It's all on

It's all on

It's all on It's all on for young and old - the Nelson Arts Festival is approaching its second weekend with a bunch of happy theatre-goers, several sell out shows and a whole lot more to come. Rugby fever may have you in its grip - being all-seeing we knew this would happen, so the shows on games' nights are scheduled to have you home or at the Fan Zone in time to see Piri Weepu kick the ABs to victory (Can he do it? Yes he can!).

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Big night tomorrow There are still a few seats left for Fabulous Arabia with the lovely Bachelorette to follow at The Festival Tent at Founders tomorrow night (Thurs) at 8.30pm. Lawrence Arabia and Mike Fabulous featured on the Arts on Sunday Laugh Track last weekend and are a couple of quirky guys as well as being very talented musos. Straight after their show (at 9.45pm) Bachelorette is on at the Granary Festival Café - just a tenner for those who have been to Fab Arab, $15 to others. It's the sort of double whammy, latish night you hardly ever get in Nelson, so put on your glad rags and head for Founders. Come early and catch the wild and weird Comrade Z (6.30pm) for free, take a break from the kitchen and snaffle some macaroni cheese at the kiwiana café - what's not to like?

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Front of House Pick Ever wondered who organises our wonderful team of volunteer ushers and makes sure everything runs smoothly before the shows start? Kate Alexander is our highly efficient Front of House Manager, and this week we're giving her a festival pick. "I'm really looking forward to Silent Night on at the Suter this weekend. We had Yvette Parsons at the festival launch doing an excerpt from this show - her character of Irene McMunn is very funny as well as being a little bit poignant as she faces Christmas with just her cat for company and some very strange ideas about a salad made with a banana centrepiece. Silent Night is all about the generation of New Zealand women who came of age between the wars, like a lot of us remember our nanas and aunties - only funnier." There are still seats for Silent Night on Saturday at 7pm, see the show and head for the Fan Zone.

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Highlights this weekend The 2 Dimensional Life of Her, from Australian actor and puppeteer Fleur Elise Noble is a visual performance of drawing, animation, puppetry, projection and paper that will appeal to older kids as well as adults. We're staging this in the intimate Nelson Musical Theatre - formerly the Cathedral Parish Centre that was shifted down to Atawhai Drive a couple of years ago. The Sad Lament of Pecos Bill on the Eve of Killing his Wife is by Sam Shepard and Catherine Stone. Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983). Don't let this surreal postcard from the Old West miss your mailbox! At the Festival Tent, Saturday at 7.30pm.

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See you at the GFC Two top New Zealand writers will be on stage at the Granary Festival Café on Saturday afternoon. Award winner Charlotte Randall and this year's NZ Post fiction prizewinner Laurence Fearnley will be 'in conversation' with Jacquetta Bell. It still makes sense to get the Page and Blackmore Readers and Writers' concession for $60 - that's now eight shows for less than the early bird price. Also at the Festival Café this weekend there's a heap of free music: cult blues from Tom Rodwell on Friday at 6.30pm, the poppy funky Fez on Saturday at 5pm, Sunday Jazz with Chris O'Connor.

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Don't miss Piki Mai It's school hols so you can afford to keep those nippers out of the jammies an hour or two later and take them down to see Nelson's history portrayed in lights on the Church Steps and Cathedral. The Bishop loved it so much he offered to ring the bells at the opening. See you there - and don't miss the frying pan full a knitted breakfast in the kiwiana viewing area.

That's more entertainment than you can shake a stick at and we haven't even started on next week. Still time to issue an impromptu invitation to outta towners for Labour Weekend. Ask your mates over, down, or up, and bask in the glow of living in lovely Nelson as you show off the Arts Festival.

See you at the Festival!

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