Nights

London, Paris and New York, all have one and our guest tonight thinks it’s about time we did as well. 

It's time for our fortnightly chat with Nights' resident sociolinguist, associate professor Julia de Bres.

Christian Smith dials in from London with news from the other side of the world.

According to NZ Herald Business Editor at Large Liam Dann, the recent downpours couldn’t have come at a better time for farmers, particularly with the prospect of a long, dry El Niño summer looming.

With more than a thousand books and quite a few of New Zealand’s biggest literary names to his name, he's been one of the most influential figures in New Zealand publishing.

It's time for Shower Thoughts, our weekly attempt to answer the questions that get stuck in your head and refuse to leave.

It's time for us to get up to speed. To tune into the zeitgeist. To chat about what's happening in pop-culture and the world wide web. 

Among those remembering Dai today is longtime friend and fellow comedian Michele A’Court, who knew him from his early days in stand-up. 

When things go wrong inside public organisations, who’s supposed to be keeping an eye on them, and where does the buck actually stop?

In an essay for The National Grid, artist Matthew Galloway has been digging into its history, but also something you might not immediately think about its design.

You know how different places can develop their own words and expressions? Well, it turns out Antarctica is no different.

Apparently, Dunedin has a dinosaur problem... Not the kind you might expect, though.

An independent review will now look at how the losses came about, and why RNZ’s own financial reporting failed to pick up the problem sooner.

We spoke to National Party member Liam Hehir before the election, so we thought we’d get him back to run through how the votes landed and what happens from here.

It's time to get your kilt on, because this weekend Scotland is coming heading south for the Hororata Highland Games, the largest Scottish celebration in New Zealand. From caber tossing and something called the "stone putt", to Highland dancing and pipe bands, it'll be a Scottish feast for the senses. Cindy Driscoll from the Hororata Community Trust joins me on the line to tell us more.

We all know this is going to be a huge weekend in the political world, and for the country. But for many of us, the real battle is happening elsewhere. The All Blacks take on Scotland, Wellington Phoenix face Auckland FC, the Phoenix women are also in action, the Black Caps take on India, and the Kiwi Ferns face Samoa. But arguably the main event is the Rugby League World Cup semi-final, with the...

Well, it's time for a change of scenery ... to breathe in some of that country air. Yes, right now we're going to head to the farm to hear from one of the up-and-coming voices in auctioneering. My next guest is has just taken out the 2026 Heartland Bank New Zealand Young Auctioneers Competition. Dylan Forde joins Emile for a chat.

We've done it. We're here. We've made it to election eve. The debates have been debated. The hoardings, defaced, the babies are covered in lipstick and tomorrow we finally find out what the next Parliament will look like - if not QUITE exactly who forms the next government. Here for a bit of reflection on this long, arduous journey we've all been on, and what's still to come, is The Spinoff's edit...

He's one of the great comedy minds of any generation - the man behind a laundry list of quotes that resonate throughout popular culture, decades after they first went to air ... But the American writer and actor Larry David, head writer and showrunner of Seinfeld, creator and star of the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, is an unlikely success story - due in large part to his own, many self-destruc...

Nights' resident screen critic joins Emile Donovan to review: IN CINEMAS Wild Horse Nine (written and directed Martin McDonagh). Two CIA agents working to destabilise the left wing Allende government in Chile in 1973 take a week long break on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) where their pasts and futures will collide and one (or both) may not make it back to Santiago. Stars Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich...

Everyone loves a good story, but the best ones usually have a bit of scandal, mystery, disaster and downright weirdness thrown in. Long Story Short is the podcast from award-winning New Zealand journalists Eugene Bingham and Adam Dudding. Each episode takes a sensational crime, scandal, catastrophe, or something just plain weird, unravels it, then pieces the whole story back together. And the seco...

Christian Smith dials in from London with news from the other side of the world.

An election gives us the numbers, but it doesn't necessarily give us a government. Under MMP, what happens next can involve days or even weeks of negotiation as parties work out whether they have the numbers to govern, and on what terms. So how does that process actually work, and what rules are everyone playing by? Dr Dean Knight is an expert in constitutional law at Te Herenga Waka Victoria Univ...

It's time to showcase another unusual museum here on RNZ Nights. It's our regular segment we call Nights at the Museum. And tonight we're headed to a place packed with wooden faces, painted smiles and more than a century of history. Our feature museum is Vent Haven Museum in Kentucky, the world's only museum dedicated entirely to ventriloquism. And Museum curator Lisa Sweasy joins me on the line n...

It's time for Shower Thoughts, our weekly attempt to answer the questions that get stuck in your head and refuse to leave. Tonight's one is this: Why does something like a loaf of bread go hard and stale as it gets older, while fruit goes the other way, getting softer and softer? What's actually happening to these foods at a structural level before they end up in our mouths? Well, to help us get t...