger Liquor are a pretty reliable place for a burger; it’s in the name! I went after work to try their offering, Smokey’s Girl. Their regular burger, which I eat, er, regularly, is called “The Smokey”, so this is a girlfriend for the old favourite. It’s described on the Burger Wellington website like this: Smashed Conscious Valley beef patty with smoked cheddar, jalapeño crisp, shredded lettuce, strawberry and onion jam, and bacon ranch in a sesame rolled Brezelmania milk bun. The DVB beer match is Mouth Party, which I eschewed in favour of Burger Liquor’s house lager by Abandoned Brewery.

It looks like this: 

How was it? Honestly, it’s not a million miles away from The Smokey. The only thing missing was the bacon, which was added with the bacon ranch dressing. I mean, it wasn’t bad, but their usual offering does take some beating, tbh. It is a tasty burger, but I can’t in all conscience score it higher than a 7/10.

 

Spiced To Meat You

We went along to the newly-opened Parla in Island Bay after bridge, to try their Burger Wellington entry. Parla is owned by the same people who do Mr. Go’s, Ombra and Kisa, at least two of which are regular faves. We’d been there before shortly after it opened and were reasonably impressed (especially as it’s next door to Empire Cinema, who’s café offerings leave a bit to be desired).

Parla serve Middle Eastern flavours, similar to Kisa, so their offering, Spiced To Meat You, sounded like a good choice. The WOAP website describes it like this: Urfa-spiced lamb patty, with nasturtium hummus, sumac onion, pickled radish, Grafters Honey toum and crispy fried chickpeas in a Dough Bakery cumin and sesame seed bun. The DVB beer match is Repeat Offender, an NZ Pilsner that’s part of their classic line-up.

It looks like this:

 We both ordered the burger, and I had the beer match. I don’t know when the burgers were cooked, as although they took the requisite time to arrive on our table, they were somewhat tepid rather than hot. I picked mine up and it held its integrity through to the end, always a good sign…although it did leak large amounts of dressing along the way. Urfa spice didn’t seem to be present, I thought there might be a hint of heat (spice, not temperature) associated with it, but this turned out not to be the case. The main flavour was garlic from the toum dressing, and a slight crunch from the fried chickpeas – a few more of which wouldn’t have gone amiss, given the absence of chips or other side with this burger. A burger that promised much, but failed to deliver on that promise. I scored it a humble 6/10.

 

Love Stack

 And they’re off! Yes, Wellington On A Plate is under way again, and with it, the Burger Wellington competition.

First cab off the rank was at our usual Tuesday night venue, The Old Bailey, where we were attending Quiz Night. Their offering is called Love Stack, and it is described thus on the WOAP website: Beetroot and beef patty, with haloumi cheese, crispy onion rings, cos lettuce, tomato, cucumber pickle, pesto and beetroot relish in a Brezelmania bun, with fries. The DVB* beer match is Thirst Crunch (Peach IPA), which I eschewed in favour of my usual Panhead Supercharger.

It looks like this:

OK, things to note: the bun is in fact pink, presumably from inclusion of beetroot in the bun (not mentioned). The beef burger itself seems to be their standard beef patty – I couldn’t detect any beetroot in the patty itself. Given the height of this burger I didn’t even attempt to eat this with my hands, I went straight in with the cutlery.

How was it? Well, they’ve thrown everything but the kitchen sink into this burger. The individual components were OK (apart from the rather pointless lettuce leaf and tomato), but there was no sense of cohesion about this burger. Yes, you can put lots of things into a burger; do they work together? In this instance, I’d have to say a resounding NO. I scored this a disappointing 4/10.

p.s. It seems I said much the same about their previous year's effort. The year before that wasn't much cop either. 

* Yes, after more than 10 years sponsoring the Burger Wellington competition, Garage Project have bowed out and handed the reins over to DVB, or Double Vision Brewing, a Miramar-based brewery. I’ll try some of their products with other burgers.

