Te Radar: A week for human dramas on a most absurd scale

The fact that the "Defend the Legacy" march for traditional family values wasn't included in the AK05 programme came as a great surprise to me, as it had everything that great theatre needs: drama, emotional resonance and nudity.

Even Prince Charles' tour had moments of spontaneous nudity, although given the small numbers of people turning out to wave at him, this almost went unnoticed.

I had a great deal of time to reflect on this recently as I endured a particularly tedious theatrical performance.

At one point one of the characters committed suicide, (not literally, although I wouldn't have blamed him). I was jealous; if I had been able to do that I wouldn't have had to sit through the rest of the show.

Of course, I could have left the play, but I didn't for two reasons. The first is that we as a nation are too polite to simply up and leave.

That was the essential problem with colonisation. We didn't know how to leave without offending people.

Secondly, I might have missed something of interest, such as gratuitous theatrical nudity.

One always hopes something will happen that may improve the play, like a malfunctioning prop, a falling piece of set or, best of all, an aggravated audience member standing up and yelling, "No more, please God, no more."

Strangely, that was pretty much the message at last weekend's Destiny rally.

The irony is that those at the protest, whose message was essentially one of intolerance towards anyone who didn't adhere to the same moral code as they did, somehow managed to hold up the mirror of intolerance so as to reflect those who genuinely support diversity.

It was one of the best conjuring tricks in the festival, as the anti-rally protesters who attended called for nothing more dangerous than an end to hate and intolerance.

Unfortunately, they did so with all of the compassion and reason of Nazis in a synagogue.

I thought the festival should have included in its programme the addresses of various courts of law, so people could pop in and see the small human dramas being played out.

Perhaps the best of this was that masterpiece of theatre of the absurd where lawyers are furious about the public's ability to now sue them for negligence.

Rarely have I seen such hypocrisy. It almost makes me want to go back to law school to become an expert in lawyer negligence cases so I can spend time clogging up the courts suing lawyers for shoddy workmanship.

It wasn't their seeming insistence that they were above the law that riled me, rather their sense of almost papal-like infallibility.

I should encourage people to attend what is an excellent and diverse festival. Several times last week Auckland felt distinctly like Wellington. That has to be a good thing, doesn't it?