Stories

The team behind Showbiz Christchurch’s dream run of musical magic is back with ‘Come From Away’, the award-winning Broadway smash that finds a feel-good story in a very sad day. September 11, 2001 – with New York’s Twin Towers under attack, all air traffic is grounded.  In the small town of Gander, Newfoundland, this means the isolated community suddenly finds itself hosting over 7000 stranded passengers from around the globe. The people of Gander open their hearts as well as their homes. And their bar, of course. Culture clashes and language barriers melt away in the warmth of music and kindness. Director Michael Lee Porter, musical director Richard Marrett and associate director Angela Johnson return for Showbiz Christchurch’s 2025 production. Combining on the New Zealand premiere of ‘Come From Away’ has reunited the dream team behind ‘Matilda The Musical’, ‘Kinky Boots’ and ‘Mamma Mia!’. As you would expect from the troupers...

Warning – Chopper is heading to Christchurch in June. The Last Hard Bastard on Earth pauses between dirty deeds to talk about guilt, heroes and style. What’s the best advice your mum ever gave you? Don’t trust mum. What’s your favourite guilty pleasure? Going to court and saying I’m not guilty when I’m clearly very guilty, I enjoy that every single time. Ah, drinking a beer in the shower’s pretty good. Knocking people off their e-scooter when they’re in full corporate attire. Also a good source of Apple air pods as well. Shoplifting a seagull into a food court...  Hardly guilty, really. I guess you don’t feel a lot of guilt. No, not really. It depends who I’m doing something to, you know. You’re given three wishes – what are they? Number 1, turn off the internet. Number 2, no more Kardashians. Number 3, celebrate with a nice cold beer. What’s...

Taking the piss out of a guy who cut people’s toes off for a living is a risk that paid off for Heath Franklin. Budding comedian Heath Franklin was just trying to make people laugh when he got some inspo from a film about Aussie hardman Mark ‘Chopper’ Read. He broke out the Vivid, drew on a mo’ and introduced a university comedy-show audience to his version of Australia’s favourite gangland killer. The sketch got included in a show that went to the Melbourne Comedy Festival and then got picked up for TV. Heath has inhabited Chopper ever since, apart from a break to reset his comedy chops when he felt he was ‘walking in my own footsteps’ with the character. Last year’s ‘Not Here to F*ck Spiders’ tour will be followed in June by ‘The Last Hard Bastard on Earth’. Word is he’s coming to save us from the Softcockalypse....

Artist Ira Mitchell well remembers visiting The Arts Centre as a child and heading straight for the open studios, where she could watch, learn and dream of one day having her own space in the neo-gothic corridors. Now, with Te Matatiki Toi Ora The Arts Centre reinstating the open studios, a popular attraction before the Canterbury earthquakes, Ira has joined eight other artists in five studios next to The Arts Centre Shop in the Engineering Extensions building.  “I always wanted to be part of this place,” Ira says. “It’s so lovely to walk into The Arts Centre each day. Lots of people need affordable studio space, especially as the cheaper housing shrinks and many apartments don’t have garages.”  Ira hopes that as word gets out, more people will come to visit and chat about the artwork.  The Arts Centre selected artists to achieve a balance of styles and methods, combined with...

The party continues for the Wānaka Festival of Colour. The annual celebration of the arts marks 20 years in 2025 with another autumn showcase of established and emerging artists performing throughout the alpine village’s streets and spaces. High on this year’s highlights list is triple bill Subtle Dances, a collab between choreographers Sarah Knox, Cameron McMillan and Loughlan Prior and a troupe of dancers, and musicians Amalia Hall, Ashley Brown and Somi Kim of the NZ Trio performing music by Rhian Sheehan, John Psathas and Claire Cowan.   Artistic Director Sophie Kelly has curated the kind of diverse programme that the festival has become famous for. Connecting with community and strengthening diversity and inclusion are big drivers for the event’s backers, the Southern Lakes Arts Festival Trust. Fitting right into that theme are another of this year’s highlights, the Topp Twins. Jools and Lynda will share a stage with interviewer Kathryn Ryan...

Movies to catch, books to read, television to bingewatch, music to dance to and podcasts to fill your ears this autumn. Movies THE LAST SHOWGIRL This tale of the unravelling of a Las Vegas showgirl facing the end of her revue’s 30-year run has had mixed reviews but everyone seems to agree that its star, Pamela Anderson, is a revelation as Shelly Gardner. Fact blends with fiction in a script that explores the theme of what we lose in order to get what we want, and what the real cost is of that Faustian pact. QUEER Being heir to a family fortune meant beat poet and author William S. Burroughs got away with a lot, most of which he wrote about in books with titles such as ‘Junkie’ and ‘Queer’. This adaptation of the latter novel casts a post-Bond Daniel Craig as a drug-addicted writer who becomes obsessed with a US...