Sveatherston

Sven Olsen’s Brutal Canadian Love Saga are back, and this time they’re playing Featherston! Featherston is a small town in the Wairarapa, part of the Greater Wellington conurbation. We drove over the Remutaka hills to get there on a Saturday afternoon – dropping Nicola at the venue for rehearsal whilst I went onward to book into our accommodation at the Martinborough Hotel.

In the evening I drove back to Featherston – about 18km – so that we could have an early dinner at Brac & Bow, the main restaurant in Featherston. Whilst they were pretty prompt with service for cocktails and starters, the mains took a long time to come out so we were a bit rushed at the end as Nicola had to get back to set up in the Kiwi Hall. I wandered over a little later and staked my place in the second row.

The concert was free/koha, and the hall was full. Featherston isn’t just full of knitting and retired architects (possible future song title?), and the hall was buzzing. They played some of their classics, as well as using the “N” word – New Material – to celebrate life in Wellington and New Zealand, with such songs as Kron of Hastings (“he tagged the rest home, and the Countdown, and the town hall, and the flowerpots”), Brobdignagian Nightmare (about Nelson’s clock tower), Tasered At The Chicken Joint, Another Ratshit Night In Paradise, and many more.

After a post-gig night of debauchery driving back to Martinborough, we rose the next day for a leisurely exploration of vineyards. Starting at the Library, to get a list of which ones were open in off-season (quite a few!), we planned a route, then completely failed to stick to it. Instead we started off in Tiwaiwaka Vineyard, which hasn’t actually been open to the public on the occasions we’ve visited before, but now is (I believe it used to be by appointment only). It’s a small husband-and-wife operation, and we chatted to the owner, Mort, about his wines and wine in general as we ran through a tasting of seven different wines from the rosé, dry semillon, chardonnays, merlot and late harvest semillon.

We missed the next stop and went straight to Tirohana, where we tasted wines and stopped for lunch. The restaurant here offers either two course or three-course meals, but we weren’t in the mood for that, so we broke all the rules and ordered four starters to have tapas-style instead.

In the evening we dined in-house, but weren’t actually all that hungry, so didn’t take advantage of the culinary excellence on offer. The restaurant, Union Square, is run by the same people who used to run Zibbibo in Wellington (long since closed), so we missed out a bit there. Oh well, next time…

On Monday morning we went for breakfast at the Martinborough Village Café, largely as it seemed to be the only place open…Martinborough is not exactly a hive of industry and is mostly dependent on the wine trade, which comes alive at the weekends and summertime. We stopped on the way back at C’est Cheese but unfortunately they were out of the Mount Eliza Red Leicester that I wanted, and were waiting for a new delivery in the spring. We bought a couple of other cheeses then drove back across the Remutaka hills to Wellington.

 

Snorkeling

We were up early to go snorkeling on the coral reef. This entailed an early breakfast, and we and another couple assembled at 8:00am to get on the boat.

The trip is sold as being “swimming with manta rays” but, as with all wild animal excursions, there’s no guarantee that they’ll turn up. The guide and captain were optimistic, however, and gave us a briefing about what to do if we encountered a manta – don’t make a splash or you’ll frighten them away, don’t try to chase them (you’ll never keep up), and don’t panic…they’re gentle giants and won’t eat you! Some of the rays are regular visitors and have names – we were able to see them pictured on the wall of the activities hut.

It was about half an hour’s cruise to the reef. On arrival we donned fins and masks and slipped into the water. There were several boats from other resorts as well, so we were enjoined to stick close to our guide and not get mixed up with other groups. There were only four of us so this wasn’t difficult. The reef is as good as any, and there were vast numbers of fish of all the usual reef varieties that you see swimming in aquaria, just all going about their fishy business, and not being at all bothered by us. The coral was pretty spectacular as well.

