ABC RN Arts: Recent Episodes
ABC Radio
Each week day RN Arts programs zoom in on a specific area of art and culture, brought to you by a specialist presenter. Subscribe to their podcasts separately by searching by name in your podcasting app.
Can you separate the misogynist from the art? If you walk around the winter blockbuster The Picasso Century at the National Gallery of Victoria, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this wasn’t a live debate. Daniel speaks with Didier Ottinger from the Centre Pompidou, who hopes the exhibition he’s curated presents the 20th Century's most famous artist as a sensitive man defined by his friendships and rivalries and shaped by his extraordinary times. Art historian Ksenia Soboleva and writer Shannon Lee beg to differ. Plus, Snuff Puppets are renowned for their punk aesthetic and mission is to make art for everybody. Founder Andy Freer speaks to Daniel from the Polish city of Krakow, where the troupe is working with Ukrainian refugees and their rich folklore. And we meet Penelope Cain, whose work fuses art and science.
Darren Yap has been a part of some huge moments in Australian performing arts history, from acting in Miss Saigon to being on the directorial team for the Sydney 2000 closing ceremony. Now he's using his talents to bringing new Asian Australian work to the stage.
Also, we meet artists behind a surge of Asian Australian plays on our mainstages right now and Neil Armfield joins us to pay tribute to the English theatre director Peter Brook, famous for his reinvention of contemporary theatre.
British author Benjamin Myers says he likes to be on the margins as a writer and his latest novel, The Perfect Golden Circle, is about the crop circles that appeared in 1989 in the English countryside and explores the type of people who created them.
Also Ceridwen Dovey and Eliza Bell explain their genre-bending book, Mothertongues and Noongar author, Claire G Coleman's mysterious and unsettling book, Enclave, set in a walled Australian city.
It’s time to Get up, stand up, show up- the theme for NAIDOC week 2022.
Stop Everything presents highlights celebrating the depth of talent from First Nations creatives working in music, television and theatre.
BL is joined by BARKAA, a Malyangapa Barkindji woman from Western New South Wales signed to Briggs’ Bad Apples Music label to talk about the Blak Matriarchy she belongs to.
BL + BW dig into the ABC show, All My Friends are Racist with co stars, Davey Thomson and Tuuli Narkle and award winning screenwriter, Kodie Bedford, discusses the AMC+ original series Firebite, a supernatural series set in an underground mining town in central Australia where First Nations vampire slayers battle a colony of white vampires.
Show notes:
BARKAA: https://www.barkaa.com.au/
Stop Everything with BARKAA: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/stop-everything/barkaa-blak-matriarchy/13636952
Stop Everything with Davey Thomson and Tuuli Narkle: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/stop-everything/all-my-friends-are-racist/13503708
Stop Everything with Kodie Bedford: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/stop-everything/kodie-bedford-joe-rogan/13749530
For NAIDOC Week we're joined by Warren H. Williams, co-creator & star of a unique and stunningly shot new crime series, True Colours, NITV's first foray into longform drama, and filmmaker Larissa Behrendt, who talks about Warriors on the Field, a celebration of Indigenous Australia and its long-standing history and connection with Australian football. Two exciting directors from Finland will also be along.....Juho Kuosmanen and Mikko Myllylahti, for a conversation about Finnish storytelling and their new films, the Cannes winning Compartment No. 6 (Juho Kuosmanen), and The Woodcutter Story (Mikko Myllylahti), both set to screen in Australia. Plus, Sunil and a very special guest are on the red carpet for the premiere of Thor: Love and Thunder and put some questions to Taika Waititi and Chris Hemsworth.
Richard Bell is one of the few individual artists curated into Documenta 15, the highly-anticipated global survey of contemporary art. This year, for the first time, it’s been dominated by artists and collectives from the Global South. But the historic takeover has been eclipsed by a media storm ignited by what appears to be a Jewish caricature in a mural painted by Indonesian artist group Taring Padi, since taken down.
Queensland-born sculptor Sebastian di Mauro who now calls Delaware home, discusses his obsession with materiality and his new exhibition featuring appliquéd army blankets based on the arcane imagery on American dollar notes.
And we discover the little-known painter Edward Brezinski who lived on the fringes of the hyperactive 1980s New York art scene that produced Jean Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. His desperate bid for fame is charted in the new documentary Make Me Famous which also offers a fascinating insight into the ecosystem of the art business.
Our oldest modern dance company, the Australian Dance Theatre, has been delighting and challenging audiences for nearly 60 years. Now Wiradjuri dancer and choreographer Daniel Riley is at the helm, becoming the first Indigenous man to lead the company.
Also, we meet the winner of this year's Keir Choreographic Award, Tra Mi Dinh, and Wesley Enoch's joyous musical The Sunshine Club returns to the Queensland Theatre stage after 23 years.
For NAIDOC Week, three Aboriginal writers who are grappling with the past: Anita Heiss takes the 1852 Gundagai flood as the starting point for her novel Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, Tony Birch explores his family history in Dark as Last Night and SJ Norman's, Permafrost, a collection of haunted short stories.
He’s been at the top of Stop Everything!’s interview wish list for awhile and we got him: Taika Waititi talks to Ben Law about his latest film for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor: Love and Thunder, the follow up to Thor: Ragnarok.
Podcaster Helen Zaltzman catches up with BW to talk about The Allusionist’s upcoming tour of Australia and Auckland, and her recap podcast, Veronica Mars Investigations.
We also take a look at how celebs and the Internet have been reacting to the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe V Wade.
Show notes:
Roe V Wade overturned: an explainer: https://www.npr.org/2022/06/24/1107396510/roe-v-wade-is-overturned
Musical artists at Glastonbury react to Roe V Wade decision: https://www.instagram.com/p/CfTMnUFvOuM
Margaret Atwood on Roe V Wade: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/supreme-court-roe-handmaids-tale-abortion-margaret-atwood/629833/
Jia Tolentino on Roe V Wade overturned: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/07/04/we-are-not-going-back-to-the-time-before-roe-we-are-going-somewhere-worse
The Allusionist Australia + Auckland tour: https://www.theallusionist.org/events
The Allusionist The Egg’s Warning: https://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/kinderegg
Veronica Mars Investigations: https://vmipod.com/ Helen Zaltzman and Kristen Bell on Bullseye: https://www.npr.org/2022/02/07/1078982975/kristen-bell
Helen Zaltzman on Home Cooking: https://homecooking.show/episodes/14
We meet Mandy Walker, the pioneering Australian cinematographer who shot Baz Luhrmann's epic film Elvis. TV writer Wenlei Ma is along with an analysis of where streaming services, particularly Netflix, have gone wrong recently and what they can do to remain relevant in the current landscape, and L.A. based Aussie actor Claudia O'Doherty speaks to us about her career and latest role on a quirky series about class and capitalism called Killing It.
A conversation with artist Daniel Boyd whose work has focussed on reframing Eurocentric images from Australia's past. Plus, Sally Ryan discusses her latest commission, a giant oil painting of Jesus, Mary and Joseph for St Mary’s cathedral in Sydney. She says it's her hardest painting yet. And, returning artefacts taken from Kunwinjku and Gagadju artists in Arnhem Land in the early 1900s.
As the ABC celebrates its 90th birthday, we delve into our archives to revisit key moments in Australian performing arts history, including Laurence Olivier on tour, Nureyev and Fonteyn dancing into Australian hearts and Indigenous theatre taking centre stage.
Also, Ian McKellen makes his Australian debut, Dorothy Hewett revolutionises Australian playwriting, Philip Glass writes a piece for organ and didgeridoo and Joan Sutherland records a stupendous La Traviata in a 17th-century Italian theatre.
American author Madeline Miller has found a new audience for her prize winning novel Circe on #BookTok and now she has a new offering based on Greek mythology called Galatea.
Also, Lauren Chater's real life inspiration for her third historical novel, The Winter Dress and Carrie Cox asks whether relationships are really meant to go the distance in her latest novel, So Many Beats of the Heart.
We’re talking about new releases from superstars Beyoncé and JLo and chatting with silver Logie winner and ABC sweetheart Tony Armstrong and Gruen’s Wil Anderson.
Break My Soul is Beyoncé’s first single off her upcoming album Renaissance, Halftime documents JLo’s blazing run as she campaigned for an award for Hustlers and prepared for the Super Bowl halftime show in the same year.
Tony Armstrong tells us where he’s keeping his Logie and Ben Law ventures into the fourth dimension for Jurassic World: Dominion.
Show notes:
Break My Soul lyrics: https://genius.com/Beyonce-break-my-soul-lyrics
JLo and Shakira’s Super Bowl Halftime show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pILCn6VO_RU
Tony Armstrong’s Logies acceptance speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YkqvzvlbTg
Gruen: https://iview.abc.net.au/show/gruen
A chat with the inimitable Baz Lurhmann about what he thinks Elvis, his first new film in nearly a decade might add to the legend and mythology of the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley. We've all heard of Taco Tuesday, but how about Nude Tuesday? Aussie actor Damon Herriman stars in a deliriously silly NZ set comedy about love, nudity and gibberish and he's along to tell us all about it + the question of power, who has it, what they do with it and how to get it, is central to the funny and gory superhero satire The Boys....we meet a bunch of the stars ahead of the Season 3 launch, including Chace Crawford, Jack Quaid and Karen Fukuhara.
Have you ever walked through an epic entanglement of red cotton thread, by the artist Chiharu Shiota? The Japanese installation and performance artist takes Daniel through The Soul Trembles, an exhibition highlighting 25 years of her practice. Including the time she undertook a nude workshop with Marina Abramovic, mistaking her for the textile sculptor Magdalena Abakanowitcz. Plus, Daniel speaks with performance artist Wura-Natasha Ogunji, who came to Sydney to lead a public endurance performance in which a group of women haul water kegs through the streets. It was first performed in Lagos, Nigeria in 2011. From the sky, to the moon and the neon of electric globes, light is art’s most essential element. Tate UK has a huge collection of works that speak to the evolution of light, from natural source to fluorescent tubes. More than 70 of them are on show at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI).
A Strange Loop has won Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical at the 75th Tony Awards. This funny and challenging metafictional musical is inspired by the experiences of its writer, Michael R. Jackson, who joins us from New York.
Also, we're joined by the chief theatre critics at the New York Times and the Guardian for the latest from the US and UK and we meet director Max Webster, the man behind a daring new Henry V starring Kit Harrington (Game of Thrones) and soon in cinemas.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brookes says she "didn't grow up as a horse obsessed girl" but rather her interest in horses was a result of a midlife crisis which led her to the history of a famous American thoroughbred that was the inspiration for her latest novel, simply called Horse.
Also, John Purcell talks about his second official novel, The Lessons, and reveals his brief career writing erotica and Karen Manton explains the inspiration for her evocative novel, The Curlew's Eye, set in remote Northern Territory.
The media debacle around Rebel Wilson’s coming out has implications for journalism, LGBTQIA+ safety and the right to privacy. The story’s travelled far and wide with everyone from Whoopi Goldberg to Magda Szubanski weighing in. Among many questions we’re asking — what’s the place of gossip columns in newspapers these days?
We know it’s cold outside, so we have a couple of winter warmers to keep you company as you snuggle down in your doona fort on the couch.
With the Logies around the corner, revisit double nominee New Gold Mountain with director Corrie Chen and series lead Yoson An.
And we catch up Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, aka Daniels, writers and directors of the A24 action-sci-fi-comedy-family dramedy Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Show notes:
Rebel Wilson instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CelyiLZLHa2/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Magda Szubanski on Rebel Wilson’s coming out, from RN Breakfast: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/magda-szubanski-on-coming-out-in-public/13929900
Co-hosts of The View discuss the Rebel Wilson story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngsPGfv9qs8
SMH columnist Andrew Hornery’s apology: https://www.smh.com.au/culture/celebrity/i-made-mistakes-over-rebel-wilson-and-will-learn-from-them-20220613-p5at9e.html
Sydney Morning Herald editor tells staff he wouldn’t have ‘outed’ Rebel Wilson if she didn’t respond to the paper’s request: https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/06/14/smh-editor-tells-staff-he-wouldnt-have-outed-wilson-without-comment/
The Rebel Wilson story is a statement about the SMH’s news culture — and that’s a big problem: https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/06/15/rebel-wilson-story-statement-about-the-smhs-news-culture/
New Gold Mountain original Stop Everything episode: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/stop-everything/harry-styles-shania-twain/13849270
Daniels’ original Stop Everything! episode: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/stop-everything/harry-styles-shania-twain/13849270
The great documentarian Frederick Wiseman is being celebrated this month at Sydney Film Festival & ACMI with a retrospective of ten seminal films which chronicle American life and institutions. 92 year old Wiseman is our guest. British actor Jack Davenport who appears in series' like The Morning Show, 90s cult classic This Life, and films including the Pirates of the Caribbean series, talks about his role as the lead character in Ten Percent, a UK remake of the French hit Call my Agent, and filmmaker Mary Zournazi traces the history and her own connection to a Greek music born of exile in her documentary My Rembetika Blues.