Self-styled Dogz of Oz Steve Lukather and Joe Williams, the O.G.s in the latest iteration of mega band TOTO, are bringing a super-group south to Aotearoa. Hold the line as we chat to Joe about hanging with old friends, educating the new kid, and what they’re bringing to Christchurch. What’s in store for punters on the night? The songs that are big hits around the world will be there. Also a couple of deep cuts that die-hard fans might recognise and appreciate, and a bunch of songs that were big but are not perhaps remembered as well – I think people in the audience will be going ‘Oh, that was them, I forgot that tune’. We’ve also got a couple of returning members from different eras of the live band. Unbelievable musicians and musicianship and great singers. We’ve been doing better and better in terms of our attendance and venue sizes....

With an elevator pitch of ‘ageing couple deal with Alzheimer’s by listening to Frank Sinatra’, you might expect the play ‘In Other Words’ to be a hard sell with audiences. Yet the sold-out season at Q Theatre Auckland says otherwise. Now the rest of the country gets to experience this acclaimed production, with Kiwi theatre power couple Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Michael Hurst reprising their roles as Jane and Arthur. The tour’s Christchurch season opens on March 13. What a great time, then, to catch up with Jennifer Ward-Lealand about the play, her career and some other things, including her favourite gown. Tell us about the genesis of this production and its tour? Michael had just directed Callum, our co-director and producer, in ‘Waiting for Waiting for Godot’, a production that toured in 2023. Callum knew the writer of ‘In Other Words’, Matthew Seager, having worked with him touring shows in the...

Wellington’s Cake Tin, take a back seat. You’ll have nothing on Christchurch when The Pavlova opens its turnstiles to the public. Officially it’s called Te Kaha but in the images of the final design, doesn’t our new stadium look just like a big egg-white meringue? The only thing missing is some kiwifruit or strawberries on the roof. Christchurch’s latest architectural confection already dominates the inner-city skyline, its roof supports now towering above the surrounding streets. Here at Cityscape, we were delighted to tour the Te Kaha worksite with Adrian Jones, project director for the contractor, BESIX Watpac, and Kent Summerfield, project director for CMUA Project Delivery Ltd. What blows us away immediately is the sheer scale of the project. As we circle the perimeter, the clanging and banging brings to mind a shipyard. Construction teams beaver away wherever we look and cranes swing their cargoes of material to where today’s action...

Got a house-full of Energiser bunnies that need taming? Or maybe just a sofa-full of couch potatoes in desperate need of some excitement. Wherever your crew fits in, we have a summer adventure to suit, from leg-burning big bike rides to a small bird-spotting stroll through a regenerating wetland. BIG VIEW The Crater Rim Walkway offers spectacular views of Banks Peninsula along its entire length. From the Godley Head car park it’s a 2 ½ hour jaunt to the Urumau Reserve Track junction, with historic gun emplacements to explore followed by views on either side along the ridgeline. For a hidden-gem hillside jaunt, head up the Eastenders Track through Barnett Park in Redcliffs and up over Summit Road to meet the Crater Rim Walkway. Enjoy the views down to Sumner on the Captain Thomas Track – just keep an eye out for the sometimes territorial sheep dotting the hills. BIG BIKE...

Movies to catch, books to read, television to bingewatch, music to dance to and podcasts to fill your ears this summer. Movies Moana 2 Don’t be put off by the critics saying it’s not as good as the first one, it’s still a whole lot of fun! Moana’s second adventure carries along the theme of rediscovering the ancient skills of Polynesian navigation, bringing back all the key characters from the first film and adding a few more. More songs too, and more of that pinch-me animation that just seems so real. This is a big-screen, full-noise movie so treat yourself and head to a multiplex for the full experience. A Horse Named Winx Some stories transcend their own world and speak to something more universal. This documentary about one of the greatest racehorses of all time does just that. Winx won all of her last 33 races in a career that...

Time to tag in your best festy friends and start filling your summer diary. Here’s our guide to 10 of the season’s most essential music and food festivals. Electric Avenue This highlight of the summer festival calendar celebrates double figures by doubling its days and doubling down on the dub-uliciousness of it all. Electric Avenue launched on Waitangi Day 2015 with local headliners including Shapeshifter, Fat Freddy's Drop and Ladi6. Those O.G.s bring their beats back in 2025, joined by 20 international acts, a who’s who of kiwi awesomeness and an expected 60,000 punters. UK duo Chase and Status headline Friday; Saturday it’s EDM legends The Prodigy.  Where Hagley ParkWhen Friday/Saturday 21/22 FebruaryWhy ‘Cos we love to danceInfo electricavenuefestival.co.nz World Buskers Festival It’s out with the Bread & Circus and in with the Hooha this year as the annual Buskers Festival gets a new team for season #32. Hooha Productions promises...

