Culture 101

Sam Brooks curates Firing the Cannon, a Basement Theatre series of free play readings drawing on New Zealand's theatrical history. This year's season leaned into a queer theme almost by accident: Robert Lord's Joyful and Triumphant, Renée's Setting the Table, and Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu's The Black, a play about depression that takes the form of a stalking horse. Brooks talks about why reviving work that doesn't get performed often matters, and what it's like watching actors bring entirely new interpretations to text that's never been heard out loud before.

Fiona McDonald, of Headless Chickens and Strawpeople fame, started Singalong with Fiona McDonald after being inspired by a ukulele group session. She booked a venue for 200 people not knowing if anyone would show up; seventy did, and by the end of the first night she says she was addicted. Armed with a ukulele and a screen of lyrics, she leads rooms full of strangers through songs chosen for their singalong power rather than personal taste. Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart doesn't make the cut, but Tom Jones's Delilah does. She joins Culture 101 for Fast Favourites.

Karl Puschmann joins Culture 101 with his monthly TV and streaming recommendations, covering Cape Fear on Apple TV, an updated take on the Scorsese thriller with Xavier Bardem and Amy Adams; Dear England on TVNZ+, a football drama about Gareth Southgate starring Joseph Fiennes; and a verdict on Mindy Kaling's new sitcom Not Suitable for Work on Disney+.

Hana Buchanan has just published her debut collection Kupu Whenua, a bilingual Maori and New Zealand English work structured like a pepeha, with mountain, waterways, waka, birds and stars forming its chapters. Descended from Te Ati Awa and connected to the Te Aro Pa area, Buchanan wrote most of the collection on foot, walking Wellington's streets and listening for the ancestral memories she believes are stored in place. She is also a kaikaranga and a kaitito waiata. She joins Culture 101 and shares a reading.

Ross McGarva learned his craft as a young art department hand on The Lord of the Rings, where he absorbed Peter Jackson's obsession with detail. His latest project is Moss & Freud, in cinemas now, a biographical drama about the friendship between supermodel Kate Moss and painter Lucian Freud. McGarva served as production designer, recreating Freud's paint-splattered Holland Park studio by plastering walls to build up texture, then flicking paint to match the decades of accumulated colour.

Dan Bain first read Let the Right One In in 2019 and put it down thinking it was impossible to stage. He's now directing it at The Court Theatre in Christchurch. The Swedish vampire story follows a bullied teenager and his strange new neighbour, adapted by Jack Thorne, who also wrote Adolescence. The set has no right angles, forces perspective, is covered in mirrors, and took three model builds to figure out. Bain joins Culture 101 to explain how you stage a horror without the audience laughing at the wrong moments.

Every King's Birthday weekend, Gore hosts the Gold Guitar Awards, celebrating the best of live country music in New Zealand and launching careers including Patsy Riggir, Kaylee Bell and Jenny Mitchell. Mike Puru, born and raised in Gore and MC of the event for around ten years, joins Culture 101 live from the thick of it.

Illustrator Scarlett Robinson-Kean and dancer Sefa Tunupopo are two of the 16 early-career artists selected for this year's Arts Foundation Springboard, each receiving $15,000 and a mentorship. Scarlett, whose graphic novel To Seed, To Sprout, To Seed won a bronze at last year's Best Design Awards, says in illustration the doors don't just stay closed, they often don't exist. Sefa, who leads Wellington street dance collective Shifting Center, says the award landed at the right time, and talks about why he and his community decided to build their own infrastructure rather than wait for space to open up. Both join Culture 101 to discuss what comes next.

Michelle Langstone reviews three films from this year's French Film Festival: A Dash of Love, a charming road trip about two friends with physical disabilities searching for intimacy, aided by a reluctant ex-con turned driver; Case 137, a gripping thriller about a police investigator probing alleged brutality during the 2018 Yellow Jacket protests in Paris, winner of best actress at the Césars; and Guru, a taut psychological thriller about a charismatic life coach whose wellness empire conceals something darker.