Why artist and curator David Sequeira doesn't believe in just a 'pop of colour'. How a colour-blind artist adapted to colours he couldn't perceive. And how glasses that allow colour-deficient people to see the full spectrum of colours, work. Plus, Daniel chats to V&A curator Catlin Langford about her book on the mania for Autochrome, an early colour photography process invented by the Lumière brothers.
Since starting her career on Young Talent Time, Tina Arena has become one of our most successful musical exports, having sold over 10 million records worldwide. She's now flexing new creative muscles as the artistic director of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.
Also, we meet the students and two high-profile alumni creating new work at The Australian Ballet School and we learn about a new study that suggests job insecurity and other factors may be adversely affecting the mental health and wellbeing of performing artists.
Meg Mason thought her second novel, Sorrow and Bliss wouldn't be published, it was and is now shortlisted for this year's Women's Prize for Fiction, which will be announced this week.
Also Australian writer Ennis Ćehić on his playful collection, Sadvertising, and American writer Leila Motley's debut novel, Nightcrawling, which she wrote at just 17.
Lettuce discuss the rising cost of living, the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, Fire Island and Stranger Things 4.
Ben talks to queer comedy icon Margaret Cho, SNL favourite Bowen Yang and rising comedy star and now glossy magazine cover boy Joel Kim Booster about gay romcom Fire Island and explains why the queer-POC centred film has been criticised for failing the Bechdel test.
BW and BL talk through all the pop culture moments happening in international seats of power: Buckingham Palace, the White House and the Indonesian Presidential Palace.
Finally, we’re running up that hill with Stranger Things 4, the latest season of Netflix’s ‘80s nostalgia-soaked sci-fi horror fantasy show.
Show notes:
Kate called out over Louis’ behaviour: https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/kate-called-out-over-louis-behaviour-you-have-no-control-of-your-children/news-story/cabe07de8c8988d2fc34e40b88222405
The Queen and Paddington: https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/queen-thrills-crowds-with-paddington-bear-skit-for-platinum-jubilee-20220605-p5ar4y.html
BTS at the White House: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg6lQac41HA
Matthew McConaughey at the White House: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMGcgWDcJqw
Joko Widodo and Anthony Albanese state visit: https://twitter.com/jokowi/status/1534001660732723200?s=20&t=konsgIRcrW_iE9kbhaCjdA
Fire Island and the Bechdel test: https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2022/06/07/hanna-rosin-apologizes-controversial-tweet-hulu-fire-island-bechdel-test/10004388002/
Nashen Moodley, artistic director of Sydney Film Festival is in to talk festival highlights as the event opens this week. He's joined by the curators of Screenability, a section of SFF that shines a spotlight on people with disability, and also the Travelling Film Festival, which showcases this world-class cinema in regional locations Amir Jadidi, Iranian star of Oscar and Cannes winning director Asghar Farhadi's new film A Hero, talks about the complex themes raised in this powerful drama about family, vulnerability and debt, and as the great British filmmaker Terence Davies' mesmerising new film Benediction releases, we revisit an excerpt of a conversation he had with Jason Di Rosso as it premiered at the 2021 British Film Festival.
We start the show at the Parade for the Moon in Melbourne's Chinatown, part of the city's RISING festival. Then Daniel speaks with tattoo and visual artist eX-de-Medici about her intense and detailed watercolours that interrogate violent power structures.
And step inside the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where Daniel catches up with Australian artist Angelica Mesiti, who teaches there.
After being cancelled in 2020 and 2021, Melbourne's RISING festival is finally here. It's the first major arts festival the city has hosted since 2019. We venture into the frosty night air to discover how this festival tries to subvert expectations and capture new audiences.
We meet the artistic directors, watch passers-by become part of the action in The Invisible Opera, meet ordinary people rehearsing for a massive dance work, encounter new work from Marrugeku and examine social taboos with choreographer Mette Ingvarten.
Booker-winning writer Damon Galgut wasn’t always aware of his privilege, growing up as a white man in South Africa. Instead, he describes a ‘slow-shifting of consciousness’, that culminated in The Promise, a book he calls ‘my most South African novel'.
Also, The Rosie Project author, Graeme Simsion, gives a tour of his writing space and Hilde Hinton on her second novel, A Solitary Walk on the Moon.
Post Covid Beverley returns to the warm embrace of Stop Everything and Benjamin Law.
This week BL and BW discuss their ambivalence for ‘First Dog’ Toto Albanese’s social media presence, the etiquette of the Swedish dinner discourse and the return of old televisual IP: Borgen, Willow and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Also hear from UK-born, Perth-raised electronic music producer and vocalist Kučka who’s back in Australia for headline shows at the Sydney Opera House. Kučka chats with BW about collaborations, covers and making her mark in the music industry.
Show notes:
Kučka on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv_PePyKrERL_YMjcYa6ZPQ
Kučka’s Vivid show: https://www.vividsydney.com/event/music/kucka-vivid-live
Musical artists pushback against making TikToks: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamkucka?lang=en
Swedish dinner discourse: https://twitter.com/SamQari/status/1529868644846641153?s=20&t=ZmOyLBSRFdhHXpE8bHQVSA
Borgen’s back: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/may/30/borgen-again-the-most-prescient-show-on-tv-is-back-and-still-working-its-magic?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Willow trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbbveDpUZv4
Obi-Wan Kenobi: https://disneyplusoriginals.disney.com/show/obi-wan-kenobi
As Obi-Wan Kenobi, the latest incarnation in the Star Wars universe arrives, we meet Deborah Chow, the first female director in the film franchise's history, as well as one of the stars of the series, Moses Ingram. We're also joined this week by Executive Producer Patrick Walters from See-Saw Films who are behind a slate of the best TV right now including Heartstopper and The Essex Serpent, plus, screenwriter Kodie Bedford, who's credits include Mystery Road, Squinters, Troppo and Firebite joins us for a career chat.
Daniel chats with artist brothers Abdul-Rahman and Abdul Abdullah, who are close in life but not so much in their art. However, thorny issues unite them in Land Abounds, their new joint exhibition.
Hear how Filipino sculptor Leeroy New builds his large-scale sci-fi installations made from 100% recycled materials. He's in Australia for Melbourne's RISING festival.
And how did an 1897 painting by the Wurundjeri clan leader William Barak, end up at a Sotheby's auction house in New York? Last week Wurundjeri people successfully bid for the works.
Tony and Olivier Award-winning musical theatre star — and two-time Disney Princess — Lea Salonga rose to international fame for originating the role of Kim in the stage musical Miss Saigon. She retraces her journey into the spotlight and struggles along the way.
Also, voice and dialect coach Leith McPherson explains how she helps actors to find their character's voice and the prolific, 'critic-proof' composer Frank Wildhorn reflects on his long career and best-known work, including Jekyll and Hyde and Bonnie and Clyde.
British Booker winner Julian Barnes's latest novel, Elizabeth Finch, is about a life-changing teacher and he tells the audience at the Sydney Writers Festival that "you become a writer by not being the child of a writer".
This week, Benjamin Law is joined by guest co-host Tahlea Aualiitia to talk about creating and finding joy in safe spaces.
Award winning podcast host and comedian Deborah Frances-White dials in from “The Guilty Feminist” to talk about comedy, activism and peeing outdoors.
Ben and Tali discuss the charming and wholesome innocence of Netflix’s Heartstopper and how Stan’s RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Winners is a winner, baby.
Meanwhile, the TIME 100: The Most Influential People of 2022 list is out… and somehow Ben hasn’t been included.
Show notes:
Time 100 list: https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people-2022/
The Guilty Feminist: https://guiltyfeminist.com/
Writer-director Aaron Wilson on Little Tornadoes, his beautiful portrait of life in small town Australia in 1971, a time when the country was swept up in change. Opera singer Tiriki Onus on his debut film Ablaze, where together with filmmaker Alec Morgan he uncovers a 70-year-old lost film made by the first Aboriginal filmmaker, his grandfather William ‘Bill’ Onus. Plus, Nash Edgerton joins us from Dublin to talk about his latest film, a short about a couple of pranksters which he stars in alongside Rose Byrne called Shark, set to play at St Kilda Film Festival.
The American artist Kiki Smith talks about tapestry and her long career. My Art Crush: painter and printmaker Kirtika Kain makes tactile work about the oppression and unrecorded history of Dalit people. Step inside the Palais de Tokyo (in Paris), Europe's largest centre for contemporary art, for a tour of the exhibition Reclaim The Earth.
Les Misérables, Phantom of the Opera and Cats were all produced by the same man: Cameron Mackintosh. In Australia for the opening of a new production of Mary Poppins, Cameron shares his journey from humble beginnings to producer extraordinaire.
Also, Anna O'Byrne shares songs and stories inspired by her work with Julie Andrews and we interrogate the Cinderella story with performers from a new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella and Windmill's radical reinterpretation, Rella.
Canadian author, Emily St John Mandel, says the pandemic changed her as a writer. Her latest, Sea of Tranquility, was written during lockdown in New York and while it's a standalone novel, also features links to her previous books, Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel.
Also, Goan-Anglo-Indian Australian writer Michelle Cahill's novel, Daisy and Woolf, is a literary homage and post-colonial critique of Virginia Woolf’s classic Mrs Dalloway.
Logie nominated ABC series The Newsreader is a late 20th century period drama about sexual politics, egos and the stories that shaped our consciousness in the mid 1980s. Co-creator and writer Michael Lucas and series writer Kim Ho take us behind the scenes of the series.
MasterChef judge and Logie nominee Melissa Leong talks about how life has changed since stepping into one of the most coveted TV foodie jobs.
Cantopopstar and pro democracy activist Denise Ho discusses music as a form of protest.
Show notes:
Denise Ho arrested: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/denise-ho-arrest-1.6450291
Logie nominations: https://www.pedestrian.tv/entertainment/logie-2022-nominations-list/
We meet two Australian women making waves in film & TV to hear about their personal experiences in the industry....Chloe Rickard - Partner, COO and Executive Producer at Jungle Entertainment who are behind some of our most high-profile shows including No Activity, The Moodys and Wakefield; and Sophie Hyde - director of the feature films Animals, 52 Tuesdays and 2022 Sundance hit Good Luck To You Leo Grande which stars Emma Thompson. Plus, director Renee Webster on How To Please a Woman, a lively female liberation drama with Sally Phillips in the lead (Veep, Bridget Jones), about a woman in her fifties who starts an all-male house house cleaning business.
How often does a political artwork fall into the national spotlight during a federal election? Hear from Archibald portrait prize winner Blak Douglas. Plus, an Italian art exhibition that puts NFT juggernaut Beeple alongside European masters and Australia's Richard Bell.
And enter the studio of weaver, printmaker and textile artist Ema Shin.
When Yorta Yorta/Gunaikurnai theatre-maker Andrea James quit her job as a legal secretary to pursue a career in the arts, it was because she saw the theatre as 'a place where truth gets told.' She is now one of our most celebrated playwrights and directors.
Also, we hear a scene from A Letter for Molly, the debut play from Brittanie Shipway at the Ensemble and Dr Ana Flavia Zuim, co-author of a study measuring vocal demands in musical theatre, explains why technique may not be enough to protect our vocal health.
Here Goes Nothing is the last in what Steve Toltz calls his trilogy of fear which began with A Fraction of the Whole. This latest book is narrated by a ghost who discovers there is an afterlife hierarchy and he is at the bottom.
Also, Irish writer Audrey Magee on her second novel The Colony which is colonisation in microcosm and Toni Jordan's sixth novel, Dinner with the Schnabels, billed as a family dramedy.
This week Ben and Bev discuss the #WrongAsianing of Labor candidate for Reid, Sally Sitou, why these incidents cut deep and wonder why apologies can be so hard to come by when they happen.
We shove Whovians Rhianna Patrick and Ahmed Yussuf into a Tardis for their take on the news that Sex Education’s super charismatic Ncuti Gatwa will be Dr Who’s 14th Time Lord.
After falling into a coma in 2016, Dave has risen. Comedian Zoë Coombs Marr tells us why her alter ego Dave is the man we need for the times we’re living through.
Also: Hacks is back for its second season — does it live up to expectations?
