British author Kate Atkinson delivers another fascinating, well researched historical novel in Shrines of Gaiety. Set in London between the wars, its focus is on Nellie Coker, the matriarch of a family that runs a group of illegal clubs. The narrative ranges over not only Nellie Coker and her family but others around the clubs…
Alliance Française is back to delight Australian film-lovers and Francophiles with the 28th edition of the French Film Festival, running through March and April with a showcase of the best in French cinema from the past year. Opening in Sydney on 7 March and wrapping in Adelaide on 23 April, the festival will present screenings…
Last year we saw the excellent documentary RBG, a comprehensive and insightful look at the life and legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the diminutive lawyer and champion of human rights and gender equality who became the second woman ever appointed to the bench of the US Supreme Court. Ginsburg, who graduated at the top of…
While watching Apollo 11, I felt immense pride in what Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and the entire NASA team managed to achieve 50 years ago – on 20 July 1969. The never-before-seen footage lifts the lid on exactly what happened from the final hours before take-off until the three astronauts returned safely to…
I am a firm believer that everyone has a story to tell if you dig deep enough. Of course, some are arguably more compelling than others. Creator and performer Bron Batten has quite a tale to relay. It involves her ill-fated affair with a political polar opposite. She is a Left-leaning, Greens voting, almost vegan,…
What a woman! As the saying goes, they broke the mould when they created her, as shown in Matthew Walker’s documentary I’m Wanita. The Wanita of the title likes to be known as Australia’s queen of honky-tonk. In her late 40s, she’s autistic, a binge drinker, a smoker and a prostitute of 18 years who…
A murder mystery with a difference, Transwoman Kills Influencer pits four colourful and flawed characters against each other. This hardly has the niceties of the world’s longest running staged whodunnit, Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. Rather, it is audacious in its extreme characterisations. Gender politics and prejudice play a part in proceedings. Transwoman Kills Influencer combines live action with pre-recorded…
Most of the time you don’t know when something will be your last time. When I took my son to see Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers last May, I didn’t know we’d never get another chance to see that band. There have been rare exceptions – like Warren Zevon, David Bowie, and Leonard Cohen. They all…
Angel of Mine is a slow-moving thriller about intuition and obsession. Inspired by real events, it follows divorced mother Lizzie Manning (Noomi Rapace). She’s emotionally fraught, as she battles for custody of her son and juggles a job as a sales rep for a cosmetics line. An encounter with Lola (Annika Whiteley) turns Lizzie’s life…
As we filed into La Boite’s Roundhouse Theatre the stage was set as the square ring – the boxing arena. Boxers sparred and trained, skipping rope, punching the heavy bag, doing push-ups while being urged on by a thumping sound track and the bellowing voice of trainer Luke, played beautifully by the diminutive Margi Brown…