We swam for about half an hour before heading back to the boat and going a little further, to the channel where the manta rays usually feed. This is again a coral reef, and the direction of the tide pulls you along so you barely need to swim at all – the moon and ocean do the heavy lifting. There were no rays to be seen on our first pass, so we went back to the beginning and did it again. This time there were…still no rays to be seen. It was a busted flush. Ah well, you can’t win ‘em all. We’d seen many spectacular fish and corals so it was a good morning out. We arrived back at around 11:30, and sat around idling before having our lunch. No pics as we don’t have underwater photo technology.

 

Fiji

Yay! We’re off to Fiji!

We’d booked through an agent who advised us that flying Fiji Airways would be best, as they fly direct from Wellington. Fiji is one of the few destinations outside Australia that can be reached directly from here. The flight was uneventful, and we were met at the other end by representatives from Rosie’s Travel. It took four of them to pass us along to find our driver, but were soon ensconced in a transport to our hotel for the first night, the Sheraton Denarau Villas. It’s on the Denarau Island area which is basically all given over to hotels, a golf course, and not much else. This is a top-end hotel, and it appears that for many people this is their destination in Fiji, but we were only staying one night.

Views!

Sunsets!

Cocktails!

We were up at sparrow fart for breakfast in order to catch the bus to the port in the morning. We’d been advised that we needed to be in reception at 7:45am to get the bus, which duly turned up…at 8:15. It’s only a short ride to the port, where we checked in then boarded the boat to Waya Island Resort, our final destination. On reading the fine print of the ticket, however, we discovered that we could have been far more leisurely and taken the afternoon sailing instead. Ah well. 

The boat trip takes two hours, sailing out along the island chain and dropping people off at various resorts. We arrived after a few stops and two hours – the water was very smooth, which was a blessing. We were the only people disembarking at Waya, which is done by boat transfer as there isn’t a jetty and the ferry can’t come in to the shore. We were serenaded as we arrived and then escorted to the resort, which only consists of a few villas and bure (huts) at the water’s edge. There’s a restaurant and bar, pool, and activities hut, and that’s about it.

We had a drink whilst our room was readied, then checked in and explored the area. In the afternoon, we watched a demonstration of how to extract coconut water and flesh from a coconut – something we’ve seen on our travels many times before, but this time we were invited to have a go ourselves! The coconut flesh is soaked in the water and then squeezed to make coconut milk, then strained through the husk of the coconut. This was a prelude to the chef giving us a demo of how to make kokoda – the Fijian version of the universal fish dish of the South Pacific. The tuna had been marinated in lemon juice, then salted, strained and coconut milk added. Salt, pepper, chilli, garlic, red pepper, coriander, and onions are then added and after a few minutes it’s ready to eat. And very delicious it was, as we helped ourselves to seconds, and then thirds.

Extracting the coconut...

preparing the dish...

Final result!

In the evening we assembled in the bar at sunset, drinking cocktails and watching the sun go down, before a dinner of fish, followed by fish, followed by carrot cake.

Thus ended day one on Waya Island. There’s no telly so early to bed, early to rise is the rhythm of the days here, as some of the activities are tide-dependent so can start very early in the morning.

 

Alison Moyet

Alf…remember her? Formerly of Yazoo, and Eighties solo career? Well, she’s back, but this time on her own terms. She’s currently touring Australia and New Zealand, so we went along to see her. 

As usual, dinner first. It crossed my mind that we hadn’t been to St John’s Bar & Eatery in, possibly, decades! The last time I’d been there I think, was when I was still working for ANZ, so at least 8 years ago. We decided to give it a try, to see how it is these days.

And the answer is…not brilliant. It’s basically glorified pub food. My starter they couldn’t get much wrong with – raw fish – but the burger main was average. Won’t be darkening their doorstep again in a hurry, when there’s much better places to visit. Still, it’s good to know these things, and at least it’s only a short step from the Michael Fowler Centre.

