Standing Room Only Podcast Options

2:35 PM.The lockdown mid-year resulted in an explosion of entries to the Play It strange songwriting competitions, with the secondary school age musicians having time to pour their thoughts into their tracks… Read more Audio

2:25 PM.Ecopoetry is a term that was coined relatively recently, when 'eco' found itself attached to all kinds of terms. But the ideas behind ecopoetry date back to New Zealand's early settlers who wrote… Read more Audio

1:45 PM.Musician Puoro Jerome is a specialist in playing taonga puoro - traditional Maori instruments. He features on a new compilation of music that's woven around sounds of our landscapes and wildlife. He's… Read more Audio

1:30 PM.If someone knocks on your door out of the blue asking if you'd be interested in renting your building to a film crew, there's a good chance that person will be Kayleighsha Wharton. The Location and… Read more Audio

12:45 PM.Many New Zealand bands have never been so busy with festivals clambering to fill their programmes with homegrown acts this summer. There are concerns that festivals might end up a bit samey without… Read more Audio

12:34 PM.It's taken two years so far and there's more work to go on repairing a large painting of a British shipwreck that isn't being allowed to sink without trace at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Helpless… Read more Audio

12:15 PM.It's a year since Courtney Johnston took on the role of Te Papa's chief executive. There'd been quite the turnover of people in the role since the nation's museum and art gallery opened in Wellington… Read more Audio

2:40 PM.While some parts of the arts sector are thriving, others are struggling financially thanks to Covid-19 and its aftermath. Theatres are one, art galleries another. So the publication of a free booklet… Read more Audio

2:25 PM.Being selected for two writers' residencies in a row has been the perfect welcome home gift for Greek/Kiwi writer and reviewer, Michalia Arathimos She and her family are preparing to leave the… Read more Audio

1:50 PM.For more than 40 years, Nelson based ceramicist Christine Boswijk has loved the feeling of clay moving in her hands. Christine's highly respected and thought provoking ceramics are in public… Read more Audio

1:33 PM.The demand for people with film production skills is so intense that students at the SAE Institute Auckland Campus were being offered jobs before they'd even graduated. Even staff are being lured away… Read more Audio

12:45 PM.Dunedin-based oral historian Louise Kewene-Doig's father died when she was young, too young to ask her father about the heyday of the Māori Showbands which he was part of - bands like the… Read more Audio

12:30 PM.Usually Te Papa's exhibitions are months, if not years, in the planning - but it had just weeks to bring together a large-scale exhibition allowing people to get up close to award winning World of… Read more Audio

12:15 PM.After an interrupted few months during the Covid-19 lockdowns, 2020 has turned into a bumper year for New Zealand made films - both in number produced and box office success. Next year, thanks largely… Read more Audio

5:17 PM.The Auckland Arts Festival was one of the first major arts events that took a a huge financial hit when Covid-19 struck. But, undeterred, the organisers have pivoted like crazy to come up with a… Read more Audio

5:02 PM.After decades of the so-called "brain drain", as New Zealand's best and brightest headed off to pastures new overseas, this year saw a sudden reversal. They call it a Brain Gain, as the Covid-19… Read more Audio

2:49 PM.A teacher who helped to shape the NCEA secondary school Drama curriculum - and fought to have it included as a NZQA subject - is about to retire after more than 40 years. David Chambers was appointed… Read more Audio

2:40 PM.Photographs of the inhabitants of Stewart Island/Rakiura taken during the Covid-19 lockdown - snapped from a distance but still revealing - have been published in a new book. The photographer is… Read more Audio, Gallery

2:25 PM.A te reo Maori poetry film has won top prize at an international competition in Ireland. "Noho Mai" was a collaborative effort by the co-directors, writer Peta-Maria Tunui and audiovisual creative… Read more Audio, Gallery

1:48 PM.Millions of people have been posting videos of themselves dancing on the social media site Tik Tok during the pandemic lockdowns. And that proves an important point about dance, in the view of the two… Read more Audio

1:31 PM.It's almost 20 years since the last significant survey show of contemporary Maori art. But Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki has taken up the challenge to represent 70 years of work from the 1950s… Read more Audio, Gallery

12:16 PM.You'd think online sites like Trade Me and Facebook Marketplace would have marked the end of interest in op shops and dealers in all things retro. But it's not so. Rose Jackson and her partner Matt… Read more Audio, Gallery

4:40 PM.To say Sam Neill has had a busy year is putting it mildly. He opened 2020 playing Phil O'Brien as guest star on Matinee Idle. After that, he shot off to the UK as a rather better paid guest star on… Read more Audio

2:49 PM.For those of us listening to hourly bulletins throughout the year the statistics from the pandemic began to blur. It's hard to put the numbers into perspective. Hundreds of thousands of deaths… Read more Audio