Basey loves a space where artists get to try and test in a pressure free environment. Saturday scratches are a series of rough and ready play readings of brand new work from emerging and experienced playwrights. Set in our intimate studio every Saturday in Fringe, audiences are invited to hear two scripts for the very first time, hot off the press.

Each work responds to our provocation this year, Adaptation or Tell it how you see it. These plays take known stories and twist them into the here and now, updating the outdated and playing havoc with old familiars.

In week one, we have Em, a queer, modernised adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma by Sam Brooks.

In week two, HAR, Shelby Kua’s exploration of a young Malaysian Chinese woman living in Auckland through the looking glass of Alice in Wonderland.

Em
Saturday Scratches 3 Sep
Emmett Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had levied nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex him.

Until now.

Em is a queer retelling of Jane Austen’s masterwork Emma, turned around, flipped and set in our very own Queenstown, Expect joy, expect meddling, and expect shade.

HAR
Saturday Scratches 10 Sep
​​On a shadowy Mooncake festival night – which Ai Li spends alone – Ai Li glimpses the Moon Rabbit from the legends she’s loved all her life. She chases after it and the moment the moon is covered by a passing cloud, she trips and falls into a drain, but keeps on falling and falling…

Into a psychedelic landscape of surreal self-discovery.

It’s Alice in Wonderland, except Ai Li isn’t white/blonde/blue-eyed, the poetry isn’t (totally) nonsensical, and the heroine doesn’t meet anyone but herself. Delivered through a mish mash of performance poetry, dance, stand-up, multiple languages, and lots and lots of colour.