The show kicked off at 8 o’clock, and Alison gave us a running commentary throughout the gig. She explained why she’d selected the songs to perform (her new album, Key, is mostly reworkings of older songs) and details of each songs’ origins, where appropriate. She was accompanied by two musicians, both with keyboards, one also with guitar and the other on bass. Also, the reason for the long hiatus in her career: problems with her record company. Which record company? Fucking Sony of course, who seem to hold the world record for most attempts to screw over their artists. Anyway, albums have been few and far between since her Eighties heyday. Most of the material was stuff I hadn’t heard before, but she interspersed it with Nobody’s Diary and Only You, from her Yazoo career, before finishing up the set with All Cried Out. She then came back for an encore of three classic bangers, which got everyone dancing in the aisles: Situation, Love Resurrection and Don’t Go (Morgan Freeman voiceover “but, they did go”). That set list in full can be found here.

It was a great night’s entertainment, and if she’s touring anywhere near you, go see her!

 

Comedy Festival

As autumn swings into winter, it’s time to look indoors for our entertainment options. To satisfy this need, the New Zealand International Comedy Festival is in its 33^rd year. International, as it includes many overseas performers, gracing us with their presence, as well as nationally-known and up-and-coming New Zealanders…and even internationally-known New Zealanders!

First cab off the rank, at least as far as we were concerned, was Nish Kumar. Unfortunately, New Zealand’s weather decided otherwise, and a storm that hit New Zealand caused the closure of the venue on the night we’d booked. The show was rescheduled to the following night, but at 10:30pm we figured it was way past our bedtime, so we took the refund instead. Bugger. I was looking forward to that one.

No matter, the following week we were booked to see Hayley Sproull, or Hayley Everything as she should be known, as she seems to be doing everything these days. We first saw her when Miss Fletcher Sang The Blues in - crikey! - 2012! But since then she’s gone from strength to strength, with many hit stand-up shows, and starring in New Zealand comedies; participating in and hosting panel shows (7 Days, Have You Been Paying Attention?), and hosting the annual Comedy Gala for the last two years. She also has a radio show. She’s a busy woman! Her show, Baroness, was the by-now-familiar mix of over-sharing and stories of the DINK lifestyle, culminating in a date with Jason Momua.

The following night we were at Circa Theatre. Whilst not technically part of the Comedy Festival, they’re currently performing the comedic Give Way: The Musical. Nicola was on ushering duties, so we went along. This also gave us the opportunity to try out ChouChou, the new brasserie attached to the theatre, which has recently had a makeover. I had the snapper salad Nicoise, and Nicola had chicken Cordon Bleu. Note to any aspiring chefs out there: snapper is not a good substitute for tuna in a Nicoise.

The musical follows the adventures of Sophie, a newly-minted graduate in Traffic Management Engineering. She is anxious to make her mark on the world, and when the opportunity to revamp New Zealand’s weird give way rules presents itself, she leaps at it. The musical is based on a true story, in that the give way rules were changed in 2012 to fit in with what the rest of the world does. There’s a love story, inevitably; as well as protests, conniving, popularity-seeking, mental health, and insights into public policy-making which seem far-fetched but are probably true. A cast of five Circa stalwarts play all the parts, of which there were many: each actor had a main character, but also had to fill in for Sophie’s parents, The Minister of Transport, and other roles as required. All jolly good fun, and with the high production values we’ve come to expect from Circa.

We had a night off, then plunged back into the fray on Saturday night, going to see The Tape Face Show. We first saw Sam Wills when he was but a boy, called The Boy With Tape On His Face. He has since shortened his name and reached an international audience after reaching the finals on America’s Got Talent. His show is performed entirely without words, as you might expect, but there’s a lot of music (it helps to be familiar with what the songs are and the films associated with them), and a lot of audience participation. We were safe from this aspect as he generally needed people to be on or near the end of their row to be able to get up on stage, and we were well-placed in the centre of ours. He also played some of the classics, including Endless Love. We did, however, participate in the finale of the show, which involved 99 Red Balloons. Go see him if you get the chance, he’s hilarious!

