The talented cast of 14 throw themselves into the enterprise with plenty of verve and emotional honesty and there is a wildly anarchic quality to the storyline.

It was a thrilling launch for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's Wounded Hearts concert, under Rafael Payare, on Friday.

Okareka Dance Company has hit the jackpot with this exploration of the strength, the spirit, the wiles and the primal beauty of women, specifically Maori women.

We asked Christchurch-based APNZ reporter Kurt Bayer, who reported on the quakes and their aftermath, to view Hope and Wire. Here's his take.

He's made himself a pop sensation and teen heart-throb on the basis of his songs rather than his looks, and for that, you have to give ginger-haired Pom Ed Sheeran a tip of the cap.

I shouldn't be reviewing this game. I find the violence in mixed martial arts repulsive. But then again, this is just a video game.

It's probably around the two-hour mark of this big, bloated, bombastic spectacle of a sequel that you might start thinking to yourself, why are we doing this again?

If you're one of those people with a weakness for laughing in the wrong place then it might be best you don't watch War News, writes Colin Hogg.

Beethoven, as everyone knows, sells seats. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's Beethoven: The Symphonies proved just that four times over.