The Liberal Agenda – Basement Theatre

Kia ora Basement whānau,Aue, e hika ma! Titiro koutou ki ngā whakaari i tēnei wiki! Check out what’s on this final week of the Silly Season.

In the Theatre, catch Jingle Bull (Rush), Hoani Hotene: It’s Getting Hot-Ene, So Tell Me All Your Jokes, Variété Navideño, Comedy Culture Holiday Buffet, Don’t Quit Your Day Job and Floetry.

In the Studio, catch Orphan’s Christmas, A Very Live Reel Christmas, I’ll Be Homo for Christmas, The Rawdog Gaysian Playwright Challenge: Holey Gay Periodt, No Homo: Queer Comedy (Xmas Special), A Very Courtney & Janaye Christmas, and Man, I Feel Like a Woman.

– Advertisement –

Lollos Pizza is popping up at Basement this Tuesday and Wednesday, come grab a slice before or after your show!

Mā te wā,
Basement Theatre x

Comedy Culture Holiday Buffet
9-11 DEC, 6.30pm. Theatre.The Comedy Culture Holiday Buffet is a three-course, all-you-can-eat extravaganza over three nights that welcomes you to dive into the succulent, comedic feast of all things Comedy Culture!For starters, you’ll be served up a piping hot tasting tray of Improv Soup! Let the Head Chef tantalise your comedic tastebuds as they lead a team of budding Sous Chefs to compete head-to-head in improvised scenes, competing for -you guessed it- SOUP. Only one improvisor is the winner, but everyone takes home soup.

For mains, it’s a smorgasbord of queer chaos with the variety show Can’t Think Straight! Comedians, Muso’s, Drag Artists and Theatre-Makers take the stage however they want and serve you piping hot talent in this unashamedly queer, experimental Variety show.

And you best believe you’ll be ordering dessert because everyone’s fave Comedy lineup show, Femmes & Thems, is here to leave you with something sweet from some of Aotearoa’s Women & Gender-nonconforming Comedians!

Whether you join us for one course or for all three, we can’t wait to have you join us for the Comedy Culture Holiday Feast.

(p.s. in case our writing was too evocative, this is just to make it VERY clear the feast is ART and COMEDY and unless you win SOUP during Improv Soup there isn’t a food-based feast happening at these shows)

Tuesday – Improv Soup (improv)
Wednesday – Can’t Think Straight (variety show)
Thursday – Femmes and Thems (comedy)

Book now

Orphan’s Christmas
9 DEC, 7pm. Studio.Bailey Poching is hosting his funniest friends for a Yuletide dinner party, and you’re invited!There will be food, games, presents and stories. This isn’t your standard line up show, this is a holiday hug, as our friends new and old share what Christmas means to them.

Join us for an evening of feasting, frivolity, and Christmas comedy.

Hosted by Bailey Poching
With Special Guests Janaye Henry, Robbie Nicol, Liv McKenzie, and Jamaine Ross

Presented by The Push

Book now – Selling Fast!

Variété Navideño
9-10 DEC, 8pm. Theatre. Choose What You Pay. Variété Navideño is a vibrant end-of-year variety show that embraces the joy, chaos, and diversity of the silly season. Across two special nights, we bring together short, high-energy acts that explore what this time of year means to different cultures, from festive traditions to playful reflections on closing the year. On Tuesday, the spotlight shines on Auckland’s Spanish-speaking performers, celebrating the humour, warmth, and spirit of communities from Latin America, Spain, and beyond. On Wednesday, the stage welcomes an international line-up, with artists from around the world offering their own colourful and surprising takes.

Book now

I’ll Be Homo for Christmas
10 DEC, 7pm. Studio. Choose What You Pay.Join us for a poetry Christmas show featuring a brilliant line up of queer Tāmaki poets! Come and get merry and jolly while the poets celebrate/commiserate/complain about everything that comes with the silly season. That awkward dinner conversation with your aunt, popping crackers with your chosen family, making Christmas carols as gay as possible. This show will have it all.Line Up: Ethan Christensen, Hebe Kearney, Laura Vincent, Marcus Mackenzie, Zephyr Zhang and Janaye Henry is MC

Book now

The Rawdog Gaysian Playwright Challenge: Holey Gay Periodt.
10 DEC, 8.30pm. Studio. Choose What You Pay.Due to popular demaaaand, let us d*ck the halls this Holey Gay season as we bring you…The Rawdog Gaysian Playwright Challenge: Holey Gay Periodt!

This year, we dare four queer Asian writers to create the play they’d least want to write; in just three days. Each writer delivers a short duologue or monologue themed around the silly season, sealed in an envelope until showtime.

On the night, actors are cast from the audience for chaotic cold readings of each brand-new piece.

The result is the worst delivery of the queer agenda you’ve ever experienced. An experiment in queer joy, failure and some kind of silly spirit that embraces the hideousness of the season.