Show notes
Dr Fiona Martin and Sally Sitou clash in 2GB on-air debate: https://www.2gb.com/fiery-debate-the-live-on-air-battle-for-reid/
Ncuti Gatwa cast as new Dr Who: https://www.salon.com/2022/05/09/doctor-ncuti-gatwa-education/
Brett Worthington on lies and the death of shame in Australian politics: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-10/election-2022-morrison-deves-trans-albanese-minimum-wage/101052710
Zoë Coombs Marr at the Brisbane Comedy Festival: https://www.brisbanecomedyfestival.com/artists/zoe-marr/
Stop Everything! discussion of Hacks season one: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/stop-everything/all-my-friends-are-racist/13503708
Stop Everything! Discussion on Dave Chappelle’s The Closer: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/stop-everything/bimini-bon-boulash/13597532
Director Leah Purcell and actor Rob Collins on The Drover's Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson, Purcell's powerful post-colonial revision of a short story by Henry Lawson, which in her hands becomes a mesmerising outback western presented through a feminist, First Nations lens. Plus, Jonathan Alley tells us how he wove his admiration for cult band The Triffids into the beautiful documentary Love in Bright Landscapes, and Liz Doran, the co-creator and lead writer on a new 1970's set surf series Barons explains why this was a moment in time she was inspired to put on screen.
Greetings from the 22nd La Biennale di Venezia, in Italy!
The Venice Biennale is known as the Olympics of the art world, complete with golden awards, stunning achievement and sometimes, disappointment. This year has seen more female artists, Black artists and minority cultures representing national pavilions than even before. Take a tour with Daniel around the storied pavilions and canals of the world’s most prestigious art event, speaking with participants, former Australian representatives and punters.
Geraldine Turner has been a mainstay of the stage since the 1970s, featuring in the Australian premieres of Chicago, A Little Night Music, Into the Woods and more. Now she's written a memoir, Turner's Turn, about her performing life and a very painful personal life.
Also, the cast of Bob Dylan musical Girl from the North Country perform for us and we ask Australian Musical Theatre Festival artistic director Tyran Parke and headliner Philip Quast why Launceston is the ideal place for musical theatre tragics to gather.
Booker winner Douglas Stuart's second novel, Young Mungo, is again set in gritty working class Glasgow, but also explores blossoming queer love. And, two debut novels also exploring queer identity with Indyana Schneider's 28 Questions and Omar Sakr's Son of Sin.
This week it’s all about curry, capes and … sex clubs.
The PM’s social media obsession with posting his curries hit new highs of engagement when the internet noticed the chicken in his questionably-garnished korma was also questionably cooked. Is the curry discourse a distraction, or can we talk about curry and scrutinise the campaign at the same time?
For those who observe, the first Monday in May is known as Met Gala Day. This year’s theme of ‘Gilded Glamour’ had celebrities turning up in capes and tails. Kim Kardashian went to extreme lengths to fit into Marilyn Monroe’s famous ‘Happy Birthday Mr President’ dress and her mother, Kris Jenner, dressed up like Jackie O.
Yumi Stynes drops by to chat about season "Sex" of ABC podcast Ladies, We Need to Talk and how she gets women to open up on taboo topics.
Finally, BW and BL dig into Severance.
Show notes:
PM Scott Morrison’s curry: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=554652889363411&set=pb.100044561133947.-2207520000
Vogue Met Gala live blog: https://www.vogue.com/live/met-gala-2022-live-updates?id=6270643b5993216c48e1b303
Severance: https://www.theverge.com/23015650/severance-season-1-review-apple-tv-plus
Ladies, We Need to Talk: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/ladies-we-need-to-talk/
5 minute food fix: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/5-minute-food-fix/id1619052425
BW’s dossier of politicians and food
PM Scott Morrison’s curry
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=554652889363411&set=pb.100044561133947.-2207520000
US President George HW Bush vomits at Japanese state banquet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_KVL-wtpgg
Kevin Rudd eats earwax
https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/national/kevin-rudd-eats-ear-wax-during-question-time/video/da459b74ae8021d23c754afe0e98a0c2
Tony Abbott eats bites into a raw onion
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/13/tony-abbott-eats-raw-onion
Ed Milliband eats bacon sandwich
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ed-miliband-bacon-sandwich_n_5bbe27b0e4b01470d0580898
Bill Shorten eats sausage side-on
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/federal-election-2016-bill-shorten-confounds-by-eating-sausage-sizzle-from-side-20160702-gpwwpi.html
Scott Morrison addresses Engadine Maccas rumour
https://www.kiis1065.com.au/entertainment/scott-morrison-finally-clears-up-what-happened-at-the-engadine-maccas/
Michaelia Cash’s “curry for the country”
https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/michaelia-cash-curry-country/
British actor Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey, Paddington) talks about playing the writer Roald Dahl in the new film To Olivia, set in the late 1950s, early 1960s, a period when he was married to American actor Patricia Neale and the couple lost their young child to measles. Plus, African American Italian director Jonas Carpignano on To Chiara, which won Best European Film at Cannes and follows a young Calabrian woman who learns some difficult family truths upon her father's disappearance.
British actor Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey, Paddington) talks about playing the writer Roald Dahl in the new film To Olivia, set in the late 1950s, early 1960s, a period when he was married to American actor Patricia Neale and the couple lost their young child to measles. Plus, African American Italian director Jonas Carpignano on To Chiara, which won Best European Film at Cannes and follows a young Calabrian woman who learns some difficult family truths upon her father's disappearance.
What do artists think about when making huge public art? Lindy Lee is making the most expensive work commissioned by the NGA, and Judy Watson's bara will grace Sydney's harbour with a giant Gadigal fish hook. Then, the US art lab addressing the problem of confederate monuments to racist causes... and Indigenous artists Julie Gough, Nicholas Galanin and Yhonnie Scarce on Australia's own colonial memorialising.
Richard Wagner's epic fantasy opera Lohengrin is a fairy-tale romance, but a disconcerting German nationalism lurks beneath its surface. French director Olivier Py confronts the opera's complexities head on in his upcoming production for Opera Australia.
Also, we trace the influence of theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski and his impact on modern acting and theatrical storytelling with Isaac Butler, author of The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act (Bloomsbury).
Richard Wagner's epic fantasy opera Lohengrin is a fairy-tale romance, but a disconcerting German nationalism lurks beneath its surface. French director Olivier Py confronts the opera's complexities head on in his upcoming production for Opera Australia.
Also, we trace the influence of theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski and his impact on modern acting and theatrical storytelling with Isaac Butler, author of The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act (Bloomsbury).
We meet some of the most remarkable mothers in recent fiction, with authors including Dawn French, Douglas Stuart, Anne Enright, Lisa Taddeo, Larissa Behrendt and Alice Pung.
These literary mums can be loving, neglectful and sometimes cruel – and they often reveal something about the author’s own relationship with their mother or children.
Other featured authors include George Haddad, Craig Sherborne, Lydia Kiesling and Kate Mildenhall.
We meet some of the most remarkable mothers in recent fiction, with authors including Dawn French, Douglas Stuart, Anne Enright, Lisa Taddeo, Larissa Behrendt and Alice Pung.
These literary mums can be loving, neglectful and sometimes cruel – and they often reveal something about the author’s own relationship with their mother or children.
Other featured authors include George Haddad, Craig Sherborne, Lydia Kiesling and Kate Mildenhall.
This week, BW and BL writhe their way through their feelings about the world’s richest man’s moves to buy twitter.
BL shares his bulging dossier documenting the rise of full frontal male nudity on television, and what to make of it.
Meanwhile in Australia, Jimmy Rees, formerly known as Jimmy Giggle, discusses exploring Australian history via the world of miniatures in Tiny Oz, life after Jimmy Giggle and how he reinvented his career as a social media comedian during the pandemic.
Show notes:
Tiny Oz: https://iview.abc.net.au/show/tiny-oz#:~:text=Comedian%20Jimmy%20Rees%20and%20tiny,ABC%20iview%20and%20ABC%20TV.
Jimmy Rees: https://www.jimmyrees.com.au/
Jimmy Rees TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jimmyrees?lang=en
Elon Musk’s twitter takeover: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/25/five-things-in-elon-musks-in-tray-after-twitter-takeover
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/business/elon-musk-twitter-trump-return.html
Ben Law’s full frontal dossier:
https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a39583817/minx-hbo-taylor-zakhar-perez-full-frontal-nudity-prosthetic-penis/
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/03/minx-euphoria-tvs-increase-in-full-frontal-male-nudity-prosthetics
https://sea.mashable.com/culture/17369/heres-why-youve-been-seeing-more-and-more-dicks-on-tv
This week, BW and BL writhe their way through their feelings about the world’s richest man’s moves to buy twitter.
BL shares his bulging dossier documenting the rise of full frontal male nudity on television, and what to make of it.
Meanwhile in Australia, Jimmy Rees, formerly known as Jimmy Giggle, discusses exploring Australian history via the world of miniatures in Tiny Oz, life after Jimmy Giggle and how he reinvented his career as a social media comedian during the pandemic.
Show notes:
Tiny Oz: https://iview.abc.net.au/show/tiny-oz#:~:text=Comedian%20Jimmy%20Rees%20and%20tiny,ABC%20iview%20and%20ABC%20TV.
Jimmy Rees: https://www.jimmyrees.com.au/
Jimmy Rees TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jimmyrees?lang=en
Elon Musk’s twitter takeover: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/25/five-things-in-elon-musks-in-tray-after-twitter-takeover
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/business/elon-musk-twitter-trump-return.html
Ben Law’s full frontal dossier:
https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a39583817/minx-hbo-taylor-zakhar-perez-full-frontal-nudity-prosthetic-penis/
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/03/minx-euphoria-tvs-increase-in-full-frontal-male-nudity-prosthetics
https://sea.mashable.com/culture/17369/heres-why-youve-been-seeing-more-and-more-dicks-on-tv
Two interviews with directors who have made films about families, parenting and memory…...you’ll meet Korean-American writer director and film critic Kogonada, who talks about his mysterious, gentle sci-fi film After Yang, set in a near future society where androids can be bought as companions. Plus, French filmmaker Céline Sciamma , who’s new film is called Petit Maman, and asks the question, what if a child could travel back in time and meet their mother or father at the same age?
Two interviews with directors who have made films about families, parenting and memory…...you’ll meet Korean-American writer director and film critic Kogonada, who talks about his mysterious, gentle sci-fi film After Yang, set in a near future society where androids can be bought as companions. Plus, French filmmaker Céline Sciamma , who’s new film is called Petit Maman, and asks the question, what if a child could travel back in time and meet their mother or father at the same age?
Rebecca Belmore is one of Canada's most important artists and is now having her first Australian solo show. Plus, visit Sally Smart's studio, inspired by one of the most influential dance companies of the twentieth century.
And Yuki Kihara's Venice Biennale entry Paradise Camp, where the artist reimagines tropes used by Paul Gauguin and Samoan tourism brochures, with a Fa’afafine cast.
Rebecca Belmore is one of Canada's most important artists and is now having her first Australian solo show. Plus, visit Sally Smart's studio, inspired by one of the most influential dance companies of the twentieth century.
And Yuki Kihara's Venice Biennale entry Paradise Camp, where the artist reimagines tropes used by Paul Gauguin and Samoan tourism brochures, with a Fa’afafine cast.
Red Stitch Actors' Theatre has just 80 seats, but the company is acclaimed for their bold programming of the buzziest new work from abroad and for developing new Australian plays. Now in its 21st year, we meet their artistic director Ella Caldwell.
Also, Kaitlin Tinker summons the strength of Alien heroine Ellen Ripley in her play about pregnancy and childbirth, Earthside, at the Blue Room, and we take a closer look at Hamlet with two high school students and members of the current Bell Shakespeare production.
Red Stitch Actors' Theatre has just 80 seats, but the company is acclaimed for their bold programming of the buzziest new work from abroad and for developing new Australian plays. Now in its 21st year, we meet their artistic director Ella Caldwell.
Also, Kaitlin Tinker summons the strength of Alien heroine Ellen Ripley in her play about pregnancy and childbirth, Earthside, at the Blue Room, and we take a closer look at Hamlet with two high school students and members of the current Bell Shakespeare production.
Jennifer Down doesn't turn away from uncomfortable truths in her Stella Prize shortlisted novel, Bodies of Light, about the systemic failures of the residential and foster care systems in the 70s and 80s. Also, we revisit our interview with Jonathan Franzen who talks about faith and family, which are two themes in his latest book, Crossroads.
Jennifer Down doesn't turn away from uncomfortable truths in her Stella Prize shortlisted novel, Bodies of Light, about the systemic failures of the residential and foster care systems in the 70s and 80s. Also, we revisit our interview with Jonathan Franzen who talks about faith and family, which are two themes in his latest book, Crossroads.
We're all over Everything Everywhere All at Once, the multiverse-hopping sci fi action movie starring Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn Wang, an exhausted mother and business owner with a tax problem.
You'll hear from Daniels, also known as Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the filmmaking creative forces behind EEAO. BW and BL also share their review.
Also discussed: Harry Styles and Shania Twain at Coachella, worshipping Jesus Christ at 30,000 feet in the air and the Japanese toddler errand-runners of Old Enough.