Named after John Clarke's Fred Dagg, the Fred Award recognises the New Zealand Comedy Festival's best show. David Correos took home the 2026 award, and the iconic Golden Gumboot, for his show Touching My Active Mind. He joins Culture 101 fresh from the win.

Denzel Panama has been given a Pasifika conducting internship by Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand, working alongside the directors of the National Youth Choir, the Academy Choir and Voices New Zealand, of which he is already a member. From Niue, he currently directs senior school choirs at St Kentigern and St Cuthbert's colleges. He joins Culture 101 to talk about the physical art of conducting, why a tense conductor makes a tense choir, and why he thinks singing together is one of the best antidotes to loneliness going.

Jennie Skulander has spent more than two decades as the lead vocalist of Devilskin, one of New Zealand's most successful metal acts, but she has never had a singing lesson. Come Together, a supergroup of New Zealand rock musicians, is performing Born to Run in full at Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland this week, and Jennie is on lead vocals. She joins Culture 101 to talk about stepping into someone else's songs, the osteoarthritis diagnosis that's forcing her to do things differently, and why she still gets nervous every single time she walks on stage.

Joel Vinsen took out this year's Billy T Award for best newcomer in Aotearoa comedy with his show Renaissance Man, joining a list of previous winners including Rose Matafeo, Paul Ego and Dai Henwood. He joins Culture 101 live for Fast Favourites, sharing picks including a YouTube deep dive into Harmony Korine's late show appearances, a Korean book of short stories, and why Swordsman Chinese in the Lim Chhour food court on K Road is strategically located right outside City Fitness.

Te Ara Minhinnick is a Maori artist from Waiuku, descended from Ngati Te Ata, whose practice begins with gathering uku, sand and soil from the waterways of her rohe and asking what histories those materials carry. She's one of eight emerging artists, curators and writers selected for Learning from Venice, a programme funded by Naveya & Sloane giving Aotearoa creatives the chance to experience the Biennale firsthand. She joins Culture 101 fresh from packing her bags, on going overseas to see art for only the second time in her life.

Jenny Scown spent years as a magazine photographer in Auckland before moving back to the Waikato to have "country kids". She built a purpose-built gallery on the family farm outside Tamahere, near Hamilton, with views across to the Waikato River and Sanctuary Mountain, eight minutes from Cambridge. Perlina paid a visit to find out how you build a destination gallery in the middle of a paddock, and what nineteen years of backing emerging artists alongside established ones looks like.

Artsenta, the Otepoti Dunedin creative space supporting people experiencing mental health and addiction challenges, turns 40 on 17 June. To mark the occasion, it's hosting a symposium on creativity and wellbeing in October and is seeking expressions of interest for presentations. The EOI deadline is 31 May. Director Paul McLellan-Smith joins Culture 101 to talk about four decades of work.

Amanda Nguyen was sexually assaulted while at Harvard, then discovered her rape kit would be destroyed in six months unless she filed for an extension. Blinded by rage, she emailed everyone she knew and built a team that passed the Sexual Assault Survivors' Bill of Rights through the US Congress unanimously, signed into law by Barack Obama. She was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, named Time Woman of the Year in 2022, and last April became the first Vietnamese American woman in space. When she landed, a survivor texted to point out the date: April 14, the same day her rape kit had been scheduled for destruction eleven years earlier. She joins Culture 101 to discuss her memoir Saving Five.

The call came in on a Wellington number. Self-taught Auckland artist Duncan Pepe Long knew he should probably call back. He was asked to sit down, told he'd won Aotearoa's most prestigious portraiture award, and then had to go and stand in front of 25 students and pretend nothing had happened. His winning portrait is of Solomon Tamehana, a close friend of nearly 30 years, painted with a ring light, a side eye and a background of what Duncan describes as gay bears.

