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…
Anthony Warlow, complete with appropriate affectations, makes a triumphant return to the Australian stage in Fiddler on the Roof, after three years treading the boards on Broadway. He takes the lead role in this beloved musical, the theme of which resonates as strongly today as when it premiered on Broadway in 1964. Fiddler on the…
If any setting was just made for Guillermo del Toro, it’s got to be the circus. Colour, spectacle, carnies, creepy clowns, “freaks” – it positively screams for treatment from the modern master of smart horror. But del Toro is mercurial. Just as he turned his hand to big-budget action in Pacific Rim, he pivots in…
Thomas Bidegain’s tension-filled thriller Suddenly involves a couple marooned on a remote Antarctic island. Their hopes of survival diminish as days turn to weeks and months. Ben (Gilles Lellouche) and Laura (Melanie Thiery) have been together for five years as they embark on a global sailing voyage. Their next populated port of call is a…
The New Zealand drama Cousins deals with themes of family, culture, and the impact of colonialism on the indigenous population, all of which should also resonate strongly with Australian audiences. The film is based on the 1992 novel written by Patricia Grace, which spanned several decades. Actor, playwright and writer and co-director Blair Grace-Smith (Grace’s…
If you’re a crime fiction fan, especially of the hard-edged variety, and you haven’t read anything by Tony Cavanaugh yet, let me suggest you rectify that quick-smart. I was introduced to Cavanaugh’s writing with The Train Rider last year, and while I found it “a disturbing read” with “violent, sickening crime”, it was still a cracker. His latest…
On stage in her cabaret show 39 Forever, Amity Dry is funny and empowered. It’s hard to believe that back in 2003 this versatile performer shot to prominence in the first season of The Block. Now on a fun girls’ night out (with a few new age sensitive guys in tow), Amity charms us with…
The Women, by Clare Boothe Luce is a tart comic satire written in 1936. Its famous gimmick is that only women feature in the casting – in the original play some 130 roles – and is a play concerned with the indulged class of the Manhattan rich and their servants, in their homes/apartments/beauty parlours, and…
Hot on the heels of the release of the excellent TV-adaptation of Red Queen on Prime Video comes the second book in the Antonia Scott and Jon Gutiérrez series: Black Wolf by Juan Gómez-Jurado (translated by Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia). The series plays on a fairly standard Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson format. Antonia…
The idea for this Broadway musical emerged from an ugly truth. Inclusion is the theme. Comedy is the vehicle. The Prom has its Australian debut at a new home for musical theatre in Sydney’s west, Teatro at the Italian Forum. A high profile, Tony Award-winning actress, Dee Dee Allen (Caroline O’Connor) and leading man Barry…
