Archives for July 2023

Some 16 shortlisted writers were on tenterhooks as the winner and place getters of the 2023 Furphy Literary Award were announced at Shepparton Art Museum on Saturday night (July 29). The winners were: First: Jen Rewell ‘Away to Me’ Second: Eugenie Pusenjak ‘The Drey’ Third: Natalie Vella ‘The Lucky Country’ Jen Rewell’s uplifting and offbeat

Melbourne International Film Festival has announced a total prize pool of over $300,000 across a suite of six award categories, together with the juries and nominees for two significant competition awards: the inaugural First Nations Film Creative Award in collaboration with Kearney Group, and the return of the Blackmagic Design Australian Innovation Award recognising an

Emmy, Golden Globe and Tony Award -winner Anthony LaPaglia takes to the Australian stage for the first time, in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Directed by Neil Armfield (Cloudstreet, The Diary of a Madman, Exit the King), this new production comes to Melbourne’s Her Majesty’s Theatre for an exclusive, strictly limited season from September

In 1967, a mystery unfolds in Ballygar on the outskirts of Dublin. Lily, played by Maggie Smith, tends a small memorial grotto dedicated to her son Declan, who drowned at sea in 1927. A young woman, Chrissie, played by Laura Linney, arrives from America for her late mother’s funeral. Eileen, a mother with six children,

Rough Trade starts as you would expect, given its title, with sex, the surprising sex life of slugs. Directed by Anthony Skuse, this one-woman show, a monologue delivered by its writer Katie Pollock, presents a woman trading away her past life after divorce as she downsizes to her new reality. Within the micro-economy of Facebook

The energy and passion of all the dancers (too many to name in a brief review) is clear in Burn the Floor. They are dedicated artists and each and every gesture tells a story. They move effortlessly between styles and forms of dance, captivating as they go. The small musical troupe of musicians is equally

The new Australian play Hells Gates premieres at the Geelong Arts Centre from August 10-12. Hells Gates is from the Green Room award-winning team of story makers at The Space Company, created and produced by Joel Carnegie. Drawn from verbatim sources in the wake of a mass whale rescue, Hells Gates follows the remarkable true

Chevalier (M). Opens in selected cinemas August 3. The life and trials of Joseph Bologne, aka Chevalier de Saint Georges, makes for mildly entertaining viewing, but feels like a missed opportunity to examine and explore both a complex central figure and historical material, instead settling for a comfortable skim over a story that deserves far

for the biggest day of her life. Enter Rosie, a 22year-old makeup artist from the David Jones counter, sent to help Edith get camera ready. In Rosie’s capable hands, this morning will be a breeze. So long as they both stick to the brief. Monument challenges the trivialisation of the hyper-feminine environment of beauty therapy

Any film that stars Dame Maggie Smith will immediately get a second look from most movie lovers. Add the names Kathy Bates and Laura Linney and it’s starting to look like a pretty spectacular cast. Maggie Smith’s latest film, The Miracle Club, has the veteran in a very different role from the Dowager Duchess in