UDDERLY HILARIOUS New Directions in New Zealand Comedy as seen in Harry Sinclair's by Andrew Hroton. 2

STICKING TO DADDY'S RULES Miranda Kaye investigates the blokeish world of Stickmen. 6

THE INFLUENCE OF DRAMAS ON THE ANZAC LEGEND BETWEEN THE WARS Daniel Reynaud. 9

30 Wellington Film Festival / 33 Auckland Film Festival

In this special section three writers preview a total of 13 films from this year’s festivals. John Downie looks at five documentaries and a feature: the reissued Gimme Shelter; portraits of the late film makers, Andrei Tarkovsky and Stanely Kubrick; a Dutch film on the former Soviet circus; Agnes Varda’s study of waste and recycling, The Gleaners and I; and the Ingmar Bergman scripted, Liv Ullmann directed Faithless. Lawrence McDonald discusses four new documentaries: one from the USA on the chicken, another from the UK on the house, and two from Australia on the University and the Outback, respectively. Finally, Campbell Walker introduces three of the large contingent of East Asian films. 16

Performance
VIRTUAL ASTONISHMENT Keren Smith considers Ada, The Machine's Muse. 31

AN ORCHARD IN THE HOUSE Lisa Warrington examines the recontextualisation of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard at Dunedin's Globe Theatre. 35

Report
10TH BIENNIAL AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND FILM AND HISTORY CONFERENCE Geraldine Peters provides a comprehensive report. 39

Books
JANE CAMPION'S THE PIANO (ed. Harriet Margolis) reviewed by Mary Alemany-Galway. 44

ANGEL OF THE ANZACS: THE LIFE OF NOLA LUXFORD (Carol Van Grondelle) reviewed by Jennery Hammerton. 46