Show notes:
Everything Everywhere All at Once: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/everything_everywhere_all_at_once
Ke Huy Quan: From Short Round to Romantic Lead in Just Four Long Decades: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/05/movies/ke-huy-quan-everything-everywhere.html
Michelle Yeoh breaks down her most iconic characters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHOSiFzcHJ8&t=913s
Worshipping our King Jesus 30 thousand feet in the air!:https://www.tiktok.com/@jackjenszjr/video/7084616506868387114
Coachella YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHF66aWLOxBW4l6VkSrS3cQ
Old Enough: https://www.netflix.com/title/81506279
Ben and Bev curate iview: https://iview.abc.net.au/collection/guest-curators-ben-bev
Director Tom Gormican on The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and how he convinced Nicolas Cage to play himself in a meta-comedy-thriller about fame, bankruptcy and movies. Plus, British actor Tom Blyth is Billy the Kid in a new streaming series from Vikings creator Michael Hirst. He explains how a kid from Nottingham ended up playing one of the most famous figures of the wild west.
Marco Fusinato is representing Australia at the 2022 Venice Biennale with work for 'monstrous times'. Plus, artworks that tell queer stories selected from the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, for NGV Queer. And who was Lala Deen Dayal? The pioneering Indian photographer who documented a vast nation.
At this year's Australian Playwrights' Festival, writers gathered to interrogate some of the most challenging questions facing theatre-makers today. We hear two panels from the festival about the craft and responsibilities of writers telling other people's stories.
Panellists: Tommy Murphy, Angela Betzien, S. Shakthidharan, Alana Valentine, Stephen Sewell, Vanessa Bates, Dylan Van Den Berg and Andrew Bovell.
Hannah Kent reflects on her time as an exchange student in Iceland and how it allowed her to pursue writing, and Michelle Johnston tells Claire Nichols about her novel, Dustfall, for the international literary event called Literature Live Around the World which was hosted by the Bergen International Literary Festival in Norway.
This long weekend we’re going red red red.
First up, Oscar-winning director Domee Shi on Turning Red, about 13-year-old Meilin Lee’s struggle to tame her inner Red Panda. Shi is the first woman to direct a feature-length film for Pixar, and talks to BW + BL about the film’s setting in her hometown of Toronto, Canada, and the universal themes in Turning Red’s coming-of-age story.
Then, Billy Porter — fashion’s king of the red carpet — joins the House of Stop Everything! The Emmy, Tony and Grammy-award winner discusses his 2021 memoir Unprotected, his life-changing role as Pose’s Pray Tell and the importance of fashion.
Show notes:
Domee Shi: https://www.instagram.com/domeeshi
Turning Red: https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/turning-red/4mFPCXJi7N2m
Bao: https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/bao/2NOY3PbUN9os
Bill Porter: https://www.instagram.com/theebillyporter
Billy Porter Emmy acceptance speech: https://www.emmys.com/video/71st-emmy-awards-billy-porter-wins-outstanding-lead-actor-drama-series
Unprotected, By Billy Porter: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/books/review/unprotected-billy-porter.html
Hollywood director Robert Eggers on his Viking epic The Northman, a revenge thriller that follows a Prince seeking justice for the murder of his father, with an all-star cast including Alexander Skarsgård and Nicole Kidman. British actress Imogen Poots on the trippy neo-Western thriller Outer Range, and Audrey Diwan, winner of the Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival discusses her intimate film Happening, which follows a bright young student seeking an abortion in 1960's France.
Victor Ehikhamenor is one of Nigeria’s most prominent artists and calls for the Benin bronzes, the looted cultural treasures of Edo State, to be repatriated. So what did he do when he was asked to make an artwork in response to the memorial to the 19th C. British leader of the looting? Plus, South Australian artist Helen Fuller turns her hand to unconventional ceramic pots -- and an original way to exhibit them. And why tropical fruit, low-cost bejewelling and a Thai auteur inspire artist Nathan Beard.
Dan Giovannoni is a prolific writer of plays for young people and adults. His work as a playwright and as a teaching artist demonstrate his belief in how creativity can change the world. Dan has new plays at Barking Gecko and the Melbourne Theatre Company.
Also, Maree Johnson, Broadway cast member of Phantom of the Opera now performing on Sydney Harbour, shares her Top Shelf and we explore the 'repertory theatre' model that has inspired Belvoir's rep season of plays by Caryl Churchill and Alana Valentine.
Pulitzer-prize winner, Jennifer Egan, is "interested in the ways technology interacts with our psychologies". Her new novel, The Candy House, plays with a deliciously dangerous idea: what if you could externalise your memory?
And two books set in small town Australia: Mandy Beaumont's The Furies and Yumna Kassab's provocatively titled Australiana.
This week we’re baffled by a few things:
A viral thread on ‘mind hacks’ for dealing with Gen X weirdos
Louis C.K. Grammy win for best comedy album in which he talks about how masturbating in front of people is “his thing”
The fourth and final season of Killing Eve, but we’re also kind of OK with that?
And Aaron Blabey — the New York Times-bestselling kids author talks about the Dreamworks Animation feature based on his hugely popular graphic novel series The Bad Guys, and how he stays connected to things that make 6-year-olds laugh.
Show notes:
Generation X is weird: https://twitter.com/girdley/status/1511316479106453511?s=20&t=S-UG4yhBD6V1_9j_XMW5eA
Louis CK’s Grammy win: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/05/arts/television/louis-ck-grammy-backlash.html
Aaron Blabey: https://www.aaronblabey.com/
Killing Eve: https://iview.abc.net.au/show/killing-eve
One of the world's most successful box office entertainers, Michael Bay (The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbour, Transformers), speaks about his latest blockbuster, the explosive heist thriller Ambulance, in which Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II star as adoptive brothers on a car chase through L.A. in a stolen ambulance. And, the story of an Australian film pioneer comes to life in a new documentary called When the Camera Stopped Rolling, a very personal tale of trailblazing and trauma told through the lens of cinematographer Jane Castle about her mother Lilias Fraser.
David Noonan makes intriguing black-and-white collage of people in often liminal states. But despite their evocative drama, his pictures don't tell a story. Plus, Hoda Afshar's photographic project Speak the Wind, about people in the Persian Gulf who believe that humans can be possessed by the wind. And spotlight on the Australian artist and feminist Erica McGilchrist, whose painting series in the 1950s was based on her experiences teaching art at a mental hospital.
Tchaikovsky's opera about a blind princess, Iolanta, raises challenging questions about the nature of disability — questions the West Australian Opera confronts head on in a new production reimagined with members of the blind and vision-impaired community.
Also, we hear two Sri Lankan Australian brothers debate 'wokeness' in a scene from the new comedy Stay Woke and we pay tribute to the theatre director and arts leader Andrew Ross, director of pioneering works by Aboriginal writers Jack Davis and Jimmy Chi.
The Icelandic sagas have long been a source of fascination for Kári Gíslason and his latest novel, The Sorrow Stone, gives new life to an old Icelandic saga.
Also disability advocate and writer Liel Bridgford explores disability representation in fiction with Kay Kerr and Jessica Walton, and Robert Lukins on his second novel Loveland set in Nebraska about two women who've experienced controlling marriages and asks whether trauma is inherited.
We’re talking about what happened at the Oscars when Chris Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett-Smith’s shaved head.
We can’t stop thinking about Will Smith slapping Rock on live television, his Oscars acceptance speech and all the commentary that has ensued in the aftermath.
Then comedian Rhys Nicholson is our guest. Rhys talks about why he’s not mentioning the pandemic in his new comedy show and what it’s like to be a judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under.
Show notes:
Will Smith slaps Chris Rock at the Oscars: https://twitter.com/CaseyBriggs/status/1508275968531918848
Will Smith Oscars acceptance speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSmZ5Sdqf8s
Will Smith apology: https://www.instagram.com/p/CbqmaY1p7Pz/
Sheila Bridges Good Hair post: https://www.instagram.com/tv/Cbpkco4DFlY/
Chris Rock 2016 Oscars opening monologue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqhVNZgZGqQ
Rhys Nicholson: https://rhysnicholson.com.au/
This week the Academy Awards celebrated Australian cinematographers Greig Fraser, who took home an Oscar for his work on Denis Villeneuve's Dune, and Ari Wegner, who was nominated for The Power of The Dog, a film which took home the best director award for Jane Campion. We re-visit conversations with both. Plus, UK based Australian actor Christopher Chung who joins Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott-Thomas in the new spy series Slow Horses.
Ian Strange uses entire houses -slated for demolition- as his canvas, exploring the symbolism of 'home' through eras of unaffordability and urban development. Plus, meet Irish artist Sean Lynch onsite at his new public artwork in inner-city Melbourne. Sera Waters uses old English needlework techniques and crafts to examine the legacy of her settler forbears. And celebrating the work of feminist artist Frances Phoenix, whose doilies and embroidery packed a punch to the patriarchy.
Colin Lane and Frank Woodley are having a whale of a time in their new show, Moby Dick. The pair join us to reflect on forming their famous duo, forging separate paths and then discovering that neither of them had quite as much fun without the other.
Also, we meet comedians readjusting to life on the road in 2022, check in with theatre companies impacted by the recent floods and congratulate Bruce Gladwin, artistic director and co-CEO of Back to Back Theatre, on the company's International Ibsen Award.
For his latest novel, Moon Witch, Spider King, Marlon James says "I was trying to connect with my own mythological history as a black man in an African diaspora, in a former British colony".
Also, friendship in fiction with Susan Johnson, Juhea Kim and Paige Clark, and Perth writer David Whish-Wilson's writing space.
Stop being poor: Ziwe remixes Kim Kardashian’s Work anthem.
Arnold Schwarzenegger appeals to Russian soldiers.
Amy Schumer has some Ukraine jokes ready for the Oscars.
And we raise our margarita glasses in solidarity with Lisa Wilkinson, a woman enjoying a solo dinner out.
We’re also covering two major screen releases this week.
Ben Law talks to the creative forces behind the Apple TV adaptation of Pachinko, the blockbuster novel by Min Jin Lee. Hear from Soo Hugh, creator and executive producer, and Justin Chon and Kogonada, the series co-directors.
Then RN’s resident distinguished professor of bodice ripping, Rudi Bremer, shares her review of season two of Bridgerton and why it may be necessary to lower our Great Sexpectations™ compared to season one
Show notes:
Ziwe: Stop Being Poor: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CbNO2TDF8yM/
Lisa Wilkinson’s solo dinner: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-10622283/Lisa-Wilkinson-sips-margarita-dines-restaurant-Melbourne.html
Amy Schumer wants Zelenskyy cameo for Oscars: https://variety.com/2022/film/news/amy-schumer-zelenskyy-oscars-1235210388/ Arnold Schwarzenegger’s appeal to Russian soldiers: https://twitter.com/Schwarzenegger/status/1504426844199669762
Pachinko: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/pachinko/umc.cmc.17vf6g68dy89kk1l1nnb6min4
Bridgerton: https://www.netflix.com/watch/80232920
Streaming on Amazon Prime, Master is a gothic horror set on a haunted university campus that examines the ongoing legacy of American racism. We're joined by director Mariama Diallo. Plus, Uberto Pasolini, the producer behind The Full Monty on his new, Belfast-set film Nowhere Special, a tender drama about a father-son relationship where tragedy looms.
Colombian artist Carolina Caycedo gives voice to rivers dammed for huge hydroelectric projects. What happens when the art world turns its back on Russia's major contemporary art museum? And Dennis Golding shares memories of 'the Block', using treasured iron lace from Redfern's terrace houses.
George Gershwin's An American in Paris has been associated with dance ever since it inspired the 1951 Gene Kelly film, so who better to bring it to the musical theatre stage than the renowned ballet dancer, choreographer and now director Christopher Wheeldon.
Also, with several Australian companies currently presenting works by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, we learn about the lives of these two men and their belief in the revolutionary potential of the theatre.
Aunty Elaine Russell has legendary status in her home town of Sydney. She was an artist and storyteller who inspired many, and whose work has been acquired by a number of Australia's major galleries and museums.
'I have a full and beautiful life', says Irish writer Marian Keyes, 'The only thing I can't do is drink'. And the experience of addiction and recovery is something she's given to the main character in her book Again, Rachel, a sequel to Rachel's Holiday.
Also, Michael Trant writes a book on his tractor, Jane Caro explores coercive control in The Mother and Rhett Davis's debut novel, Hovering.
Can you tell me who will still care … about MMMBop?
We do!
Twenty-five years after Hanson burst into pop music with their smash hit MMMBop, we’re looking at the lyrics and nodding sagely at the brothers’ precocious wisdom.
Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson talk to BL and BW about breaking into the music industry as children, their 30th year together as a band and what they see as their creative higher purpose.
We’re also picking through award-winning NZ director Jane Campion’s milkshake duck weekend and talking about how she went from good viral — slapping down Sam Elliott’s take on The Power of The Dog — to bad viral — telling Venus and Serena Williams they’ve never had to compete against men, like she does.