Our final foray was something a little different – a comedy cabaret show called Revel at the Hannah Playhouse. They’d rearranged things inside from the usual tiered seating to provide an enlarged performance area centred on the bar, and some seating on the level with more tiered seating at the back. Revel is the name of the bar, or Speakeasy, and we were encouraged to arrive early to take advantage of the bar and have a cocktail. A jazz band was playing as we entered.

The bar was cleared for the performance, which included singing, dancing, comedy, burlesque, acrobatics and circus trickery; performed by a troupe of six. There was an interval when the bar was briefly open for business again, and then cleared away very quickly to allow the performance to continue. It was all jolly good fun and certainly a bit different from your standard comedy routines.

That’s about it for this year’s fest – but there’s plenty more entertainment to come over the winter in the nation’s cultural capital!

An Evening Without Kate Bush

An Evening without Kate Bush? That’s, er, every evening, isn’t it? Well, yes…but this is the name of the show that we went to see at Hannah Playhouse on Saturday night. And, as, you might have guessed, it is about Kate Bush. She’s just not there in person.

First up, we went for dinner at Capitol. Haven’t been there in a while, but it is reliably, er, reliable, and they were able to provide me with a Negroni, no problem, as well as half a dozen oysters and a fillet steak. Nicola hade their trademark bruschetta to start, followed by the prawn linguine. This is how you do restaurant food! (A High Dining, take note). We were too stuffed for puddings, so we made our way across the road to Hannah Playhouse. There are no allocated seats here and as we were amongst the last in, we sat high up at the back. This, incidentally, saved us from being dragged on stage.

The show is a one-woman performance by Sarah-Louise Young, described as “the chaotic cabaret cult”. She performs all the songs, sometimes engaging the audience to provide vocal effects, and on two occasions gets members of the audience up on stage to assist her performance. She dances, does costume changes, reminisces, and talks generally about Kate Bush. Who, I have to remind you, isn’t there! You know more Kate Bush songs than you realise, as she runs through a number of the hits, everything from Babooshka (in Russian, and pronounced correctly to boot) to The Hounds of Love, where she had the audience howling accompaniment. She dissected Kate’s dance moves, with a  simple demonstration of each – everything from mime to “follow the arm”. She finished up, naturally, with Wuthering Heights, and we all joined in.

The show is currently touring New Zealand, then heads to Australia and the UK later this year. If you get the chance, go see this show!

 

Blithe Spirit

Noel Coward was a charmer

As a writer he was Brahma

Velvet jackets and pyjamas

“The Gay Divorce” and other dramas

Yes, Noel Coward comes to Circa! This time in the form of Blithe Spirit. Normally, we’d go when Nicola was on ushering duty, but for reasons she wasn’t able to take her allocated shift, so we had to *gasp!* buy two tickets to the show.

As always, dinner first. Circa Theatre have opened their new restaurant Chouchou, but so far it’s only serving…breakfast. Lunch and dinner are “coming soon”. Instead, we decided to give Wellington’s newest venture, A High Dining, a go. This is sited in the former Apaché space – Apaché have now moved to Tory Street.

A High Dining promises much, but unfortunately just misses the mark. We started with cocktails: Nicola had an Elderflower Rose French, and I asked for a Negroni. I say “asked for” because two minutes later, the waiter returned and, regrettably, they cannot make a Negroni. “No matter” I replied, “I’ll have a Martini instead”. Guess what? This time it was the barman who came to explain, regrettably, they had no vermouth. I had a gin & tonic. The barman, I hope, will be off shopping for these bar basics tomorrow.

