Have a laugh at this year’s arts festival

Wilson Dixon - from Cripple Creek, Colorado. Photo / Andi Crown

Who doesn’t love a good laugh during a night out?

Comedy is always a crowd favourite as part of the Hawke’s Bay Arts Festival and this year there is a hilarious selection of incredibly talented contemporary performers who will bring a little bit of light entertainment and some belly laughs in October.

With most shows priced from $25, half the usual price, the tickets for these comedy shows won’t hang around for long.

Wilson Dixon’s What A Country was a sell-out in the 2018 festival and he is back by popular demand. This time he brings his new show Wilson Dixon: Put the Gun Down, Jethro, lover of love, singer of music, rider of horses.

Dixon is known to many as the greatest country singer Cripple Creek, Colorado has ever produced, as well as the only country singer Cripple Creek has ever produced.

Add to your comedy list Rise of the Olive, the world’s only surreal, sketch, award-winning circus troupe on a wild ride as they bring people closer together, one olive at a time. Expect bizarre ideas, high-level circus and a good night out. This show will appeal to your inner child, but it is definitely one for adults.

Featuring a whole host of high calibre, left-field skills and comedy; 3D glasses and morph suits make a comeback, there’s a heart-stopping innovative aerial rope act and more, so much more in fact, you’ll be given a run sheet so you can keep up!

With a refreshing sketch format, this show is a wildly inventive rollercoaster. A perfect balance of joyful, existential, hilarious and incredible – be sure to catch it while you can.

Tea with Terrorists will be a rollercoaster ride of dark comedy and delicious storytelling.

Told against the backdrop of differing and often opposing cultural contexts, experience tales from “a master storyteller” who feels a sense of belonging everywhere and nowhere.

Tea with Terrorists shares stories from a life that straddles two very different cultures. Arguing with mullahs, being an atheist in a religious, liberal family, wandering outside the green zone in war-torn Kabul, being stalked by a sheep in Coniston, and having tea with some terrorists in Kashmir.

Journey with Sameena to find out why fear is redundant, joy is essential, and terrorists can be a real hoot.

Sameena Zehra is an award-winning performer, writer, director, and blues singer/songwriter. Before moving to Aotearoa, Sameena lived in the UK where she performed at the National Theatre and toured internationally with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Comedy checklist for the Festival

Rise of the Olive

Toitoi, Opera House

Sunday, October 15, 8pm

Tea With Terrorists

Toitoi, Functions on Hastings

Friday, October 20, 6pm

Wilson Dixon: Put the Gun Down, Jethro

Toitoi, Function on Hastings

Saturday, October 21, 9pm

For further information and bookings, visit www.hbaf.co.nz or the Box Office at Toitoi Hawke’s Bay Arts and Events Centre.