By Eli Cairns
Sometimes mourning means taking the piss.
Alice May Connolly’s BOX, fittingly named after its writer-performer Alice May Connolly (and her box) is a warm and heartfelt reflection on grief and loss, buried inside a sharp and enthusiastic pisstake of the average comedy-slash-theatre Wellington Fringe show.
Within every family heirloom is a slightly smaller, cuter family heirloom, born of deep struggle and pain which Connolly is grabbing by the throat as she leads us head-first into her family’s world. This show is unassuming, slowly unfolding every page of this box’s origins from birth to life to death. Our most terrifying moment, as the audience, is the beginning, when the spotlight comes upon the stage’s only willing participant: the very big and intricately crafted BOX carved with flowers and carriages in the centre of the stage. The silence is full and nervous as the box sits alone, until it begins to very literally speak our thoughts aloud: “Did I really just pay $25 to look at a box? Is this all it takes to make a Fringe show?”
Yet this box, of course, is so much more. Connolly’s viciously self-aware commentary holds steady through her entrance (no guesses for where she was hiding), and she arrives to embrace the audience with welcoming open arms. We’re then led on an increasingly bumpy road through the box’s long history, meeting at last the death of a family member and the impossibility Connolly finds at the thought of moving on. Picking up the pieces of a loss felt deep, she puts together a mosaic of over a decade of grief for us to feast on, cracks and splinters included. Banter, wordplay, and an actual cup full of piss offer the perfect reprieve between each cutting revelation, blending comedy and grief into a delightfully sorrowful hour of laughs.
Although it’s hard work performing alongside such a talented box, Alice May Connolly’s best strengths shine as she confronts her show’s core head-on. Quick-witted, earnest, and unashamed, she refuses to let the audience shy away from the sheer misery of this world-shattering death, while soothing our wounds by collecting a literal crowd’s worth of mocha orders (alternative milks included, for a tentative Wellington group). Connolly’s banter with both box and audience endears us to her more and more, until we trust her just enough for her to cut deep with the box’s best kept secrets. Her delivery is sharp and her writing well-balanced, bringing the stage to life with only her open-hearted honesty and a few silent arguments with that big fancy box.
Most heartwarming in this show is the climax: a reveal within a reveal, of course within a box, within another box. The layers to Connolly’s storytelling are as charming as they are meaningful, each prop laid carefully in the show’s beginning for a beautiful fluttering callback at the end.
Although by no means the only show in Wellington comedy or even Fringe 2026 to explore the loss of a loved one, Alice May Connolly’s BOX walks the line between comedy and sincerity with ease, perfect for massaging old scars and reflecting on times since passed. Most of all, this show works hard to help us find the fresh budding bundle of joy trapped in our very own big box of grief-
Right next to the big ol’ cup of piss.
.
Disclosure: As a somewhat active member of the Wellington performing arts community, I may be quite familiar with a number of the performers in this show. Having said that, I am not a liar, and there is zero bias in my reviews, shut up.
Also, tickets were provided to me for free by the production. Literally changes nothing, though