Ana Scotney is currently starring in Playfight at Silo Theatre. Written by British playwright Julia Grogan in the aftermath of the Grace Millane trial, follows three teenage girls navigating sex, shame and identity, and is the first time the Edinburgh Festival hit has been staged outside the UK. Ana joins Culture 101 for Fast Favourites, sharing the local films she thinks everyone should see right now, a discovery at the Samoa House Library, her favour K Road pasta, and what she learned about trusting your instincts from her filmmaking mentors, Dame Gaylene Preston and Dame Jane Campion.

After appearing in RNZ's story on rural cinemas, Tamasin Prince joins Culture 101 to talk about what's driving booming audiences in small-town New Zealand.

The Venice Biennale jury resigned two weeks ago after announcing they wouldn't award prizes to countries whose governments have been charged with crimes against humanity by the ICC. The biennale has since moved to an anonymous public vote, with winners to be announced in November instead of this month. Russia is participating for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine, prompting protests from Pussy Riot and a threat from the European Commission to pull €2 million in funding. Perlina unpicks the politics with art critic and curator Deena Jezdic, who has been in Venice, and with Sarah Hudson of the Mataaho Collective, who won the Golden Lion in 2024 and is watching events unfold from Aotearoa.

Actor and comedian Karen O'Leary joins Culture 101 ahead of her appearance at Poneke House Party, in Wellington.

New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based artist Richard Lewer has won Australia's most prestigious portrait prize, the Archibald, for his life-sized painting of fellow artist Iluwanti Ken, painted on country in 46-degree heat in the APY Lands.

Dame Gaylene Preston failed her art school degree. The F appeared in the paper the morning results were published. What followed was a move to Cambridge with her husband, a job as assistant librarian at a 900-bed psychiatric hospital, and the discovery that film could give institutionalised patients a voice and a way to prepare for the terrifying prospect of being released into a world that wasn't ready for them. She joins Culture 101 for Fast Favourites, and to talk about Grace: A Prayer for Peace, her new film about artist Dame Robin White, available on RNZ Video.. A visual poem rather than a conventional documentary, it follows White's 50-year practice across New Zealand, Japan and al-Mahdi, and has become the first New Zealand film selected for the Hiroshima Film Festival.

Tamar Torrence is three years into a PhD in neuroaesthetics at the University of Auckland, studying what happens neurologically when people have peak experiences with art.

Perlina wanders through the Hamilton Gardens with director Lucy Ryan where she explains that the gardens' founder, Peter Sergel, designed all 30 gardens before a single one was built.

Kate Rodger joins Culture 101 with reviews of The Weed Eaters and Devil Wears Prada 2.

Nigel McCulloch grew up in Rotorua with a garage full of VHS tapes, courtesy of his father's video delivery business. He never connected that upbringing to his career until recently.

Morgana O'Reilly's one-woman show Stories About My Body started as an idea she half-jokingly pitched to a friend: run onstage topless, read from a 1998 form two diary about hating her body, tell the story of working fetish parties in New York to fund an airfare home, and show her birth video.

Poet Carin Smeaton didn't plan a trilogy. She started writing Hibiscus Tart for her sister, then Death Goddess for her mother, then Age of Orpah for her Arab niece, with one eye on what was happening in Lebanon and Gaza.

Karl Puschmann joins Culture 101 with his television and streaming picks for May, including New Zealand Spy on TVNZ+, Jazz Thornton's story Stalked on Sky Open, and BBC crime drama Mint.

Hastings Art Gallery launched a free art bus for schools last November, providing transport for students from Hastings, Napier and Central Hawke's Bay to visit the gallery, with priority given to high-equity and rural schools and those affected by Cyclone Gabrielle. Hundreds of students have already visited. The Gallery's audience and Learning Manager Elham Salari joins Culture 101 to talk about what happens when transport stops being a barrier.