We started with venison carpaccio and salmon tataki, both of which were good. For mains, we had the tagorashi fish and prawn dumpling and duck leg. The fish turned out to be a fish fillet with a prawn dumpling accompanying it, which wasn’t quite what was expected…a slightly better wording on the menu would avoid any ambiguity here. The duck leg was a bit on the tough side. Cooking medium-rare is fine for duck breast, but not so successful on leg meat. There was an overabundance of different vegetables served with it – beetroot, green (sic), chewy (sic) red cabbage, Moroccan brassica, cherries, buckwheat. Less is more, folks! I didn’t think it quite worked. We stuck around for puddings as well, having the chocolate caramel delice and the apple and almond pudding. Both good. It’s the mains that need a bit of work, I reckon. I was a bit disappointed, especially as they’re charging Logan Brown prices for distinctly sub-Logan Brown food.

We were in plenty of time to take our seats in the theatre, up high in the penultimate row as I’d only booked the tickets a couple of days before, and this is a popular show. A lot of the audience looked like they might have seen the original West End production, but I guess that’s just the demographic that keeps Circa Theatre going.

Circa stalwart Simon Leary led as Rudi, and Ginette McDonald as Madame Arcati, the medium. I’m sure we’ve also seen a lot of the other cast in various productions over the years. The story (spoilers!) involves Charles, an author, inviting a medium round for dinner as a laugh, and ostensibly to gather information for a forthcoming novel; only to be horrified when the ghost of Elvira (Laura Hill), his dead first wife, contacts Charles…and only Charles. The others can’t hear, or later, see, the ghost, but Charles can. They can, however, see her manifestations, when she moves items around, but they think it’s just Charles trying to fool them. In keeping with modern times, Charles is now living with Rudi rather than the original second wife, Ruth.

It’s all jolly good fun and you should go and see it if you can.

Fringe Frolics

It’s New Zealand Fringe Festival time again, and for the third year I’ve volunteered to help out. Nicola is no longer volunteering as she is now an active participant, with her band.

This year, I have been rostered exclusively at Hannah Playhouse, one of the larger venues for the Fringe, and therefore inclined to have events that will attract a bigger audience; so not so much the weird, quirky shows that are the essence of the festival. Next year I’ll ask if I can get a mix of venues so that I can see some of the odder offerings.

The first show I saw was Nicola’s band, Sven Olsen’s Brutal Canadian Love Saga, or The Svens as they are more commonly called. They were again playing at Newtown Community Centre. I say “Nicola’s band” but she is a viola player in the string section, so perhaps she’s not the actual leader of the pack. They played their usual selection of songs about life in Wellington and New Zealand, with backdrops that are an integral part of the show. 

My first gig at Hannah Playhouse was Antonio!, billed as “a queer punk pirate musical starring Shakespeare’s ultimate love interest”, a reference to the fact that Shakespeare has a character of this name in four plays. This is a romp through those works, with the conceit that they are in fact the same person, and Shakespeare was in love with him.

The following week was a sell-out performance of The Spinoff: The Fold Live, New Zealand’s biggest (only?) media podcast, broadcast live from the theatre with two guests, also from NZ media. How interested am I in the behind-the-scenes goings-on in New Zealand’s media world? Not very. I was allocated the mezzanine and balcony section for this show, which is normally closed as not needed, but apparently enough people are interested in this subject to use it. The crowd for this show was noticeably more mature than is usual for Fringe gigs.

Nicola came along to my third gig, Tecuani, as she had a previous engagement at Te Papa. This show was a Mexican dance show revolving around colonialism, human sacrifice, gods, ghosts, and other shit like that. 

The following night we went to see a show that we’d actually bought tickets for – The Fabulous Fabelinskys, at Te Auaha. This is a combination of circus and play, with the story centred on a family of three women who’ve just lost the patriarch and main performer of their circus act. It follows their trials, particularly at the hands of the nefarious circus-owner who exploits them; interspersed with demonstrations of their acts – hoops and harness, high ropes, and a clown, with a sword-swallowing finale. Does what it says on the tin, and probably the best thing that I’ve seen this festival. 

