It is hard to believe we are already up to Season Four of The Last Kingdom, which was an unexpected and scorching debut success for Netflix back in 2015. Tapping into perhaps a younger market than its genre contemporaries, The Last Kingdom was enthusiastically landed upon for its promise of deliciously nasty royal skulduggery and…
It was October 2nd, 1950 when Charles M. Schulz introduced the characters of Charlie Brown, Shermy and Patty in just seven newspapers. That was the start of a 50-year journey for the cartoonist that forever changed the landscape of popular culture and humour. Schulz’s comic strip was hailed as one of the greatest of the…
Debate continues regarding the issue of marriage equality and same sex marriage, particularly here in Australia where our conservative politicians are slow to react to the change in public consciousness on a global basis. And those opposed to the concept still bandy about concerns about “the welfare of the children” and the lack of either…
In 1973, former Wimbledon champion Bobby Riggs played women’s champion Billie Jean King in a spectacular tennis match – dubbed the Battle of the Sexes – at the Houston Astrodome. Riggs was also a serial tennis hustler, gambling addict and sexist braggart. It proved a landmark that ultimately had repercussions for the status of women’s tennis and…
If you want to see basically every space-movie trope collected in one neat package, Neil Burger’s highly derivative Voyagers could be it. This outwardly beautiful but shallow film tries hard, but ultimately falls short. The obvious starting point – as it often tends to be – is Stanley Kubrick’s seminal 2001: A Space Odyssey. From…
The thing I like about the Limelight on Oxford is that the audience enters the theatre via the stage. Hence, we tread the same boards as the actors. It gives us an additional dimension from which to inhale the atmosphere of the production, besides ambience, lighting and comfort. So, we’re off to a good start…
Pop culture meets high art as the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) presents Marvel: Creating the Cinematic Universe. The exhibition follows Marvel’s superheroes and adversaries from comic book page to cinema screen. It’s also the first major Marvel-related exhibition to be staged in Australia; and the largest ever presented in an art…
In 1929, Virginia Woolf reflected on the treatment of women in general and female authors in particular. Her searing essay, A Room of One’s Own, has now been adapted for the stage. Woolf didn’t hold back. She laid it on the line, pointing out what theatrical adapter and director Peta Hanrahan calls “the profound inconsistencies,…
What a delight! Time just zipped by in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. This cleverly conceived and executed comedy is making its Australian debut. With book and lyrics by Robert L. Freedman and music and lyrics by Steven Lutvak, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder opened on Broadway in November 2013, going on…
Minusonesister is the Sydney Theatre Company’s (STC) Patrick White Playwright’s Award of 2013, by Anna Barnes. The action of the play is set in a contemporary, salubrious household of an Australian city, with a set of siblings – three sisters and brother – struggling, inside a wrapped crime scene room, to make sense of the…
