One of the largest cultural hubs to be developed in the world could be influenced by one of Auckland's smallest theatres, The Basement.

This Flaxworks production mentions the boyfriends but ignores the image, and instead presents a girlish Jean, enthusiastic and sweet.

No subject is off-limits in Dawn French's stage show Thirty Million Minutes, which tackles even the most harrowing of topics with charm and good humour.

In Antony & Cleopatra the clash of civilisations is set against the intimacy of a tender love story.

Is it a giant diamond, perhaps an icicle, maybe a lighthouse, lantern or even a huge ice block?

One of NZ's most influential dance choreographers was booted out of an Auckland Arts Festival show this week for booing and calling it boring.

The curtains lift, revealing a dancer seated solemnly to one side. All is quiet barring the sound of audience members settling into their seats.

This excellent one-man show is not chatty or casual. Tight, dramatic spotlights focus sharply on the orator in the dark.

Around 30 Aucklanders jumped on and off the White Night Art Bus from Q Theatre on Saturday night and went west.

The Great Downhill is about a boy who leaves his single mother to see the sea, riding downhill on his bike and encountering rag-tag characters.

If one of the roles of an arts festival is to present genre-blurring work, then the Auckland festival is doing its job with a show that opens this week.

Overall, I enjoyed the production but, on reflection, would probably only give the performance six out of 10, writes Peter Bromhead.

Among the razzle-dazzle of the big shows, the Auckland Arts Festival always throws up some hidden gems like Waves.

In this fantastical Kiwi detective story, Carl Bland's musings on truth and loss are framed as "three men in search of a playwright," writes Janet.

Funny, sexy and feminist all at the same time, Australian cabaret star Meow Meow (Melissa Madden Gray) delivers wonderful frivolity.

The makers of this show have given themselves a challenge: they've attempted to adapt what is primarily adult literature for 4-8-year-olds.

The National Theatre of Scotland offers both history lessons and captivating drama in its trilogy of plays about the country's early kings being staged at the Auckland Arts Festival.

Oscar Isaac is set to star as Hamlet.

A post-postmodern diva is about to take over the Auckland Arts Festival's Spiegeltent with her take on a Hans Christian Andersen folk tale.

Two Shortland Street starts will don wigs, make-up and bespangled evening wear to join Dragon's Diva Den as special guest female impersonators.

The hour-long work starts with a shaft of light spilling on to a large leaf as if through the forest canopy, before a spider walks over to a woman emerging from shadow.

The local production of Henry V, with an all-female cast of 29, steers a path somewhere between the two extremes.

It's a dog-eat-dog world in this uncompromising reworking of John Gay's 1728 The Beggar's Opera.

I can't travel without ... Great walking shoes. At least two pairs.

The Pop-up Globe's Twelfth Night gives an idea of the atmosphere at the original Globe Theatre over 400 years ago.

The Bard's complex meditation on the power of love sparkles into life on a bare stage of compelling physical intimacy.