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Howard Davis
Scoop Arts Editor
Educated at Cambridge and UCLA; worked on several major Hollywood feature films and as a Kundalini Yoga instructor in Los Angeles; currently enjoying life in Wellington.
Howard Davis - Latest News [Page 1]
Prima Facie At Wellington’s Circa Theatre
Monday, 16 September 2024, 1:57 am | Howard Davis
With original music provided by Briar Prastiti (composer in residence at Lilburn House) and a minimalist set and costume design by Ian Harman, this stunning Circa production is expertly directed by Lyndee-Jane Rutherford. More >>
The Body Politic
Sunday, 15 September 2024, 12:35 am | Howard Davis
An amusing, well-constructed, bare-bones production that leaves all kinds of interesting questions floating like political jetsam in its wake. More >>
'We Were Dangerous' Punches Well Above Its Weight
Sunday, 25 August 2024, 2:24 pm | Howard Davis
This insightful and solicitous movie makes clear many organised religious institutions and other delusional cults that offer only a punitive pathway to salvation still have a lot of issues for which they must atone. More >>
Guru Of Chai Simmers With Toothsome Tastes Of India
Tuesday, 6 August 2024, 6:50 pm | howard davis
Working together with Indian Ink co-director Justin Lewis, Rajan first produced the play in 2008. Since then, theirs has become one of Aotearoa’s most successful theatre companies. More >>
Kinds Of Kindness
Wednesday, 24 July 2024, 8:18 am | Howard Davis
A similar obsession with emotional and psychological manipulation loosely connects the three episodes of Kinds of Kindness and much of its emotional aridity derives from closely observing an indifferent and decidedly off-kilter universe imbued with ... More >>
‘Yearning For A Spoon’ - The Late Poems Of JH Prynne
Monday, 1 July 2024, 11:40 am | Howard Davis
“Packed with a kind of fertile obscurity.” - JH Prynne, Lectures on Maximus IV, V, VI . “Here is something I can study all my life, and never understand.” - Samuel Beckett, Molloy. Rarely do creative artists become more productive ... More >>
Stunning Candle-Lit 'Othello' In London
Wednesday, 15 May 2024, 1:32 pm | howard davis
A recent production of Othello at The Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse provided a stunning example of why English stage directors and actors remain the leading exponents of the art and craft of live drama. More >>
Malicious Melodrama - Todd Haynes’ ‘May December’
Sunday, 18 February 2024, 7:30 pm | howard davis
Loosely based on a tabloid headline, Todd Haynes has directed another intriguing and mysterious portrayal of an enigmatic and contradictory female who was jailed as a sex offender for her underage affair with a young high school student more than ... More >>
The Austerity Of Quiet Despair - Wim Wenders’ ‘Perfect Days’
Monday, 12 February 2024, 8:22 am | howard davis
Given his obvious admiration for the films of Yasujirō Ozu, it’s hardly surprising that Wim Wenders should have chosen Tokyo as the location for his latest film. A stripped-back, pared-down homage to the great Japanese director’s laconic and laid-back ... More >>
The Irreverence Of ‘Being Earnest’ At Circa Theatre
Tuesday, 10 October 2023, 11:07 am | Howard Davis
“Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?” Jonathan Price’s idiosyncratic version of Oscar Wilde's timeless masterpiece 'The ... More >>
NZSQ’s ‘Woven Pathways’ Tour Wraps Up In Wellington
Monday, 18 September 2023, 4:29 am | howard davis
NZSQ’s ‘Woven Pathways’ Tour Wraps Up In Wellington The NZSQ concluded their national tour of ‘Woven Pathways’ in Wellington last week with two stunning performances that reaffirmed their position as NZ’s premier chamber music ensemble. The first ... More >>
What Larks!
Monday, 28 August 2023, 7:43 am | Howard Davis
Singer-songwriter and APRA Silver Scroll nominee Tom Lark has released a wonderful debut album, ‘Brave Star,’ full of catchy melodic hooks and nifty guitar licks. Shaped in equal parts by the confronting vulnerability of John Lennon and the troubled ... More >>
Wes Anderson’s Tupperware ‘Asteroid City’
Tuesday, 22 August 2023, 4:29 pm | howard davis
Among contemporary American films directors, only David Fincher rivals Wes Anderson for sheer cinematic prowess. His tightly controlled environments are cleverly constructed doll’s playhouses, his characters apparently present only to deliver his lines ... More >>
'Prima Facie' At Wellington’s Circa Theatre
Monday, 26 June 2023, 9:35 am | Howard Davis
Prima Facie is a Latin term meaning ‘on the face of it.’ In Australia, the 1.7 million women who have been sexually assaulted rarely receive justice. Instead, their stories are filtered out of the system as they encounter one hurdle after another. ... More >>
Redmer Yska - 'Katherine Mansfield's Europe'
Monday, 15 May 2023, 10:13 am | howard davis
The Mansfield Industry continues to proliferate. Frances Wilson, in a recent NYRB review of Claire Harman’s All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything (from which the following information was largely gathered), wrote More >>
Dave Flynn’s Airs & Graces
Monday, 20 March 2023, 9:43 am | howard davis
The NZSQ celebrated St. Patrick’s Day at Wellington’s Public Trust Hall with an assortment of Irish reels, jigs, polkas, and contemporary pieces lead by guitarist and composer Dave Flynn and an assortment of traditional Irish musicians. More >>
In Bed With Schoenberg
Tuesday, 7 March 2023, 1:07 pm | howard davis
“If it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art.” - Arnold Schoenberg. Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) was an Austrian-American composer and teacher, widely considered one of the most influential in the twentieth-century. As a leader ... More >>
Indigenous Voices - We Are Still Here
Wednesday, 15 February 2023, 8:46 am | Howard Davis
Few major movies were made in response to the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook’s arrival in the Pacific, perhaps reflecting some uncertainty about how best to represent a voyage that had such a devastating impact on indigenous people. The opening night ... More >>
Blanchett Nails ‘Tár’
Monday, 30 January 2023, 5:23 pm | Howard Davis
<img src="https://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/2301/tar_pic.jpg" width="500" height="281"> There is not much I can add to Zadie Smith’s wonderfully acute assessment of ‘Tár’ in The New York Review ... More >>
‘The Menu’ - Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold
Monday, 21 November 2022, 10:29 am | howard davis
Swiftly slicing and dicing the pretensions of ‘haute cuisine,’ director Mark Mylod (‘Game of Thrones’ and ’Succession’) skewers the preposterous egomania of bullying chefs and the captive consumers to whom they pander. More >>
