1 April, 2026

Creepy-crawlies invade stage for tale of a young worm’s quest to find mum

Larva boy… Puka Moeau plays the titular character in The Worm

Giant critters from the bug world will take a young audience on a journey of discovery when The Worm wriggles its way into the hearts of local audiences.
“It’s great fun and it’s got a great track record,” says co-director Ben Crowder of the original play by North Shore writer Carl Bland and his brother Peter.
The Worm was originally penned as a Covid arts recovery project for Nightsong Theatre.
The Auckland-based company later put on special community performances in Hawke’s Bay after the Cyclone Gabrielle floods in 2023.

Now, fresh from a northern tour that started in Kerikeri, The Worm turns to what is home territory for Torbay resident Peter Bland, who co-directs, and others in the cast and crew.
It will be staged at the PumpHouse theatre in Takapuna for the second week of the school holidays.
“It’s an all bells and whistles production,” says Crowder, a drama teacher who has his own North Shore connection, with a job tutoring at South Seas Film School in Glenfield.
“The show has got a lot of heart,” he says.
Crowder and Peter Bland are the mainstays of Nightsong, which has been running for 20 years, mostly producing dramas for adults or older teens, including festival successes Mr Red Light and Te Pō.
Their pivot to cater for a younger audience was partly because they thought that having gone through lockdowns, children could do with something fun.
“The work we create is usually very visual,” says Crowder, so the age-group transition worked, but it still required a strong story. “They’re quite a discerning audience.”
What the recommended age six-plus audience and their whānau will see is a story of a young worm, who suffers a fright when his mother is kidnapped from their quiet home.
The mother is played by acclaimed character actor Alison Quigan, who pops up later in the show as a sneaky snail. Brett O’Gorman is another familiar face, disguised as a cockroach, who grew up on the North Shore

Kidnapped… Well-known actor Alison Quigan plays the worm’s mother, and later a sneaky snail

The part of the title’s worm is taken by Puka Moeau, a top graduate from Toi Whakaari New Zealand Drama School several years ago.
He sets off on a quest to find his mother and discovers a whole new world.
At once exciting and scary, it is populated with new critters, ranging from a villainous rapping rat who rules the underground, played by Shauntelle Jones, to other oddball creatures.
Giant puppets, a spider and birds ramp up the atmosphere.
Original live music is played on stage by multi-instrumentalist Finn Scholes, the composer behind ensemble Carnivorous Plants Society.
Crowder says it’s exciting to be helping fill a huge gap in children’s theatre since the death of Tim Bray last year.
He is no stranger to the PumpHouse, having first brought a version of Badjelly the Witch there at the turn of the century.
He has also worked with Devoport’s arts hub, The Depot, on the set-up of some of its Wayfinder courses.
Nightsong is already working on another children’s production, in conjunction with the New Zealand Dance Company.
It hopes to bring the show to the Pump-House.
Meanwhile, the Blands’ play is in the process of being turned into a book, with publication expected this year.

• The Worm, at the PumpHouse in Takapuna, 14-19 April, with a sensory relaxed performance on April 17. Tickets $37.50, with group and other discounts from pumphouse.co.nz