Ōtautahi O.G. Ladi6 tells Cityscape about the importance of a good team, especially her ‘fairy godmother’ stylists, and following in her family’s footsteps in a counselling career. We love the look in your new promo shot – deets please? OK, hair and makeup is my incredible makeup artist and hair stylist Darren Meredith. We actually found out recently we are cousins – we've been working together for about 15 years. And then the styling – that beautiful pink shirt that I’ve got on and the glasses, that’s Sammy Salsa, another Island boy. I wouldn’t have any style or any kind of flavour without them. Because aesthetically I’m just really regular, super-normal, boring. You wouldn’t even recognise me at the supermarket because I just look like any other person They always know what’s best for me and I’m just so lucky to be able to call them my mates and give them...

When he is not writing about Christchurch’s urban delights, Cityscape editor Mark Wilson will likely be up a river valley or exploring the high country in his trusty 4WD. And after 30 years of surveying routes for his 4WD South guidebooks, he knows the right gear to take with him. So if there is an adventure wagon in your family, here are some ideas for sharing the love this Christmas and giving your truck what it really wants. Traction boards From a novelty only a few years ago, these colourful slabs of plastic have become standard equipment on many trucks. They sure beat hunting around for some suitable logs or rocks when you’ve got a wheel deep in a hole. ‘The original and the best’ says Aussie manufacturer Maxtrax. There are generic alternatives but you do get what you pay for here and you want them to perform when you need...

Rising star Wiri Donna is as spiky as her mānuka namesake, with plenty she wants to say. Behind the on-stage alter ego is Wellington artist Bianca Bailey, whom we chatted to ahead of her nationwide tour, which kicks off in Christchurch. Explain to us the difference between Wiri Donna and Bianca Bailey? Hello! Bianca here, just your average music and creative arts enthusiast. I love making music, programming, producing events and funnily enough football! Wiri Donna on the other hand is my creative outlet, named after my time working in a plant centre – Wiri Donna is the botanical name for a Red Mānuka. I always believed this project for me was an opportunity for growth and play, a place for me to learn new things and discover new sounds, and work with some wonderful people along the way.  Which one will we see on stage in Christchurch? A little bit...

Movies to catch, books to read, television to bingewatch, music to dance to and podcasts to fill your spare time. Movies Lee Kate Winslet stars in this biopic about photographer Elizabeth ‘Lee’ Miller, who found fame as a war correspondent for ‘Vogue’ magazine during World War 2. Some of her images, including from the liberation of Paris and of the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps, are rightly considered some of the war’s most iconic. There’s plenty of material from a life of light and shade, offering Kate Winslet her meatiest role since her 2015 gem ‘The Dressmaker’. Never Look Away Keeping with the theme of brave women, this film tells the story of pioneering Kiwi camerawoman Margaret Moth. Directed by Xena herself, Lucy Lawless, it’s a suitably unflinching look at the life of a remarkable woman who stared down death many times in her career only to die aged 59 of...

Lineups are dropping and tickets are selling for this summer’s bounty of music, food and drink festivals. There are some comings and goings from the fare of the last few summers, with Splore’s three-day festival taking a break until 2026 and the touring Summer’s Day Live giving way to the new Timeless Summer Tour, which has Christchurch as a destination. No official announcement yet about whether Bay Dreams returns for 2025. We will keep updating this as info and lineups drop. For now though, time to start your festival planning. And remember the doctor’s advice for any festival – be silly but don’t be stupid! NY 24/25  Rock the Bowl Surf meets rock at the beautiful Bowl of Brooklands in New Plymouth. Acts announced include: Sublime with Rome, Pendulum DJ set, Ladyhawke, Elemeno P. New Plymouth, 29 Dec, trademarklive.co.nz Rhythm & Alps Bring in 2025 with 10,000 of your closest friends...

Comedy legend Eric Idle’s career is so much more than just Monty Python. There’s his Tony-winning musical ‘Spamalot’, his Beatles parody series ‘The Rutles’, and of course, the world’s No. 1 funeral song. Eric chats to Cityscape ahead of his Christchurch performance in October. There’s a legion of Monty Python fans here very eager to see you. Have you been to Christchurch before? I don’t think I have and I’m very much looking forward to it. Of course I watch it on cricket and I note that you are recovering from the earthquakes. It’s always fun to be on the road, to see all the places you haven’t seen and I like to do that.  What can we expect? I like to make a show that has a through-line, it isn’t just a series of jokes. I like to have it be about something. And I like to be funny about...