On an Egyptian paddle steamer in the 1950s, heiress Kay Mostyn boards with her new husband Simon. Stalked by Simon’s ex-fiancée, and joined by a colourful cast of other passengers with dark motives, their honeymoon quickly becomes a nightmare, in this gripping murder mystery play from the Genesian Theatre Company. Death on the Nile is…
Jay Gonzalez joined Drive-By Truckers in 2008, filling in for Spooner Oldham on keyboards, and eventually sharing lead guitar duties with Mike Cooley to compensate for the absence of third guitarist Jason Isbell. Left to his own devices on this second full-length solo album, Gonzalez displays his interest in 70’s pop rock influences, whether it’s…
Paul Lynch’s 2023 Booker Prize winner Prophet Song is a dark descent into a very possible future. Set in Ireland, Lynch chronicles a worsening situation of a country that descends quickly into fascism and then deteriorates into civil war. At the centre of the action is a family tenuously but ferociously held together by mother…
Anyone familiar with the work of Pokey LaFarge will tell you that his music is deeply rooted in the music of the past, think the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, before rock got to rolling, when pop on the radio mingled jazz, country and lots of American roots music with their melodic pop. While the timbre…
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…
To borrow a phrase from this record’s boldest rocker, in a world dominated by American Idol Voices, Disney divas and flash in the pan pop star wannabes, the collaboration of k.d. lang, Neko Case and Laura Veirs proves to be one of the world’s best kept secrets. Of course, Canadian lang has had a long…
Whitney is a well-researched and revealing film from Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin McDonald (Touching the Void). It’s the second documentary in as many years charting the rise and tragic death of pop diva Whitney Houston. Nick Broomfield’s Whitney: Can I Be Me centred more on her later years. it charted her decline through drug abuse and…
The spark burns brightly in Hairspray, a delightfully breezy musical with discrimination as its theme. It is colourful and dynamic, with toe-tapping tunes, smooth moves and a stellar cast, with talent to burn. The show positively sizzles, bringing frenzied acclamation from an appreciative audience. We’re in Baltimore in 1962. Teenager Tracy Turnblad (Carmel Rodrigues) is small of stature…
The Black Dog takes hold and there is no letting go. That wake-up call is at the heart of the world premiere production of Erasers, which tackles the broader issue of disconnection. The latter is manifest in many ways, the disengagement between males and females, parents and children, blacks and whites, the gay and the…
I defy you to try to make sense of Ghost Stories. The central character is Professor Philip Goodman (Andy Nyman), a renowned sceptic. Most unexpectedly, his idol, psychologist Charles Cameron – who had mysteriously disappeared – sends Goodman a message that he wants to see him. When Goodman rocks up, a curmudgeonly Cameron reveals he…