The Southside Queens of Comedy are six Maori and Pasifika wahine from South Auckland who came together through a free community comedy workshop in 2025 and haven't stopped since. Their NZ Comedy Festival show, Once Upon a Struggle, runs 7-9 May at Poppy's Comedy in Manurewa. Ama Mosese, MC, radio host and podcaster, joins Culture 101 ahead of the shows.

Rose Matafeo came home from London to star in New Zealand Spy, a new local comedy set in the 70s about the country's intelligence agency recruiting the only three people who applied to protect the nation from the threat of Australia. Written by Paul Williams, the show also stars Bret McKenzie, Joe Thomas and Tim Key, and is streaming on TVNZ+ now. Matafeo, who won Best Show at the Edinburgh Fringe for Horndog and wrote and starred in three seasons of BBC series Starstruck, joins Culture 101 to talk about the show and what it means to be recognised at home.

Marion Crawford, known as Crawfie, was nanny to Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret for 16 years before a very public falling out with the royal family. The Queen's Nanny, written by Australian journalist and radio presenter Melanie Tait, puts her story centre stage at Takapuna's Pumphouse Theatre. Actor Anna Jullienne plays Crawfie and joins Culture 101 to discuss power, loyalty, sacrifice, and perfecting a Scottish accent bedtime story by bedtime story.

Artist and book cover designer Todd Atticus is parked up in the window of Unity Books in Wellington this week, designing cover artwork for Mia Farlane's new novel And How Are Things With You in real time, turning his practice into a performance. Atticus has designed covers for Catherine Chidgey, Duncan Sarkies and Tusiata Avia. He joins Culture 101 live from the shop window.

The Weed Eaters is a Kiwi comedy-horror set in North Canterbury, following two couples on a New Year's camping trip who encounter a particular strain of weed with unexpected consequences. It debuted at the NZ International Film Festival, won Best Feature at SXSW Sydney, and is currently touring the country. Made for $19,000, the film stars writer Finnius Teppett and Alice May Connolly, known for Sweet Tooth, Wellington Paranormal and The Power of the Dog. Both join Culture 101 live.

Lisa Reihana has spent more than three decades using film, photography and installation to centre Maori and Pacific perspectives in history. She represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale in 2017 and her work sits in collections from Te Papa to the Brooklyn Museum. Right now her installation ANZAC, eight metres high and twenty metres long and made from 180,000 shimmering discs, runs along the Auckland waterfront as part of the Aotearoa Art Fair Sculpture Trail. She joins Culture 101 live to discuss the work, her shimmer-disc technique and thirty years of using the computer as her carving tool.

Dan Slevin reviews three new releases: Michael, Antoine Fuqua's biopic of Michael Jackson starring the pop star's nephew Jaafar Jackson; The Time Traveller's Guide to Hamilton Gardens, a documentary about the transformation of a former city rubbish dump into one of the world's great gardens, launching the Resene Architecture & Design Film Festival this week; and Sgt. Haane, Tearepa Kahi's ANZAC Day release about 28th Maori Battalion soldier Haane Manahi.

Laura Jean Shannon is a superhero speciality costume designer whose credits include Iron Man, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Murderbot. For the past seven years she's been working on The Boys, the Amazon Prime series about a group of corrupt celebrity supervillains led by Kiwi actor Antony Starr, with the fifth and final season now streaming. Shannon is in Auckland this weekend for Armageddon Expo and joins Culture 101 to talk about what it takes to dress a superhero.

Brett Graham has been a prominent figure in contemporary Maori art since the 1990s, with work shown at the Venice Biennale and in collections around the world. His latest work, Doorway Into Night, is a large, near-entirely black Whare Mate at Gow Langsford Gallery in Onehunga, shrouded in dyed cabbage leaves and accompanied by a text from Ngahuia te Awekotuku and an original soundscape. Perlina caught up with Brett at the gallery in the final hours before the exhibition opened.

