The best shows to see this weekend
Broods
Initially delayed from March due to scheduling conflicts, Nelson-born brother-sister pop duo Broods bring their Don’t Feed the Pop Monster tour to Auckland’s Town Hall tonight. The tour is off the back of their acclaimed third album of the same name, a shimmering pop record bursting with life and ideas. After two albums that felt constrained by major label expectations, Pop Monster showcased the duo’s true potential for intelligent, emotive, addictive songwriting, and innovative art-pop production. If previous tours are anything to go by, Broods throw one hell of a party, and it’s clear the duo are having more fun than ever with this album. Bring some comfortable dancing shoes.
Broods, Town Hall, tonight, 7.30pm
The Auckland Writers Festival
As far as some of us are concerned — actually several thousand — there’s only one show in Auckland this weekend and it’s the annual writers festival. A bit like TED Talks on steroids, the festival brings to town about 200 leading local and international writers, thinkers and artists to talk books. But it’s so much more than super-sized book club sessions, with more than 200 events: conversations, performances, lectures, presentations, workshops, book readings and launches and prize announcements designed to entertain, inform, provoke and inspire. Auckland Writers Festival, various venues until Sunday
NZ International Comedy Festival
The laughs keep coming as another of Auckland’s annual festivals continues. Sticking with a literary theme, if you’re addicted to Darcy, without pride and prejudice or you’ve just lost all sense and sensibility then
the Con Artists’ show, The Lost
Musicals of Jane Austen might be the ticket. Alternatively, if it’s Broadway music you’re craving, the Covert Theatre has been working with theatre stalwart Jennifer WardLealand to be good enough to improvise an entire Broadway-style musical in the show Instant Broadway. The audience will provide them with a name of a made-up musical title and away they’ll go with an entire musical from start to finish. The Lost Musicals of Jane Austen, Vault at Q Theatre, until Saturday; Instant Broadway, Herald Theatre, until Saturday
Comedy Festival, continued
Meanwhile, a number of local stalwarts present their new 2019 shows this weekend at the Basement Theatre. Eli Matthewson flexes his classics degree in his new show Myth and Legend, in the main space at 8.30pm; Theatremaker/comedian Alice Canton offers a deep-dive into internet humour with Meme Lord ,in the studio at 10pm, while downstairs at the same time is Tim Batt’s Space Couch, a riff on the late-night talk show format hosted with Disasteradio, with guests including James Shaw, Alice Snedden and Chloe Swarbrick. Basement Theatre until Saturday; Comedy Festival continues to May 26
Kacey Musgraves
Tomorrow night, a different kind of pop star lights up the Town Hall. Kacey Musgraves is a US country singer-songwriter who gained legions of new fans with her 2018 album Golden Hour, which blended futuristic pop production with country songwriting styles and instruments. The result was a stunning modern pop-country record, lauded as one of the best releases last year and named Album of the Year at this year’s Grammy Awards. She performs at Auckland’s Town Hall tomorrow night; in the meantime, read our cover feature in today’s TimeOut magazine. Kacey Musgraves, Town Hall, 7pm