My final show was Hausdown, which is a Bridgerton-esque house party at a country estate. There are various shenanigans between the guest before they finally all come out and admit that the boys are in love with the boys, and the girls are in love with the girls. Enthusiastically performed, the actors camp it up in period costumes and generally have fun.

 

Hutt Sounds

Avid readers of this blog (I imagine this is all of you) will recall that we went to Hutt Sounds last year to see Nik Kershaw and The Human League. Naturally, we were agog to find out which Eighties legends would be playing this year, and as soon as it was announced I was on to it to get earlybird tickets, because this year’s line-up includes Tom Bailey (formerly Thompson Twins) and OMD, I mean, OMG! It’s OMD! I’d been hoping to see them for a number of years, ever since they announced they’d be coming to New Zealand in 2020 with Simple Minds – a gig that was ultimately cancelled due to pandemia. 

Last year we made the mistake of missing the beginning because we weren’t that interested in the support acts. A mistake, not because we should’ve seen them, but because we found it difficult to find somewhere to put our picnic seats.

Yes, you bring your own seating to this event. It’s held at Brewtown in Upper Hutt, which has a handy field attached to it for events such as this. The day is aimed squarely at an older audience, with Eighties legends headlining, and at our age we can’t be standing around in a field for hours on end. The audience is arranged with standing at the front, then picnic blankets, low-back seating, and high-backed seating at the rear. As we’d set out in good time we found a good location near the front of the high seat area.

The afternoon kicked off at 3pm with The Narcs, a kiwi band of the Eighties. Clearly some of the audience were there for them, too, but I’ve never heard of them. They’ve also not committed any of the oeuvre to compact disc either, so I’m unlikely to hear their music again. They made a decent enough sound.

 Next cab off the rank was Diesel, who I have heard of, and even have a CD by. They hail from the Netherlands, and again, make a good rocky sound, without being particularly memorable.

 

Third was local Upper Hutt boy Jon Stevens, former singer of Noiseworks, an Aussie band who had some success in the Eighties and early Nineties. After the death of Michael Hutchence he became lead singer of INXS for around three years, before leaving to continue to pursue his own career again. The set consisted of early solo work, Noiseworks songs, interspersed every other song by a classic banger from INXS which got everyone going. 

The sun was beginning to come down in the sky as Tom Bailey took to the stage with his band – keyboardist/cellist, drummer and bass guitarist. Bailey also helped out with additional synths, percussion and guitar, where needed. They performed a set of Thompson Twins songs, all of which you know, and one cover version – a pretty good rendition of Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer. Here’s the set list. 

Tom Bailey would have been worth it as a headline act, but wait – there’s more! Eighties legends, tunesmiths and all-round innovators Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (OMD to you) were the headline act. Before they took the stage, Evolution Of Species played over the PA, accompanied by a video on the big screen at the back of the stage. This track is the dreaded “N-word” – yes, it’s New Material, from their 2023 release Bauhaus Staircase. As they took to the stage, though, it became apparent that that was almost the only one, and the rest were absolute foot-tappers from the Seventies, Eighties and early Nineties that had populated the charts years ago. Starting at the very beginning – 1979’s Electricity and 1980’s Messages, their first two singles, they then followed with hit after hit. They managed to slip another “new” song in – History of Modern from their recent (checks notes) 2010 album of the same name. You can find the full set list here. 

They finished up, inevitably, with Enola Gay, before quitting the stage at 9pm due to the curfew restriction at the venue. They left with a promise not to leave it quite so long before returning to New Zealand – their last gig in Wellington was at the Town Hall in 1986. Hopefully they’ll be back again.

 

Hope

Nicola is back on ushing duty at Circa Theatre, and first out of the blocks as a main attraction this year is Hope, a new play by New Zealand novelist Jenny Pattrick. It’s set in a fictional near future where the government (of New Zealand? It’s not specified, but dollars are mentioned as a currency in one line) has passed new legislation relating to end-of-life care. 

