“The only thing I love more than a good documentary is a good music documentary,” says Australian filmmaker Lisa Nicol. “I love documentaries, which is probably why I wanted to make them myself. I’m a big fan of D B Pennebaker, Errol Morris, films like Hoop Dreams, the usual suspects,” she continues. Nicol studied communications…
George Bernard Shaw wrote Saint Joan, in 1923, six scenes and an epilogue. Imara Savage, the Director of this production, has ambitiously taken many liberties with the original text. This Sydney Theatre Company production of Saint Joan occupies the stage for one hour and forty-five minutes, straight through, without an interval. A great deal of…
The rush to write apocalyptic narratives doesn’t seem to be slowing. Inga Simpson channels her experiences in the recent Australian bushfires and a dash of pandemic and wraps them up into something worse in her latest book The Last Woman in the World. Just the title is enough of a tip off that things are…
Set in Geelong, Undertow is a psychological drama about grief, loss and toxic masculinity particularly within the AFL. It also serves up a raw portrait of a woman suffering a breakdown following an emotionally traumatic event. The title references the turbulent emotions at play in this domestic drama. Claire (Laura Gordon) is a photojournalist who…
William Shakespeare’s light-hearted comedy As You Like It is one of the playwright’s most regarded pastoral plays. Before we get to the simple forest life of Queensland Theatre’s lively production, however, we are first opened to its treacherous duchy court, for all the world is, of course, a stage. The story is of Rosalind (Emma…
A transparent, highly predictable script underpins a sweet-natured coming of age tale pitched at younger teens. Fifteen-year-old Jack Hooper (William Lodder) and his widowed mother Christie (Frances O’Connor) move to a small town in Western Australia a few years after the death of his father/her husband. She opens a fruit and vegetable shop and he…
Sex, drugs and disco? The popular New York disco Studio 54, run by entrepreneur Steve Rubell, epitomised the hedonistic lifestyle of the late 70s. Rubell’s aim was to create a place where ordinary, but good looking people, could mix with celebrities for a party that would never end. He created a place where the rich…
The Night Before is not your typical feel good Christmas Eve fable. Rather this R-rated comedy is an anti-Christmas movie and with its anarchic streak of humour is more in the same tone as the black comedy Bad Santa. However, this is also this year’s Christmas turkey, and what an unappealing and tasteless serving it…
Following the release of their soul-funk track “Clarity”, Polish Club return to the stage this November and December for a headline tour. Joined by special guests Heaps Good Friends, Wing Defence and Sweater Curse, Polish Club will be getting down this summer in Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Since the release of their debut album Alright Already, the white-knuckled drummer John-Henry…
Caroline, or Change is a work, an autobiographical work from Tony Kushner. He is famous for Angels in America (1993). Born in Manhattan, his family moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana, when he was a young boy. He wanted to write about race relations, the civil rights movement, and African Americans and southern Jews in the…