Show notes:
Sam Elliott on Marc Maron’s WTF: http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-1309-sam-elliott
Jane Campion calls Sam Elliott a B-I-T-C-H: https://variety.com/2022/film/news/jane-campion-says-sam-elliott-is-being-a-b-i-t-c-h-with-slam-against-the-power-of-the-dog-1235203098/
Jane Campion Critics Choice acceptance speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9FhvBwM6P0&t=1s
Hanson Red Blue Green : https://hanson.net/news/3991-hanson-announce-2022-red-green-blue-world-tour-and-new-album
MMMBop Basement session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ3qChwjp_k
Melanie Lynskey Critics Choice acceptance speech: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/latest/a39429190/yellowjackets-melanie-lynskey-critics-choice-awards-2022/
Melanie Lynskey profile: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/feb/24/oh-my-god-im-having-sex-again-yellowjackets-melanie-lynskey-on-raunch-rage-and-her-rival-kate-winslet
Melbourne filmmaker Danny Cohen on Anonymous Club, his 16mm doc about Melbourne musician Courtney Barnett, an introspective, introverted & reluctant world-famous rock-star. Plus, U.S. director Mimi Cave talks about her horror take on the meet-cute/rom-com in Fresh and Hollywood star Sebastian Stan on getting into character for his villainous role.
British filmmaker and installation artist Isaac Julien on his latest works: a spellbinding interpretation of Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi and a portrait of 19th C. abolitionist Fredrick Douglass. Plus, Heather B. Swann's potent retelling of the Greek myth 'Leda and the swan', where Leda is at the centre of the story. And why you should know the name Thanakupi -- the pioneering ceramic artist from the Thaynakwith language group in western Cape York, whose legacy looms large.
Isaac Bashevis Singer's Yentl was most famously adapted into a musical film by Barbra Streisand. Now a new adaptation breathes new life into the story. It's directed by Gary Abrahams, who is also at the helm of Admissions at the Melbourne Theatre Company.
Also, playwright and Blak & Bright Festival Director Jane Harrison curates a session of monologues by First Nations writers and Voice and Text Coach at the Sydney Theatre Company Leith McPherson shares tips on how an actor's voice can supplement their income.
Jennifer Herd is a Mbarbarrum artist and founding member of Brisbane's proppaNOW art collective.
Karen Joy Fowler wades into American Civil War history and the story of John Wilkes Booth, the first presidential assassin, in her novel Booth.
Also, Kalkadoon author Megan Albany's comic novel about death and Lloyd Jones's latest allegorical novel, The Fish.
This week we’re gorging on Byron Baes and falling in love with Turning Red.
Domee Shi, director of Pixar’s Turning Red, talks to BW and BL about family, feelings, red pandas and her passion for animation.
Then BW and BL brew up some cacao, gather their sound bowls and drape themselves in neutral linens for the release of Byron Baes, Netflix’s new unscripted reality series following the feuds and aspirations of a group of up-and-coming influencers in Byron Bay.
Show notes:
Brigid Delaney on Shane Warne: www.theguardian.com/sport/commentisfree/2022/mar/05/shane-warne-dead-but-he-was-immortal-he-was-never-meant-to-die
Turning Red: www.disneyplus.com/movies/turning-red/4mFPCXJi7N2m
Vanity Fair feature on Byron Bay murfers: https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2019/07/the-coast-of-utopia-surfer-moms-instagram-influencers
Food Bank: https://www.foodbank.org.au/QLD/flood-emergency-appeal/?state=qld
Australian Red cross: https://www.redcross.org.au/floodsappeal/
Koori Mail flood relief for Bundjalung rural and isolated communities: https://gofund.me/26ef7126
Resilient Byron crowdfunder (registered charity): https://www.resilientbyron.org/
Sikh Volunteers Australia: https://www.sikhvolunteersaustralia.org/
French writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve on her English language debut Bergman Island, a film that engages with the legacy of Ingmar Bergman as a couple retreat to the pristine Swedish island of Fårö where the filmmaker shot some of his most famous films, looking to find inspiration, and, British director Joanna Hogg on the sequel to The Souvenir, her lauded 2021 film. The Souvenir II continues to follow an ambitious film student in 1980's Britain, this time in the aftermath of the turbulent relationship at the centre of the first film, with a magnetic and manipulative older man.
Floods have ravaged art galleries and studios in northern New South Wales. We hear from a gallery director and artist Megan Cope. Plus Ukrainian-Australian artist Stanislava Pinchuk. And a spotlight on the bold modernist printmaker Ethel Spowers.
The Last Great Hunt are a collective of Western Australian theatre makers who delight in bringing the unexpected to the stage. Now a documentary, Stage Changers, offers candid insight into their process as it follows the company creating their most ambitious work.
Also, we visit a hip hop dance school breaking down barriers for young people who want to dance, and we meet Carla Stickler, a performer turned software engineer who during the Omicron wave found herself back on Broadway in Wicked after seven years away.
Dianne Jones is a provocative photo-media artist who manipulates images from colonial art to give prominence to Indigenous people.
Craig Silvey, Tony Birch and Dervla McTiernan share their love of reading from the Perth Festival Writers Weekend. They share their formative childhood reads, favourite first lines and give some writing advice along the way.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted a former star of 90210 to share her spoken word fantasy about being Vladimir Putin’s mother; the new Batman movie starring Robert Pattinson and Zoë Kravitz is chock full of daddy issues.
Both choices have us clawing at our faces and asking why, a thousand times WHY?
Luckily we rise above it all with two GOATS of Asian American pop culture criticism, Jeff Yang, journalist and columnist, and Phil Yu, founder of the Angry Asian Man blog. Along with filmmaker Philip Wang, they’ve written Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now.
Show notes:
AnnaLynne McCord’s Dear Mr President Vladimir Putin: https://twitter.com/IAMannalynnemcc/status/1496877541772062727
Wired: How Tiktok was designed for war: https://www.wired.com/story/ukraine-russia-war-tiktok/
How to spot fake or misleading footage claiming to be from Ukraine: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/how-to-spot-fake-or-misleading-footage-on-social-media-claiming-to-be-from-the-ukraine-war
Rise: a pop history of Asian America from the nineties to now: https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780358581888/rise/
Jeff Yang: https://twitter.com/originalspin
Angry Asian Man: http://blog.angryasianman.com/
They Call Us Bruce: https://theycallusbruce.libsyn.com/
The Batman: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_batman
Susanna Nicchiarelli discusses her period biopic Miss Marx, a vibrant take on the life of Karl Marx's youngest daughter Eleanor, who was among the first women to link the themes of feminism and socialism. Plus, filmmaker Philippa Bateman spotlights First Nations singer-songwriters Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter in the new documentary Wash My Soul in the River's Flow, a cinematic interpretation of a legendary concert from 2004 interwoven with archival footage to ultimately present a story of loss, love and home.
The goddess of love has reigned supreme through Western art, but her roots are darker, more ancient and shape-shifting than you'd expect. Historian and TV presenter Prof Bettany Hughes joins Daniel to tell the surprising history of Venus/Aphrodite. Plus, a seascape painter who lives on a yacht, and step into the studio of Yul Scarf, who uses ceramics, old bricks and the revived tech of QR codes, to explore questions of colonialism.
In 1972, a lecturer at the University of Adelaide was attacked at a gay beat, thrown into the River Torrens and drowned. 50 years on, Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan shines a light into this appalling story and how his death changed Australia.
Also, voice and dialect coach Leith McPherson shares more insights into the power of voice and we attend the rehearsal of a reimagined version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland presented by the Australian Contemporary Opera Company.
Laurel Nannup is a Noongar artist and elder who grew up near Pinjara in Western Australia. As part of the Stolen Generation she was taken from her mother at the age of 8 and sent to the Wanderling Mission.
Isabel Allende says her latest novel, Violeta, was inspired by her mother but also by Allende's own life. Also, readers who send fan mail and the writers who reply with Markus Zusak, Anita Heiss, John Marsden and Krissy Kneen, and disability in fiction with Joseph Elliott and Kit Kavanagh-Ryan.
This week BL + BW take on the big questions:
Is Julia Fox Ye’s muse, and why is everyone around you suddenly saying ‘uncah jahmz’ with comical levels of vocal fry?
Will we survive the coming vibe shift? And is it cheugy to be worrying about this?
What’s behind Kirsty Webeck, comedian, Cool Change Ambassador ‘getting a tit out?’ [her words] on twitter?
Why does second season of Starstruck torture its devoted fans?
How much do we love Ali Wong’s delightfully horny new comedy special Don Wong?
And … what the heck are these ‘show notes’ we speak of?
Show notes:
Call her Daddy: Julia Fox on Being Ye’s Muse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m82xA2y7iE8
TikTok’s uncah jahmz
https://www.tiktok.com/@dumbmackenzie/video/7064087406340902190
https://www.tiktok.com/@joeydardano/video/7064707986937335087
https://www.tiktok.com/@twingirlpeeks/video/7065068279412477231
A Vibe Shift is Coming, Will Any of Us Survive it? https://www.thecut.com/2022/02/a-vibe-shift-is-coming.html
Kirsty Webeck: https://www.kirstywebeck.com/
Kirsty Webeck twitter: https://twitter.com/KirstyWebeck
Starstruck: https://iview.abc.net.au/show/starstruck
Ali Wong: Don Wong: https://www.netflix.com/watch/81140667
Filmmaker Blerta Basholli on her Albanian-Kosovan drama Hive, which became the first film in Sundance history to win all three main awards in its World Cinema category – the Grand Jury Prize, the Audience Award and the Directing Award. It's based on the true story of a widow who becomes an entrepreneur after losing her husband in the Kosovo War. Plus, A Night of Knowing Nothing, a stunning exploration of university life in India as a student writes letters to her estranged lover. These letters grant insight into the drastic changes taking place around her and the life of her and her fellow students. Director Payal Kapadia joins us from her home in Mumbai.
Who makes up “the canon” in Art today? A new book picks 50 artists from around the world, and across centuries, to take a meaningful snapshot of art masters. Plus, a curator on 16th C. artist Lavinia Fontana, Europe's first female professional painter. And Atong Atem's panoramic collage that charts 10 years of life, family and art.
Bob Dylan's music feels inseparable from the man himself, so how could it be adapted for musical theatre? Playwright Conor McPherson explains how his dark and dreamy Girl from the North Country convinced Bob that he was the man for the job.
Also, Dean Bryant, the director of Fun Home, shares the Best Advice he was ever given and Judith Lucy and Denise Scott are Still Here and heading out on the road.
Julie Gough is a Trawlwoolway artist whose practice often refers to her family's experiences as Tasmanian Aboriginal people and is held in many private collections and major galleries in Australia.
Our Country Friends is a funny book set in upstate New York during the pandemic by US writer Gary Shteyngart and Xochitl Gonzalez looks at the city through a Puerto Rican lens in Olga Dies Dreaming.
Ahead of her return to the Eurovision — Australia Decides, Jaguar Jonze talks to BW about song writing, how she plans to bring the drama to the Eurovision stage, and her pivotal role in sparking off the MeToo movement in the Australian music industry. Jaguar also gives us an update on the national review of the music industry, which is now accepting confidential submissions.
We’re looking at two portrayals of LA in pop culture.
First, the Superbowl LVI Halftime Show featuring hip hop legends Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Eminem and Queen of RnB Mary J Blige blew the roof off Inglewood’s SoFi stadium. Was it a joyous, and hopefully healing moment, for the tested relationship between the NFL and Black America?
Second, BW reviews Bel-Air, a dramatic re-envisioning of 90s classic sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
And BW + BL wear out carpet next to their respective beds praying for Wordle and the unfairly maligned ukulele.
Show notes:
Jaguar Jonze instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaguarjonze
SBS Eurovision — Australia Decides: https://premier.ticketek.com.au/shows/show.aspx?sh=EUROVISI22
Jaguar Jonze Little Fires: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNcS3W94bUM
Australian music industry review: https://musicindustryreview.com.au/
Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdsUKphmB3Y
2019 Bel-Air trailer by Morgan Cooper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAfJpyBgcgA
Bel-Air: https://www.stan.com.au/watch/bel-air
Morgan Cooper on his vision for Bel-Air: https://www.looper.com/768411/bel-air-director-morgan-cooper-on-how-his-creative-vision-led-to-will-smiths-endorsement-exclusive-interview/
Pam and Tommy: https://www.disneyplus.com/series/pam-tommy/1N8HLsr8QjUj
Pam and Tommy turns trauma into entertainment: https://theconversation.com/dont-watch-pam-and-tommy-the-series-turns-someones-trauma-into-entertainment-176844
Mike Mills on his new film C'mon C'mon, a sweet, stripped back road trip across America about family bonds and connection starring Joaquin Phoenix. Plus, Danish filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen on his triple Oscar nominated documentary animation Flee, and meet the Australians who won the international competition at Clermont-Ferrand.
