REAL FAKE WHITE DIRT is fresh, funny and unafraid of faux pas, scratching at the underlying cultural nerves of that most unsettled of settler races – the Paheka. This solo spoken-word poetry tour-de-force from award-winning performer Jess Holly Bates returns from a packed houses in London and Edinburgh. Laying bare the underlying anxieties of post-colonial multiculturalism, REAL FAKE WHITE DIRT is the cringe at your racist grandparents, the modification of nasal Pakeha vowels, the answer to the unasked questions of a modern white crisis, and the desperate lie about your heritage.

Fusing the lyrical power of spoken word poetry with the wry relief of theatrical staging under acclaimed director Geoff Pinfield, REAL FAKE WHITE DIRT is a celebration and a critique of the Pakeha condition in New Zealand, exposing the beautiful uncertainty of a people who stand and live in a complicated relationship to both the land and the first peoples.