Standing Room Only Podcast Options

12:35 PM.Composer Ross Harris has been working on a special commission for the Ka¯piti Concert Orchestra that brings together his many musical skills. Harris who has written operas, symphonies, chamber music… Read more Audio

12:15 PM.Lynn Freeman speaks with renowned theatre director Adrian Jackson MBE about his work with 'Precariat Whanau', a term encompassing families and individuals who live in barely adequate insecure housing… Read more Audio

6:10 PM.The range of comedy, light drama and drama series on TV and streaming services in this country is astonishing right now. The days of "diversity" meaning "worthy and tucked away somewhere" are long… Read more Audio, Gallery

2:45 PM.It reads like a western and it's based on the Maungatapu Murders of 1866, when the notorious Burgess Gang killed five men in a crime that shocked the young colony. In his novel The Physician's Gun… Read more Audio, Gallery

2:35 PM.Ruth Bayley is a history graduate who's woven what she's read in second world war soldiers' diaries and telegrams into her first novel, Barefoot. It's set between Wellington and the battlefields of… Read more Audio

2:26 PM.Almost three tonnes of ice will soon be dangling high above Nelson's harbour while suspended dancers struggle to balance on it, as it melts over the course of a day. The city's Festival-goers will be… Read more Audio, Gallery

1:50 PM.Tired of being left off touring schedules by musicians, Whanganui is taking matters into its own hands. Over Labour Weekend it's launching a new festival, Lost Art Summer in the Square, with a line up… Read more Video, Audio

1:30 PM.Wellington based, Filipino-born bassist and composer Seth Boy often combines the musical influences of his home country and of jazz greats like Duke Ellington, and John Coltrane in his work. Seth has… Read more Video, Audio

12:46 PM.Winning this year's $50,000 Dame Malvina Major Award is allowing Christchurch tenor Oliver Sewell to live the dream and forge an international career. Oliver's currently in Europe after recently… Read more Audio

12:30 PM.Tatting, a form of lace making, was on an international 'seriously endangered craft' list until just a couple of years ago. Its rejuvenation is credited to the worldwide Covid lockdowns, when people… Read more Audio, Gallery

2:49 PM.Many contemporary writers and artists are trying very hard to encourage people to think about climate change - in books, in documentaries, in art. So many and so hard that often climate change… Read more Audio, Gallery

2:40 PM.Maori writer and scholar Alice Te Punga Somerville has launched her first poetry collection from her new home - in Canada. She has several academic books to her name but Always Italicise - How to… Read more Audio

2:25 PM.Tapping into his own New Zealand army career in Military Intelligence, and with the help of handy sources in the service, Darin Dance has written a spy novel set in Wellington. Whiskey Lima Golf sees… Read more Audio

1:46 PM.Massive jigsaws that traverse time and space, are the latest mind blowing creations from artist Zac Langdon-Pole. Almost 130-thousand pieces make up the jigsaws that combine the latest images from… Read more Audio, Gallery

1:33 PM.It doesn't look much - it doesn't even have a roof - but a group of Port Chalmers residents in Dunedin are battling to save an historic foundry, and convert it into a multipurpose community, arts and… Read more Audio, Gallery

12:45 PM.The housing crisis has been headline news for some years now. But Wellington artist and activist Heleyni Pratley wants to delve deeper and ask people to share their own stories about how it's… Read more Audio

12:30 PM.Timaru's artists and performers are banding together with local businesses and the Council in an all-out effort to boost the population and regenerate the South Canterbury city centre. A trial run is… Read more Audio, Gallery

12:16 PM.The public's trust in the media is at an all time low. Perhaps it's time to simply hand over the newspapers, cameras and microphones to our children, to get their take on the news. This is the premise… Read more Audio, Gallery

3:48 PM.When your debut novel sparks a publisher's bidding war, wins a slew of awards and nominations and tops the bestseller list, when do you have time to write the notoriously difficult second novel… Read more Audio

2:47 PM.Award-winning Melbourne dancer and choreographer Jo Lloyd is creating a new work for the New Zealand Dance Company's 10th anniversary, incorporating insults and phrases she's gathered over many years… Read more Audio, Gallery

2:36 PM.Frankie McMillan explores wandering in all kinds of ways - through landscapes and through life - in her new collection of short and ultra short stories, The Wandering Nature of Us Girls. Many are… Read more Audio, Gallery

2:26 PM.The University of Canterbury Musical Theatre Society has performed around 80 productions over its 50-year history, and many of the members involved on and off stage are about to gather for a reunion… Read more Audio, Gallery

1:46 PM.Writing the rocky love story of a second-generation Chinese-New Zealander and a recent Taiwanese migrant has been the focus of writer Rose Lu's six-month writer's residency at the historic Randell… Read more Audio

1:31 PM.For the three years before sculptor Peter Nicholls' death last year, he worked with his friend and editor Don Hunter on a biography charting his 60 years of creating often monumental work from found… Read more Audio, Gallery

12:45 PM.The New Zealand landscape is dramatic and varied - a mecca for film makers these days, but long before them, for painters. But it's not just the beautiful beaches, rugged mountains and lush forests… Read more Audio, Gallery