Patricia Piccinini is Australia’s foremost artist exploring the relationship between humanity and technology, and the ethical tensions it inspires in the viewer. Plus, introducing our new segment My Art Crush. Jess Cochrane on the impact of Édouard Manet's Olympia on her work. And Thea Anamara Perkins on family legacy and NFTs.
Zindzi Okenyo has a lot on her plate. The actor, musician and Play School host is now a theatre director. Her first plays, Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner and Orange Thrower, are bitingly honest portrayals of growing up black in predominantly white communities.
Also, when Kim Crotty couldn't be with his sons, he wrote them stories instead — 47 of them. These stories are shared in a new play at this year's Perth Festival called The Smallest Stage — a play that also reveals the reason for their separation: Kim was in prison.
Julie Dowling is considered one of Australia's greatest exponents of the family portrait, but always with an Indigenous focus.
From young love and forbidden romance to break-ups and long-term relationships: hear authors wax lyrical about love. Writers include David Nicholls, Amy Bloom, Tayari Jones, Howard Jacobson, Monica Ali, Curtis Sittenfeld, Anita Heiss, Vivian Pham, C.S Pacat and Daniel de Lorne.
Another week, another Joe Rogan instagram video to experience! Spotify’s number one podcaster took to the ‘gram for the second time in a week to explain himself, after a video compilation of him repeatedly using the n-word during his podcast resurfaced online. The video was shared by musical artist India Arie who has pulled her music from the streaming service in protest. Rogan has apologised and clarified that he now understands why it’s unacceptable to use the word. Is this a teachable moment, as he hopes it will be? And will this be the end of our weekly segment on what’s happening in Rogan’s world?
Screenwriter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer aficionado Kodie Bedford talks about the cathartic, empowering joy of working on Firebite, the AMC+ series about First Nations vampire slayers battling a colony of white, underground vampires in a fictionalised Cooper Pedy.
Finally, BL explores his very mixed feelings about the hideous yet addictive mess that is Sex and the City’s And Just Like That... #Justice For Steve.
Show notes:
India Arie on Joe Rogan and Spotify: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17847040100721530/
Joe Rogan insta video on the n word: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CZlnH8MAb8L
About Firebite:https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-13/warwick-thornton-tv-series-firebite-indigenous-vampire-hunters/100695920
Watch Firebite : https://www.amcplus.com/pages/firebite
Bosnian writer-director Jasmila Žbanić talks about depicting the Srebrenica Massacre in her film Quo Vadis, Aida? Indie American actor Ione Skye reveals her Top Shelf of film, and Bill Code on his debut documentary feature The Lake of Scars, a story of allyship, environment and reconciliation around efforts to preserve Indigenous scar trees and artefacts in the Lake Boort area of northern Victoria.
Vivienne Binns shocked critics in the 1960s with her joyful paintings of giant genitalia and Dada-inspired assemblages. Now aged 81, she looks back at a vast arts practice that has never stopped questioning: what is art, and what do we want to say with it? Plus, Jazmina Cininas' magical take on a DIY folk instrument that conjures Pagan myths and Lithuanian folk lore.
Antony Hamilton is the artistic director of Melbourne's fierce and feisty contemporary dance company, Chunky Move. His new work Yung Lung plunges audiences into a restless and menacing dance party held in the midst of a world in crisis.
Also, WA musician and playwright David Milroy shares what's on his Top Shelf and we meet Jules Allen, a youth support and mental health care worker (and former MasterChef contestant) who can now add 'funny and searingly honest playwright' to her CV.
Know My Name Series Two: interviews with Indigenous women artists from the ABC archives. In this episode meet Fiona Foley, a Badtjala artist from K'gari in Queensland
Jason Mott's Hell of a Book lives up to its name: it has a snappy title, an eccentric narrator and a Nicolas Cage cameo.
Also, two authors who explore older Australian's experiences with Liz Byrski's At the End of the Day and Shankari Chandran's Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens.
BW and BL experience Joe Rogan’s video statement responding to the backlash against his hit podcast. We weigh up Rogan’s $100 million exclusivity deal with Spotify against music legends Neil Young and Joni Mitchell’s decisions to pull their music from the streaming service over COVID-19 misinformation. The star podcaster says he will try to do better balancing “controversial opinions” [ie wrong statements] about COVID-19 with expert opinions. Is that good enough?
Beloved comedian, author and podcaster Cal Wilson talks about getting ejected from the jungle, the deep friendships formed during her stint on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! and how she strives to make comedy kind.
Finally, step behind the velvet rope and go on an escapade with Janet Jackson, who’s telling her story in a new four-part documentary.
Show notes:
Joe Rogan’s video message: https://www.instagram.com/p/CZYQ_nDJi6G/
Science Vs Joe Rogan: https://www.instagram.com/p/CZYQ_nDJi6G/
Spotify CEO’s statement on COVID-19 content: https://newsroom.spotify.com/2022-01-30/spotifys-platform-rules-and-approach-to-covid-19/
Cal Wilson instagram: https://www.instagram.com/calbowilson/
Cal Wilson twitter: https://twitter.com/calbo
Janet Jackson documentary: https://www.stan.com.au/watch/janet-jackson
Kenneth Branagh and Ciarán Hinds discuss the historical coming of age film Belfast, screenwriter Bina Bhattacharya and actor and writer Arka Das talk about Here Out West, a cinematic postcard to Western Sydney. Plus I, Tonya and Cruella director Craig Gillespie on bringing the Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tape scandal to the small screen.
How does mindfulness stimulate artists? Meet the artists and curators of a new exhibition exploring mindfulness and meditation, called Presence of Mind. Plus, meet Gulnara Samoilova, founder of the global project Women Street Photographers.
The all-singing, all-dancing wives of Henry VIII reclaim history in the global smash Six the Musical. We meet Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss who wrote the show for the Edinburgh Fringe as students and have since opened the show on Broadway and the West End.
Also, we discover the close connection between William Shakespeare and two terrorists whose names you're sure to know: Guy Fawkes and Osama Bin Laden. We're joined by Dr Islam Issa, author of Shakespeare and Terrorism.
Almost 20 years after Brick Lane, Monica Ali is still unpicking the ins and outs of relationships in her novel, Love Marriage.
Also, Skimming Stones by Maria Papas was directly inspired by her daughter's own illness and Jack Ellis challenges a myth about childhood in Home and Other Hiding Places.
Only legends on the first new episode of Stop Everything! for 2022.
Hear from Nooky, proud Yuin and Thungutti man, rapper and host of Blak Out on Triple J about his new track Run Dingo, new platform We are Warriors, and the power of hip hop and visibility.
BW and BL also reflect on the reactions around Grace Tame’s viral Jan 25 photo op with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the also-viral takedown on The Project by host Carrie Bickmore and Guardian Australia journalist Amy Remeikis of political journalist Peter van Onselen, who wrote that the 2021 Australian of the Year was “ungracious, rude and childish, refusing to smile for the cameras.”
And what are some five-letter words for healing through play? We love Wordle, the lo-fi online word game that’s taken our omicron-riddled, RAT-scare world by storm.
Show notes:
Blak Out: https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/blak-out/
We Are Warriors: https://www.wearewarriors.com.au/
Carrie Bickmore, Amy Remeikis and Peter van Onselen on The Project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qia8p5fRJwo
Wordle: https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/
Wordle is a Love Story: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/technology/wordle-word-game-creator.html
Pedro Almodóvar discusses Parallel Mothers, his intricately woven mystery about two women’s journey into motherhood and the scars of the Spanish Civil War, starring Penelope Cruz and Milena Smit. And Pablo Larraín discusses Spencer, his unconventional Princess Diana biopic set during a Christmas weekend at Sandringham starring Kristen Stewart.
Enter the eclectic studio and thought-provoking work of the Wiradjuri installation artist Karla Dickens. Plus, is the Aboriginal flag, now freed from copyright restrictions, a work of art? And the 'wild clay' movement, where potters dig their own.
Nathan Maynard is one of Australia's funniest and most clear-sighted playwrights. The Palawa writer had a hit with The Season and now he's back with At What Cost? A play that explores the thorny issue of who decides who can claim Aboriginal heritage.
Also, how are theatres coping with surging COVID cases? We check in with Belvoir, Opera Australia and Global Creatures (Moulin Rouge), and we hear a scene from And She Would Stand Like This, a play described as Greek tragedy meets Paris Is Burning.
In her new book To Paradise, Hanya Yanagihara asks what would America be if its foundations were different. Also Katherine Collette's ode to Toastmasters in The Competition and Craig Sherborne's difficult mother in A Grass Hotel.
New Zealand’s wellness-horror-comedy Creamerie and Australia’s 80s newsroom drama The Newsreader couldn’t be more different, but both are examples of top-shelf locally made series.
Go behind the scenes of both shows with Creamerie writer-director Roseanne Liang and co-creator and cast member Perlina Lau, and The Newsreader’s co-creator and writer Michael Lucas and series writer Kim Ho.
1800 Respect: https://www.1800respect.org.au/
Lifeline 13 11 14
How has social media giant Instagram changed how we experience art? Experts, artists and critics weigh in on the photo sharing platform, an evolution that's allowed artists to build careers outside of the gallery system, while drastically changing our consumption of art.
The former artistic director of The Australian Ballet, David McAllister, steals the spotlight to interview his partner, Noonuccal Nuugi playwright and director Wesley Enoch.
Also, Yorta Yorta composer and singer Deborah Cheetham talks about the making of her opera Parrwang Lifts the Sky, based on the Wadawurrung story of the magpie who brought light to the land.
Two masters of the form, George Saunders and Tsisti Dangarembga, share lessons from their extensive writing careers.
Let’s revisit one of Stop Everything’s most popular interviews of 2021: our celebrity memoir book club with National Trinket, Shane Jenek, aka Courtney Act.
Brisbane-born Shane is known around the world as drag queen Courtney Act. Courtney’s appeared on Australian Idol, RuPaul’s Drag Race, The Bi Life, Dancing with the Stars, One Plus One on ABC TV and even a segment on ABC Kids talking to children about gender.
Shane joins Stop Everything! to talk about his memoir, Caught in the Act, with reflections on being gender fluid, coming out, life as Courtney and plenty of S-E-X.
The Australian film Nitram dramatises the events leading up to the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre. In a wide ranging discussion, director Justin Kurzel and screenwriter Shaun Grant discussed what inspired them to make a film about this real life tragedy, the themes they sought to explore, and the similarities and differences to their earlier films Snowtown and Snowtown and The True History of the Kelly Gang.
Anne Wallace paints film-like scenes of intimacy and psychological tension that speak to iso life and the female gaze. Plus, the found photo archive that documents China's embrace of capitalism.
Tom Stoppard and William Shakespeare loom large in the canon of English drama. Two new books explore their lives, their work, their driving forces and their impact on theatre.
The Booker-winning author Pat Barker's preoccupation with who's allowed to speak and who isn't continues in The Women of Troy, a sequel to The Silence of the Girls, her exploration of women in the Ancient Greek classics.
Also, New Animal author, Ella Baxter, on how her writing relates to her artistic practice, and the final in Michael Mohammed Ahmad's trilogy featuring his alter-ego, Bani Adam, with The Other Half of You.
Hello 2022! Please be kind. Our offering for the new year is a closer look at local versions of international reality TV blockbusters: Drag Race and The Real Housewives, aka brand Benjamin Law.
First up, RuPaul’s ride-or-die Michelle Visage dropped by ahead of the inaugural season of Drag Race Down Under.
Then, Brian Moylan on his tell-all book about the Real Housewives reality TV empire, followed by actual Real Housewives of Melbourne, Jackie Gillies and Cherry Dipietrantonio.
The White Lotus star Murray Bartlett, plus British actor Rebecca Hall and Afghan writer-director Shahrbanoo Sadat.
The rediscovery of Hilma af Klint's abstract paintings has taken the art world by storm, but what meaning can we find in her powerful, mysterious work? Plus, artist and designer W.H. Chong on the secret behind the perfect book cover. And head into the bush with immersive landscape painter Mary Tonkin.
David Williamson is far and away Australia's most produced playwright. Now that David has retired, he looks back on his luminous career in a very candid memoir called Home Truths (HarperCollins), in which he throws open the doors to his writing room and takes us inside.
Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro introduces us to his latest creation in Klara and the Sun, and we also take a look at how authors name their heroes and villains with six writers including Tony Birch, Tabitha Bird and Mirandi Riwoe.
Settle in for deep and meaningful chats with two of our favourite Stop Everything! guests of 2021: screenwriter and director Steven Canals and singer, songwriter and artist Ngaiire.