The play is a fourhander, and opens with a potential suicide about to jump off a bridge. He is approached by Daniel, who recognises him as concert pianist Adam, and persuades him not to jump. Adam has focal dystonia, a condition which prevents him playing the piano, and he sees no point in living if he can’t do that. Daniel doesn’t just recognise him from his fame, it turns out he knew him years ago; his mother, Irina, a refugee from Ukraine, taught him to play piano when Daniel was very young. (Yes, everyone in New Zealand does know each other!) He takes Adam to meet Irina, who has terminal cancer and has been “classified” under the new legislation, and is entitled to palliative care only. Daniel takes care of his mother, but both are in denial about the terminal nature of her disease and insist that she is “improving”.

In a separate strand, Irina’s daughter, Yulia, has just returned from war-torn Ukraine, where she worked as a nurse and witnessed the horrors of battlefield injuries. Her mother has sold the old family house and moved into a little flat to raise money to pay for black market medicines – without telling Yulia, as they split on bad terms when she left for Ukraine. Nevertheless, she has tracked Irina down and is appalled by (a) her mother’s condition, (b) her living conditions, (c) her continued support for Putin, and (d) her denial of her health.

At first, these strands are separate, but eventually all four protagonists meet and a monumental bust-up occurs – particularly when Yulia finds out about the black-market drugs that Daniel is buying; drugs that could save the lives of cancer patients whose illness isn’t as advanced. Yulia contends that giving them to her mother is wasteful as they will have no effect because she is too far gone.

The play confronts the realities of the cost of end-of-life care – the reason the legislation was brought in was to save money; but also whether it is right to give people false hope, or should they abandon hope? Eventually there is a reconciliation of sorts, but like real life, everything is messy without neat endings. Adam is given new hope over the possibility of retraining his brain to become a concert pianist again – as happened in real life to Michael Houstoun, whose music is used throughout. The family members are reconciled to each other’s differences, and Daniel continues to care for his mother who has now accepted the truth.

It's not what you’d call a barrel of laughs, but it’s the kind of thing that theatre does well, and is well-performed throughout by some of the stalwarts of Circa Theatre.

 

Ngarua Caves

Our flight from Nelson didn’t leave until the afternoon, so we stopped on our drive back to tour the Ngarua Caves. We arrived a little after 10 and discovered that there would be a tour at 10:30, so we joined that, along with around 12 other people.

We donned hard hats and met our guide, Rachel, at the mouth of the cave. I enquired about cave wētā   but it appears they don’t have any. We were enjoined not to touch any of the stalactites or stalagmites as contamination from oils on your fingers will slow down growth…which is a leisurely 25mm every 80 years. Strange units, you might think? Well, it probably started out as one inch every 80 years.

We walked through with Rachel taking up the rear to ensure no-one got left behind, and stopped at the Stop signs where she gave us a bit of information about each place, including how they were discovered in the first place: apparently an apprentice surveyor dropped a tool whilst out doing some surveying, and it fell down a hole. “Well, go and get it” said his supervisor….and presto! Caves discovered! The caves are in a rock formation caused by the collision of two plates, and are about 450 million years old. These days, electricity, boardwalks and handrails have been installed to ease our passage and we are able to explore more. Some of them had columns where stalactites and stalagmites had fused. There was also a complete skeleton of a moa that had fallen through a pothole and died down there - several such skeletons have been discovered. We ended up in a large cave unsurprisingly called The Cathedral, which was the end of the system as far as we were concerned. We then ascended a set of Death Stairs to reach the outside and emerge, blinking, into the sunlight.

We drove on from there and stopped at McCashin’s Brewery for some lunch. Last time we were there I acquired some feijoa liqueur from the bottle shop and intended to do the same this time, only to find that Nelson Council had rescinded their licence and they were unable to sell me any. Poo.

That was about the end of our travels. We dropped the somewhat muddy car off at the rental place and waited for our flight to Wellington.