Book now

A Very Live Reel Christmas
11 & 13 DEC, 7PM. StudioMerry Christmas ya filthy animals!This silly season Live Reel is here to spread their own brand of chaotic Christmas cheer as a line-up of some of Auckland’s best comedians perform three of your favourite holiday films live from memory!

Thursday 4th – HouseSwap Holiday (The Holiday) – SOLD OUT
Thursday 11th – Culkin Takes Manhattan (Home Alone 2) – SELLING FAST
Saturday 13th – McClane on a Plane (Die Hard 2)

And best of all, like a rigged secret santa, the power is in your hands! Follow @livereelnz on instagram where you can nominate and vote for your favourite Christmas movies – ultimately deciding which of the classics we’ll bring to the stage.

Three nights! Three different Chrissy classics! Three nights of guaranteed laughs.

Hosted by Nicky Vella.
Starring a line-up of special guests to be announced.

Book now – Selling Fast!

Hoani Hotene: IT’S GETTING HOT-ENE, SO TELL ME ALL YOUR JOKES – Silly Season
11 DEC, 8PM. TheatreHoani Hotene returns his Billy T winning show to Basement this Silly Season!The world’s heating up, going wild, and Hoani Hotene is trying to get through it all with what…? Jokes Yep.

Hoani brings his personal style of comedy in a show about finding your place and getting by in a crazy world. See one of Aotearoa’s best up-and-coming comedians talk about ‘What Now?’ at his kura kaupapa, trying to grow up at 30, and honestly a bunch of other good stuff.

Book now

A Very Courtney & Janaye Christmas
11 & 13 DEC, 8.30pm. Studio.Christmas is coming early this year with two of Aotearoa’s comedy favourites, Courtney Dawson and Janaye Henry. After a huge year of podcast length voice messages to each other, kissing ONCE (for work) and only being mistaken for each other twice (really weird, we look so different), they’re finishing 2025 the only way they know how – making their friends pay to hear them talk about it on stage in a brand-new stand up comedy show!Courtney brings effortless charm and gags aplenty while Janaye brings effortful charm and long-winded stories. Together, they have more chemistry than your aunt and her prosecs on Christmas day.

Skip the late night Westfield trips, the office Christmas party and come celebrate the silly season with Courtney and Janaye. It’s the Christmas comedy gift you didn’t know you needed!

Selling Fast!

Jingle Bull (Rush)
11 DEC, 9.30PM. THEATRE.Jingle-bull, jingle-bull, jingle-Bull Rush!We’re putting a festive twist on our improv for the silly season. Grab your gladrags and gather your mates for two nights of never-before-seen, totally made-up, improvised comedy.

It’s your last chance to see this herd of Tāmaki Makaurau’s best and brightest performers before the year is out. Bull Rush is always a bucking good time.

Book now

FLOETRY
12 DEC, 6.30pm. Theatre.FLOETRY: Where Poetry Hits the Floor!A live performance clash where dance meets spoken word, and each duo weaves movement and poetry to tell a single story.

Eight dancers. Eight poets. One stage.

It’s a battle like no other and only one duo will rise to claim the title of FLOETRY Champion and take home $500 cash!

Book now

No Homo: Queer Comedy (Xmas Special)
12 DEC, 7pm. Studio.Ring those slayyy bells and get ready for some fa-la-la-la-laughs, because No Homo: Queer Comedy is back for the silly season, with an extra special Christmas spectacular!Join your host James Mustapic alongside some of the best and brightest LGBTQ+ comedians our country has to offer, as they rejoice in the year that’s been, with some holiday cheer and cheeky tales that are sure to leave you feeling merry and bright. Let’s get this Christmas roast cooking!

Lineup: James Mustapic, Brynley Stent, Liv Ward and Emerson Betteridge

Book now

Man, I feel like a woman
12 DEC, 8.30pm. Studio.In a world controlled by the man I ponder upon one thought “Man, i feel like a woman”. A one Woman (allegedly) show about everything and anything – A journey through the rhythmic magic of taro thighs clapping and asthmatic pauses, if you don’t laugh once I’ll hang up my arts career, a 100% guarantee no batteries included.A show about Kata’s (laughter) and conundrums, the more you drink the more you enjoy the show.

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION IS MANdatory.

Afio mai, the fafalina antics are about to ensue!

Book now

Don’t Quit Your Day Job – Christmas Edition
13 DEC, 6.30pm & 8pm. Theatre.Which comedian can cut a job in the “real-world” Christmas Edition!Get your Christmas Crack-Ups with the Don’t Quit Your Day Job Team, featuring a bunch of your favourite comedians as they try to prove they’re capable of doing a job in the real world.

With two back-to-back shows we’ll be testing these comics on their knowledge, improv and practical skills arounds jobs relating to Christmas.

Hoani Hotene hosts, while two teams of comedians know their knowledge and improv skills to show that they’re more than just punchlines and the rule of threes. If you enjoy shows like QI and Thank God You’re Here this is the show for you!

Pay-What-You-Can

More Shows

Book now