Steven reflects on the end of Pose, the award-winning series hailed as ground breaking for trans representation. Steven shares what it was like to be in the room when series lead Billy Porter shared his HIV status with the cast and crew of Pose, and his view of the current TV landscape.
Ngaiire discusses the release of her long-awaited album ‘3’ which puts her Papua New Guinean roots front and centre in a conversation covering music, motherhood, home and breaking free of industry expectations.
Oscar winner Chloé Zhao on Nomadland, plus Swedish writer-director Roy Andersson on his 2021 film About Endlessness, and film scholar Nick Pinkerton on Tsai Ming Liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn.
Performance art tests the limits of the body and the gallery space. Fiona Kelly McGregor's latest book relives its bracing ascendancy in Sydney's queer and underground scene, and the well-known and lesser-known artists who lived and breathed it. Plus, performance artists Justin Shoulder and Stelarc. And, how do art galleries preserve performance art?
What can a 60-year-old play about drunk and sometimes spiteful American academics tell us about culture and race relations in Australia? Director Margaret Harvey shares her bold vision for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
Also, we hear a performance from Black Brass, inspired by stories of resilience from Perth's African communities and we meet some of the real-life people whose generosity inspired the hit musical Come from Away.
"It's such a contradiction in life how much we learn from suffering," says actor and writer Ethan Hawke who tells The Book Show about his fourth novel A Bright Ray of Darkness. Darkness and light is a recurring theme in our other author interviews with American Patricia Lockwood and Australian Jessie Tu.
Remember that window in 2021 when there were few covid cases, no lockdowns and people could travel across state borders? Yeah! That actually happened, and during that blessed window, we hosted a show, live, from the Sydney Writers Festival.
Ok sure, BW was beamed in via a giant screen on stage, but three out of four people on a stage ain’t bad.
In this RN summer highlight, BW + BL talk to Carly Findlay, editor of Growing Up Disabled in Australia, and Sam van Zweden, the author of Eating With My Mouth Open in a conversation covering the body, disability, fatness – and the medicalisation, language and politics around these things.
If you need support or to talk to someone. The Butterfly Foundation is a site where you can find resources for eating disorders and body image: www.butterfly.org.au
Lifeline is also available 24 hours: https://www.lifeline.org.au/
The legendary and multi-talented French actor Julie Delpy and the Australian cinematographer behind lavish period soap Domina.
What if the use of white in classical sculpture was just a construct? For the ancient Greeks and Romans, sculptures were brightly-coloured affairs, clad in vivid red gowns with red lips, and pink or olive skin. Now scholars and artists want us to see that, too.
Meet Thomas Kail, the Tony Award-winning director of the hit musical Hamilton, whose friendship and collaboration with Lin-Manuel Miranda stretches back twenty years.
And Justin Levine, the man behind the music of the big winner at this year's Tonys: Moulin Rouge! The Musical — now on stage in Melbourne and heading to Sydney in May.
International travel has been off the cards for many in the last two years, this literary world tour might be the next best thing.
The long-awaited revival of Sex and the City is out! How are Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte faring in 2021 without Samantha?
Trigger, er we mean spoiler warning — BW and BL talk about And Just Like That’s woke moments, deaths, diversity, and podcast developments.
Also: Jenna Guillaume shares her top #Christmance movies and BL and BW trade notes on memorable pop culture moments of 2021.
Show notes:
Kim Catrall not a part of the revival and in the past has been openly scathing of Sarah Jessica Parker: https://www.instyle.com/celebrity/kim-cattrall/kim-cattrall-response-samantha-absence-and-just-like-that
A cardiologist responds: Should Carrie have called 911? https://www.vulture.com/article/and-just-like-that-big-death-carrie-911-call.html
Jenna Guillaume’s 2021 Christmance thread: https://twitter.com/JennaGuillaume/status/1465613521475944450?s=20
American director Sean Baker on his sex comedy about a has-been porn star Red Rocket. Plus, German acting legend Udo Kier talks about his latest role as a retired hairdresser who has one last cut and blow dry to perform….for a society funeral.
Franklin Sirmans is the curator of Family: Visions of a Shared Humanity, an exhibition of video works by renowned Black American, British and Canadian artists, including Arthur Jafa and Garrett Bradley. Plus, 'hyper-surreal' sculpture made with fake food. And enter the studio of Darwin plein air painter Max Bowden as she works through the Top End’s Build Up season.
Live on stage at Melbourne's iconic La Mama Theatre, newly rebuilt following a devastating fire, we look at the history of independent Australian theatre and its impact on our culture, and we discuss the path ahead for small theatres in the wake of the pandemic.
Kate Grenville, Craig Silvey, Susanna Clarke, Nardi Simpson, Damon Galgut, Christos Tsiolkas and more on their prize-winning books. Plus, former winners Colson Whitehead, Bernardine Evaristo and Anthony Doerr on the impact of winning a major prize.
We watched a lot of TV in 2021. We’re looking back at shows we loved and the TV moments staining our memories [hello Armond from The White Lotus]. We’re also talking about the TV culture shifts we noticed in 2021, the TV we want to see more of in 2022, and the TV we’re happy to toss in the bin.
Featuring two friends of Stop Everything: Patrick Lenton deputy arts and culture editor at The Conversation and a former editor of Junkee, and Hannah Reich, Arts on RN/ABC Arts digital producer.
Show notes:
Jeremy Strong profile on the New Yorker: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/13/on-succession-jeremy-strong-doesnt-get-the-joke?
Patrick Lenton's best TV shows of 2021: https://junkee.com/best-tv-shows-2021/317003
Hacks review: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-11/hacks-on-stan-with-jean-smart-nominated-for-emmys/100446534
Hannah Reich dissects The White Lotus: www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-04/the-white-lotus-mike-white-hbo-tv-series/100420922
Mare of Easttown: www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-20/mare-of-easttown-kate-winslet-tv-miniseries/100145988
Recapping RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-01/rupaul-s-drag-race-down-under-drag-queen-reality-tv/100091256
It’s a Sin: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-14/its-a-sin-stan-series-hiv-aids-crisis-sex-grief-joy/13127122
Hannah's top pick for Australian TV in 2021- Bump: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-24/stan-bump-australia-tv-series-claudia-karvan/13074518
Writer-director Adam McKay on his disaster movie comedy Don't Look Up as a satire of inaction on climate change, plus he reflects on Succession's success as one of that show's directors and executive producer. Fellow American Dasha Nekrasova (Red Scare podcast) talks about her debut feature, The Scary of Sixty-First, a horror movie inspired by the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. And Norwegian director Joachim Trier discusses his award-winning romantic comedy tragedy The Worst Person in the World.
The enduring power of Jeffrey Smart's urban wastelands, and his comparatively beautiful life in Tuscany, as told by the late artist's partner Ermes De Zan. Plus, visit the studio of Natalya Hughes as she works on an installation of mid-century aesthetics and Freud's psychoanalytic theory.
Elaine Crombie is a powerhouse of an actor and singer on stage and screen. Her new role sees her performing with Bangarra Dance Theatre in Wudjang: Not the Past — a co-production with the Sydney Theatre Company at the Sydney Festival.
Also, we're joined by Bangarra's artistic director Stephen Page and his recently announced successor Frances Rings and we visit Australian artists from Circa currently navigating a tangled web of border closures and health measures on tour in Europe.
Unlike many authors, Jodi Picoult decided to take on COVID-19 in Wish You Were Here, because Picoult says, "we need to remember everything we got wrong while we were learning what this disease is".
Also, the salvation of poetry in Brendan Cowell's Plum and The Kindness of Birds by Filipino Australian writer Merlinda Bobis.
It’s the year 10191. We’re folding time and space and going deep on the science fiction classic, Dune.
We start with Frank Herbert’s best-selling 1965 novel, make a pit stop at David Lynch’s indelible and sometimes inscrutable 1984 screen adaptation, and finally contemplate Denis Villeneuve’s star-studded 2021 release of Dune part one.
Science fiction author and Dune scholar Haris Durrani and film critic Luke Goodsell join BW at the High Council to discuss everything from battle pugs to the deep Islamic and Arabic references of the source material.
And BL is haunted by Kendall Roy’s terrible birthday party and late capitalism in the latest episode of Succession.
Show notes:
The Guardian remembers David Dalaithngu: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/nov/30/david-dalaithngu-obituary-walkabout-star-a-consummate-actor-who-helped-reinvent-australian-film?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Haris Durrani Washington Post article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/10/28/dune-muslim-influences-erased/
Haris Durrani's Medium article: https://hdernity.medium.com/gurney-halleck-the-moor-or-othello-in-space-682bfd99c760
Luke Goodsell's Dune review: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-01/dune-review-denis-villeneuve-sci-fi-epic/100659654
Succession season 3 episode 7 recap: https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/11/succession-season-3-episode-7/620816/
Dune director Denis Villeneuve discusses casting Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides and interpreting the Arabic and Islamic influences in Frank Herbert's original novel. Plus, the film's Australian cinematographer Greig Fraser explains why the desert sky is white, and fellow Aussie Ari Wegner, who shot Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, talks eroticism, landscape and the female gaze.
US artist Doug Aitken looks to the future through the hyperconnected present, in New Era.| Plus, enter the studio of Robert Andrew, whose programmable machines imprint ochre residue and missing histories. And a real-life art thriller documentary centred around the 'lost Leonardo da Vinci'.
Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill is now a jukebox musical. But how has this achingly personal collection of songs been transformed into a show about an American family coming apart at the seams? We ask the show's Oscar and Tony-winning writer, Diablo Cody.
Also, we meet American playwright Will Arbery. His play Heroes of the Fourth Turning, lauded across the political spectrum, portrays conservative Catholics arguing about religion and politics in a Wyoming backyard — characters familiar to the playwright himself.
Scottish crime writer Val McDermid's new book, 1979, is the beginning of a new series inspired by her own experience as a newspaper journalist in the 1970s and 80s. Also, to celebrate International Day of People With Disability we have some recommendations for speculative fiction novels that centre disabled characters, and
We’re rolling in the deep with Adele’s new album, 30, and two international TV specials to celebrate its launch. It’s been six years since Adele’s last album and a lot of life lived in between, including a divorce. BL + BW have listened to 30 many times and are ready to talk!
It’s 2021 and Superman has come out as bisexual. Jonathan Kent, the son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, and the new guardian of planet Earth has shared a kiss with friend Jay Nakamura in a new issue of Superman: Son of Kal-El. Melbourne-based comic book writer Tom Taylor tells Stop Everything! why it’s time to queer DC’s iconic superhero.
And, welcome Ji-Young, Sesame Street’s newest character. She’s 7, loves tteokbokki (Korean rice cakes), playing her electric guitar and is the first Asian-American muppet in the show’s 52 year history.
Adele One Night Only: https://7plus.com.au/adele-one-night-only
An Audience with Adele: https://www.itv.com/hub/an-audience-with/L0055a0007
Tom Taylor twitter: https://twitter.com/TomTaylorMade
Tom Taylor's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tomtaylormade/
Washington Post on the story of how Superman came out as bisexual: https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/11/16/superman-bisexual-comic-jon-kent/
Sesame Street: Meet the friends in your neighbourhood with Ji-Young, Elmo and Alan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E5uk_CE6FE&t=134s
NY Times on the first Asian American muppet on Sesame Street: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/15/arts/television/new-sesame-street-character-ji-young.html
Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude on his Berlinale Golden Bear winner Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, a black comedy about a middle aged school teacher fighting the moral panic over her appearance in an online sex tape. Plus, director Tom McCarthy on Stillwater, the follow up to his Oscar winner Spotlight starring Matt Damon, Abigail Breslin and Camille Cottin about an American man fighting to overturn his daughter's murder conviction in France, and L.A. based Australian actor Hannah Levien (Brand New Cherry Flavour) gives us her Top Shelf screen faves.
We take stock of NFTs and hear from three people invested in the future of tokens, including Jonathan Zawada, collaborator to musician Flume. Plus, Bruno Booth on being an 'unwilling inspiration'. And Taloi Havini reclaims connections to land, culture and identity of Bougainville, PNG.
When a devastating diagnosis halted Michelle Ryan's dance career, she spent ten years away from the stage, but then some giants of dance brought her back into the spotlight. She's now artistic director of Adelaide's Restless Dance Theatre, which turns 30 this year.
Also, award-winning playwright Kendall Feaver confronts sexual assault on campus in Wherever She Wanders at Griffin and we take a look at the curious history of pantomime with Virginia Gay, whose new play at Belvoir is called The Boomkak Panto.
"I never sunk into complacency in any aspect of my life." Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo on her latest book, Manifesto, about her unconventional path to success.
Also, Stella Prize winner Charlotte Wood on cultivating a rich inner life in The Luminous Solution, and the 2021 Nobel Laureate for Literature, Abdulrazak Gurnah, on how he became a writer.
It’s Ausmusic Month and to celebrate Stop Everything! brings you interviews with some of the best musical talents our country has to offer.