Taumarunui-based artist Tyrone Te Waa's latest work draws on the mattress room of the wharenui at his marae, a space associated with play, sleep and hosting visitors. The resulting exhibition, Dreaming from Afar, features stretched cotton across four single mattresses, painted and incorporating sculpture, and is showing at Gus Fisher Gallery in central Auckland until May 2. Te Waa, who received an Arts Foundation Springboard Award in 2022, joins Culture 101 to talk about his creative whanau, marae life and the links between the work and his nan.

Canadian-Serbian actress Nina Kiri is best known for playing Alma in The Handmaid's Tale, but her latest role leads Undertone, an A24 horror film built almost entirely on sound design. She plays the co-host of a paranormal podcast who receives disturbing recordings from a pregnant couple, while caring for her comatose mother in a single house setting. Made for $500,000, the film has grossed $20 million worldwide. Kiri joins Culture 101 to discuss how she got into horror, her Serbian heritage, and reading the script alone in her apartment on a Friday night.

Silo Theatre's new production of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge features a mainly Pasifika cast and is playing at Q Theatre in Auckland until May 3. Miller's 1956 play follows a Brooklyn dockworker whose obsession and jealousy unravel his family and ultimately destroy him. Beulah Koale, who plays lead Eddie Carbone, joins Culture 101 to discuss honouring the text without making it Samoan, the comedic roles he wants to explore, and the moment he landed his first US film and realised he could charge anything to the room.

Donna Hay's cookbooks have been a fixture in New Zealand homes since the 1990s. Now the Australian food stylist and author has a new series on Disney+, Donna Hay Coastal Celebrations, filmed against the backdrop of Sydney Harbour and focused on hosting with what you already have. She joins Culture 101 to share tips for seasonal shopping, her surprisingly relaxed views on air fryers, and why she thinks it's fine to photograph your food at restaurants.

The Global Book Crawl runs until next Sunday, connecting independent bookstores across 73 cities worldwide through a shared passport readers get stamped at each store they visit. Canterbury is joining for the first time this year, with ten stores taking part from Kaiapoi to Timaru. Jared Raines from The Great Kiwi Bookstore in Kaiapoi, and Canterbury spokesperson for the crawl, joins Culture 101 to explain how it works and why indie bookshops are worth the trip.

Ant Sang broke through in the early 2000s as head designer of bro'Town and has since become one of New Zealand's most respected graphic artists, with award-winning novels and character designs published around the world. His work has featured at the Auckland Art Gallery and in Rip It Up and the Listener. He joins Culture 101 live for Fast Favourites, and to talk about his new animated kung-fu short film Wing Chun, currently in the final hours of its Boosted crowdfunding campaign.

& Juliet is a jukebox musical built around the back catalogue of Swedish songwriter Max Martin, the most successful chart producer in Billboard Hot 100 history. A Broadway and West End hit with three Olivier Awards and nine Tony nominations, the show reimagines what happens if Juliet decides she's done with Romeo and writes her own story. It opened in Auckland this week and runs at the Civic until May 3, before heading to Wellington and Christchurch. Director Hamish Mouat joins Culture 101 alongside audience reactions and a word from cast members Matu Ngaropo and Lavina Williams.

For 30 years, Depot Devonport has been a home for artists, makers and audiences on Auckland's North Shore, nurturing local talent and connecting communities through art. Anna Thomas visits the space to speak with Director Amy Saunders, studio engineer Nate Selway and artists including Fiona Mackay about what three decades of a community arts hub looks like.

Film critic Dan Slevin reviews three new releases: Undertone, a Canadian supernatural horror film in which a paranormal podcast host receives mysterious recordings that push her toward fear and paranoia; You, Me & Tuscany, a romantic comedy starring Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page; and Solo Mio, a comedy about a jilted groom who continues his honeymoon alone through Italy, made by a filmmaking collective of eight brothers.