It’s 1976 and 15-year-old Minnie Goetze has just had sex for the first time: with her mother’s boyfriend (“the handsomest man in the world”)! And … she really liked it. Thus catapulted into her adolescent journey of sexual awakening and empowerment, aspiring artist Minnie documents her discoveries on cassette in intimate and unapologetic detail. Adapting…
J M Barrie first created the character of Peter Pan, the boy who could fly and who never grew up, back in 1902. He then featured the character in the 1904 play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, which enjoyed incredible success. Since then the character has featured in several stories, and…
Unease is what greets you in this psychological crime drama set in Melbourne in the mid ‘70s. The film tracks the relationship between Sparra (Alex Russell) and Paula (Jessica De Gouw) and the impact on their lives of the charismatic and dangerous Pommie (Sullivan Stapleton). Sparra is a very private man in his twenties who…
The seed of the book that became The Patterson Girls, Rachael Johns’ first foray into contemporary fiction, came from a weed. As Johns tells it, the paddocks around the town where she then lived were covered in what appeared to be a beautiful purple flower. She soon discovered that the flower was an invasive weed…
All that glisters is not gold – and there was plenty of non-gold glistering on the Lyric stage. The whole show, from curtains to costumes, and even the seats in the stalls sparkled with sequins, colour, and glitter – and the sky was dotted with shining stars. Designer Catherine Martin’s set and costumes were a…
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…
M Night Shyamalan subverts the usual expectations of the fairy tale visit with kindly old grandmother with this mix of horror and uncomfortable black comedy. The subdued horror film The Visit marks a return to form of sorts for the Sixth Sense filmmaker, whose last couple of films were the awful The Last Airbender and…
Gary Clark Jr. has exploded since his 2012 Blak and Blu album put him on the map with its bluesy rock that was both soulful and energetic in the same guitar movement. After a non-stop tour that has only made him bigger with his engaging stage presence, Gary Clark Jr. has finally released his much…
If you like a bit of weirdness in your reading, a bit of fable for fun, look no further than Undermajordomo Minor. It caught me by surprise, in a good way. Here’s the blurb: Lucien (Lucy) Minor is the resident odd duck in the bucolic hamlet of Bury. Friendless and loveless, young and aimless, he…
Ride and Fourplay are two early works from Jane Bodie. Both are lengthy one act plays. The evening is three hours long. It didn’t feel like it on the night I attended. Ride (2001), is a two-handed journey as two ‘moderns’ wake up in a bed not remembering how they got there or what subsequently…
