A bravura performance from renowned Australian actor Colin Friels highlights Scaramouche Jones. This intoxicating work was written by Brit Justin Butcher in the final months of 1999. Scaramouche Jones has been a clown for 50 years. Now he’s marking the final hour of his life on Earth. It’s New Year’s Eve 1999, exactly 100 years to…
This month the Art Gallery of Western Australia introduces a new initiative inf the form of Portrait Month, which explores the many forms of portraiture across photography, painting, video and sculpture. And taking centre stage is the WA’s premier portraiture prize, the 2016 Black Swan Prize for Portraiture, presented for the first time at the…
Sam Beam – aka Iron & Wine – brings his soul-infused folk rock to Australia. Touring with a full band, Iron & Wine’s tour of the country hits the mainland capitals, starting later this month. Tickets are now available. Iron & Wine has captured the emotion and imagination of listeners with distinctly cinematic songs. It’s…
A perennial favourite of mine, Michael Shafar is one very funny man who has no hesitation in pushing the boundaries and fortunately he is back at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival with a batch of new material. He starts his 50-minute set by telling us that before the pandemic he entertained on cruise ships. Then he…
Upon listening to Passion Pit’s new album Kindred, something felt off. As a big fan of the band’s first two albums, I had hefty expectations for this new one. The usual electronic pop was there, a little more slick and clean this time around. I went back and listened to the first two albums (Manners…
In Olivier Peyon’s Lie With Me, noted author Stephane Belcourt (Guillaume de Tonquédec) returns to his childhood hometown in the Cognac-producing region of south-west France after a 35-year absence and faces some of the ghosts of his past. He has been invited to be the guest speaker and brand ambassador for the town’s signature cognac…
Identity. Being comfortable in our own skin. It is integral to who we are and what we stand for. English is about that. It is about love and loathing, aspiration and fear. It deals with learning to speak a language that is not your native tongue and, in so doing, fitting in, not standing out….
Michael Keaton is having a moment right now. After the much-hyped Beetlejuice Beetlejuice the veteran actor is back on our screens in the gentle dramedy Goodrich. In the hands of writer-director Hallie Meyers-Shyer (Home Again), Keaton gets the chance to display his talents without make-up and catch-phrases. Goodrich is an almost-Christmas movie. Even though no…
The past and the present collide in a story that involves reframing a tainted history. We are in Gippsland in the 1840s and a white woman is discovered near death, washed up on a beach. Just what happened to her remains the stuff of myths, but she is said to have been rescued by and…
Sometimes we forget how we used to get the news. Before social media and before the internet. Even before television and cinema newsreels. There were…newspapers! And the holy grail for a journalist was for their story to dominate the front page. Now playing at the New Theatre, The Front Page is a fast-paced: story. Written…
