Legendary music promoter and director Dave McLean joins The Blurb’s Patrick Scott to discuss his new film Schemers. The film tells how he came to promote and manage some of the biggest bands ever, like Nirvana, Iron Maiden and Placebo. He also regales on some extraordinary stories about the music business, as well as future…
Two guys waxing eloquently about their shared experiences. That is the essence of The Twins, a play about friendship, redemption, loss and regret. It is set in a tin shed studio in Kangaroo Valley, NSW, over a single day towards the end of 2019. The pair chatting – comedian and actor Greg Fleet and documentary filmmaker and philanthropist…
Jack Beaumont is not the real name of the author of The Frenchman, a book that itself is full of pseudonyms, nicknames and operational code names. Beaumont was, apparently, a member of the French secret service after a career as a pilot and has, since retiring, moved to Australia. Following in the footsteps of authors…
The trashy Fatale is a latter day noir thriller that’s part Fatal Attraction and part Basic Instinct. But the longer it goes the more convoluted its plotting becomes and some plot twists become a little too unbelievable. Derrick (Michael Ealy) is a sports agent who has built a successful business with his best friend Rafe…
Meet Carol and Daryl Pitts, aka Stephanie Marion Wood and Brendy Ford. They are a pair of wellness gurus who ply their craft each Wednesday afternoon at the Shady Pines Nursing Home for the elderly and infirm. The senior citizens are in for a real treat as Carol and Daryl – lovers of life and each other…
In JJ Winlove’s debut feature, June Again, a go-getting woman is gone. In her place is an empty shell. June Wilton (Noni Hazlehurst) has vascular dementia. She’s being well looked after in an appropriate facility, where the staff is kind and understanding. Her condition means she has visions of the past as if they were…
“There’s nothing original about the skeleton of Honour, the play” says its writer Joanna Murray-Smith. I would agree. Its subject has been tackled over and over – in film, theatre and book form – for centuries. It goes like this: Ageing male in long term marriage is seduced by young and exciting vixen. He leaves…
The opening night of Opera Australia’s spectacular staging of Verdi’s dramatic opera Aida was blighted by a major technical failure. The surtitles, which were to appear above the stage and translate the lyrics into English, were nowhere to be seen for the first 20 minutes or so. So, if you didn’t happen to know the story you…
What a sensational stage show for the littlies. There were toddlers and youngsters galore and excited parents and grandparents with them anticipating something special as the proverbial curtain was about to fall at the Athenaeum Theatre. And special is just what they got. The 45-minute piece is a faithful adaptation of four of author Eric Carle’s stories,…
Cassandra Austin’s debut All Fall Down was a sometimes dreamlike Australian gothic tale set in a rural country town. While it is at times a little more grounded, her latest book Like Mother, finds Austin in similar territory. An Australian country town in the late 1960s in the middle of a heatwave and a set…
