Theatre news, reviews and what's on

The World War 1 trenches, we have always been told, were hell.

This year marks the centenary of the start of the Great War, World War 1, so the next four years will see many commemorative events. One of the first in Dunedin is the Globe Theatre's production of Journey's End, a play set in the trenches of the Western Front. Charmian Smith reports.

Australian comic Carl Barron is back in New Zealand for a tour, which includes dates in Dunedin and Queenstown.

The inaugural Otago Southland Theatre Awards (Ostas) will be presented in Dunedin next year.

Opera Otago is presenting a night of light operatic entertainment, staging two comic operettas billed as Crossroads.

Dickens will come alive on stage at the Globe Theatre, in Dunedin, tonight in readings by actor and retired University of Otago English department senior lecturer John Watson.

Staging Macbeth, Shakespeare's tale of prophecy, ambition, blood and revenge, is a challenge, especially in the Globe's small space. Director Dale Neill has met it with style and vision.

Shakespeare has returned to Dunedin's Globe Theatre for the first time since 2008 and the new production of Macbeth promises to be a blast.

What's this about Hairspray taking over Dunedin's Regent Theatre?

There's more to theatre than acting and putting on plays. To make a living as a theatre practitioner in Dunedin you have to turn your hand to many things, Cindy Diver tells Charmian Smith.

Schoolboy leads double life! Yes, in 1897 Otago Boys' High boarder Bob Godston was working undercover as ''High School Boy,'' transforming the ''Dot's Little Folk'' column in the Otago Witness from dull and repetitive to dynamic, sparky and popular.