Firstly: BARKAA. Earlier this year, the Malyangapa and Barkindji rapper took the stage at the Sydney Opera House with her daughter to perform a moving rendition of ‘I know I can.’ She chats with Ben about her debut record - Blak Matriarchy - which is a testament to powerful Blak women, past, present and future.
Then we revisit two of our favourite interviews from the Stop Everything! archives.
Singer songwriter Ngaiire goes deep on her third album (3), exploring her Papua New Guinean roots and the challenges she's faced in the music industry.
Twenty years on from their critically acclaimed debut album, Since I Left You, The Avalanches’s Tony di Blasi talks about the duo’s approach to sampling music, creative process during the pandemic and latest album.
Show notes:
BARKAA’s website: https://www.barkaa.com.au/
BARKAA performs at the Sydney Opera House with her daughter: https://stream.sydneyoperahouse.com/videos/barkaa-live-at-barrabuwari-a-sunset-gathering-of-music
Ngaiire’s website: https://www.ngaiire.com/
The Avalanches website: https://www.theavalanches.com/
Award-winning actor Rosamund Pike speaks about her new role in a fantasy show that aspires to take the Game of Thrones throne, The Wheel of Time, and rising New Zealand talent Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie discusses her lead role in Last Night in Soho, plus, director Madeleine Martiniello on her documentary Palazzo Di Cozzo, a portrait of Melbourne's Italian furniture mogul Franco Cozzo who became a household name for his flamboyant TV ads.
Stop Everything! We’ve got a podcast recommendation for you — Pop Chat from CBC Podcasts in Canada. Join host
Elamin Abdelmahmoud, along with entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon and culture writer Amil Niazi as they discuss and work through the pop culture stories that matter. Follow Pop Chat wherever you get your podcasts.
Christopher Pease wanted to create his own visual language, one that spoke to European art tradition and the hidden iconography of his Nyoongar ancestors. Plus, the horses that inspire Michael Zavros. And what happens when a painter loses half her hand? After a bad accident, Kaye Strange adapted.
When the writer of Rent died on the day of the show's first preview, he also left behind a little-known autobiographical musical called Tick, Tick… Boom! Now Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton) and Steven Levenson (Dear Evan Hansen) have brought it to the screen.
Also, voice and text coach at the Sydney Theatre Company, Leith McPherson, shares more of her insights into the power of voice and Circa's visionary artistic director Yaron Lifschitz shares what's on his Top Shelf.
"I can't separate the erotic and the sensual from the beautiful." Melbourne Prize for Literature winner, Christos Tsiolkas on his latest novel 7½ which explores what it means to be a writer and the role of beauty in fiction.
Also, Rebecca Starford and Steven Carroll on the real life characters that inspired their World War II novels, The Imitator and O.
Cinemas are open and we’re diving into two blockbuster releases — the MCU’s Eternals directed by Academy Award-winner Chloe Zhao, and No Time to Die, the latest James Bond release featuring Daniel Craig in his final appearance as 007.
If you’re still scarred by the Supermarket Toilet Paper battles of 2020, you may want to check out Preppers, a new ABC comedy about doomsday preppers. Co-creator and lead Nakkiah Lui and cast member Eryn Jean Norvill talk to BW + BL about playing fictional preppers against the backdrop of a real pandemic.
Also: If you posted a picture of your pet on instagram hoping someone would plant a tree, we’ll tell you why that’s not happening. Is Big Bird a vaccinated communist? And what are your demands for #YourGayBC when Mardi Gras returns to the national broadcaster?
Show notes:
Preppers on ABC iView: https://iview.abc.net.au/show/preppers
Eternals receives worst audience reviews of any MCU film: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/eternals-worst-audience-reviews-of-any-marvel-studios-movie-cinemascore-2021-11
Instagram plant a tree for pets campaign false: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-09/plant-a-tree-for-pet-pic-instagram-likely-a-false-campaign/100603506
ABC secures rights for Mardi Gras broadcast: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-09/abc-to-broadcast-world-pride-and-sydney-mardi-gras/100591320
Anti-vaxxers declare Big Bird a communist: https://twitter.com/rexchapman/status/1457134086900928514?s=12
Cary Fukunaga on directing No Time to Die, Daniel Craig’s last Bond film. Plus John Hoffman, the showrunner of Hulu's hit show Only Murders in the Building, on making a black comedy about true crime podcasts with Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez.
A history of feminist art in Australia, painting western Tasmania and ice from a warming planet, at COP26.
The musical Sunday in the Park with George has been the subject of speculation ever since it opened in 1984. Some say its story reflects the life and struggles of its composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim, and others celebrate how the unknown writer and director James Lapine steered Sondheim's work towards new vitality. James Lapine has now written a detailed and candid account of the show's fabled journey. It's called Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Made Sunday in the Park with George (Pan Macmillan).
Author of Burial Rites and The Good People, Hannah Kent says she wanted to look at human connection in her latest novel Devotion. It's another historical novel but is a love story about two girls whose love transcends rules, religion, and even crosses an ocean.
Also, the British author, Susanna Clarke, was the winner of this year's Women's Prize for Fiction for her novel Piranesi. She talks about writing the book while living with a chronic illness.
When the universe serves us a fabulous queen, we respond with another edition of celebrity memoir book club! This week we're featuring Shane Jenek, also known as internationally-renowned drag queen Courtney Act.
Brisbane born and raised, Shane, as Courtney, has appeared on Australian Idol, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Dancing with the Stars, One Plus One on ABC TV and even a segment on ABC Kids talking to children about gender.
Shane joins Stop Everything! to talk about his new memoir, Caught in the Act, with reflections on being gender fluid, coming out, life as Courtney and plenty of S-E-X.
Two of the most forthright, accomplished and widely admired filmmakers on the show this week......Paul Schrader on his new film The Card Counter, which premiered in competition at Venice and follows on from Schrader’s tormented environmental allegory as a film about an isolated man who struggles when the world comes calling, and Terence Davies, who’s marvellous new film Benediction is screening as part of this year's British Film Festival.
The goddess of love has reigned supreme through Western art, but her roots are darker, more ancient and shape-shifting than you'd expect. Historian and TV presenter Prof Bettany Hughes joins Daniel to tell the surprising history of the powerful immortal. Plus, a seascape painter who lives on a yacht, and artist Khaled Sabsabi explores the exchange between spiritual belief and our human aspirations.
A common thread runs through much of Australian theatre's boldest and most influential new work: director Paige Rattray. From humble beginnings in Tasmania, she now helps our most exciting new playwrights to realise their vision.
Also, Stage Show regular Leith McPherson introduces her new role as Voice and Text Coach at the Sydney Theatre Company and dancer Raghav Handa and musician Maharshi Raval skirt the boundaries of Indian classical dance in Two at the OzAsia Festival.
"Everyday could be a day of unthinkable richness if we just keep still, attend and be present to what the place that we live in wants to do." Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Powers talks about the power of wilderness to centre his characters in Bewilderment, his Booker Prize-shortlisted novel.
Also, two time winner of the Miles Franklin, Michelle de Kretser, on her new book, Scary Monsters which is a book in two parts, with two front covers, and is an exploration of the migrant experience.
(We nearly named this episode: It’s Billy Porter, b*tches!)
Emmy, Grammy and Tony-award winner Billy Porter is in the House of Stop Everything! to talk about his new memoir, Unprotected (Abrams).
The icon of stage, television and the red carpet speaks candidly about trauma and healing, going public with his HIV status, playing Pray Tell and his passion for fashion (2019 Oscars tuxedo gown, we see you and we honour you).
Show notes:
Unprotected: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/books/review/unprotected-billy-porter.html
Pose: https://binge.com.au/shows/show-pose!1230
Billy Porter's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theebillyporter/
Billy Porter's Emmy win: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NA7BpvnRMA
Billy Porter does Broadway Karaoke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NA7BpvnRM
We meet the author of a new monograph about David Lynch’s Inland Empire, his strangest and most haunting film. Spanish artist and filmmaker Amalia Ulman talks about casting herself and her mother in a film inspired by two real life scammers which is one of the highlights at this year's Sydney Film Festival, and talented Australian actor Hal Cumpston shares his Top Shelf.
Meet the man behind the hit YouTube series Cocktails with a Curator, from The Frick in New York. Plus, what if the arts were on the nightly TV news, like sport? And artists respond to Matisse's Tahiti-inspired work in a new exhibition.
Dr Lara Stevens' introduces us to Hartmut Veit, whose performances with coal in Victoria's Latrobe Valley spurred timely conversations with residents whose lives and livelihoods were intertwined with climate change.
With a bower bird's habit of collecting found objects, Rosalie Gascoigne's sculptures were inspired by her surrounding natural environment. The final episode in this series of radio interviews with Australian women artists from the ABC archives.
"The journey is the oldest story known to humanity", says bestselling American author Amor Towles, whose third book is based on this archetypal narrative and takes a group of lost boys on an unpredictable road trip in The Lincoln Highway.
Also, Booker Prize shortlisted author Anuk Arudpragasam with A Passage North and Vietnamese American Monique Truong's exploration of Lafcadio Hearn, the 19th century Creole cookbook author and Japanese folktale collector, in The Sweetest Fruits.
An interview with sculptor and metal smith Mari Funaki, who was instrumental in getting Australian contemporary jewellery on the global map.
The fifth episode in a pod-only series featuring interviews with women artists from the ABC archives.
A 2009 interview with the artist Margaret Olley, two years before her death. Part of our series featuring interviews with women artists from the ABC archives.
Interviews with women artists from the ABC archives. In 1979 Ivy Shore won Australia's richest art competition for women painters, for a portrait of trail blazing trade unionist Della Elliot.
UK Drag Race’s breakout star Bimini Bon-Boulash is on Stop Everything! to talk about their new book, Release the Beast, nonbinary representation on television, loving yourself and being vegan, haha!
We’re also celebrating Brooke Blurton, the Bachelorette’s First Nations, bisexual lead. It’s not just a first for Australian television but a worldwide first for the long running franchise.
Also: proles and Pru; and BL + BW’s take on Dave Chappelle’s controversial Netflix comedy special, The Closer.
Show notes:
Bimini Bon-Boulash instagram: https://www.instagram.com/biminibabes/?hl=en
The Bachelorette recap: https://punkee.com.au/the-bachelorette-2021-premiere-tweets/132678
Pru Goward's AFR column: https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/don-t-underestimate-the-underclass-20211018-p5910c
Pru Goward AFR column on ‘underclass’ condemned as disturbing and abusive: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/oct/20/pru-goward-afr-column-on-underclass-condemned-as-disturbing-and-abusive
Dave Chappelle’s The Closer walkout: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-21/netflix-workers-walk-out-over-dave-chappelle-special-the-closer/100556538
Hannah Gadsby on Netflix and Chappelle :https://www.instagram.com/p/CVCiLl9FWoB/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Dahlia Belle's letter to Chappelle in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/oct/09/dave-chappelle-letter-trans-comedian-netflix
Know My Name: interviews with women artists from the ABC archives. Hear Gwyn Hanssen Pigott, one of Australia's most renowned ceramicists, speaking to the ABC’s Julie Copeland in 1994.
The man behind the phenomenally successful mob series The Sopranos talks about the new prequel. We meet the writer-director of a centrepiece film at this year's Italian Film Festival, and Jason's thoughts on Ridley Scott’s new medieval tragedy which stars Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Adam Driver and Jodie Comer.
Introducing Know My Name: interviews with women artists from the ABC archives. In this episode, hear from Grace Cossington Smith. A pioneer of modernism in Australia and one of the country’s most influential artists. Here she is interviewed in 1965 by Hazel de Berg for the National Library of Australia’s oral history collection.
What do artists think about when making huge public art? Lindy Lee is making the most expensive work commissioned by the NGA, and Judy Watson's bara will grace Sydney's harbour with a giant Gadigal fish hook. Then, the US art lab addressing the problem of confederate monuments to racist causes... and Indigenous artists Julie Gough, Nicholas Galanin and Yhonnie Scarce on Australia's own colonial memorialising.
Teddy Tahu Rhodes is a stalwart of the opera and musical theatre stage, but there was a time when he thought that accountancy was his true calling. So, what brought this powerful singer out of the office and into the spotlight?
Also, playwright Michèle Saint-Yves reflects on her father's dementia and her own acquired brain injury in A Clock for No Time and choreographer Sue Healey compiles eight years of unique encounters with dance on film in On View: Panoramic Suite at Liveworks.
Liane Moriarty's latest novel is Apples Never Fall and as another TV adaptation of her work wraps us, she is adamant she will never write books with a view to adaptation.
Also, British-Turkish Elif Shafak's inventive The Island of Missing Trees set in a divided Cyprus and Booker shortlisted author Damon Galgut's equally inventive, The Promise.
New Gold Mountain, SBS’ gold rush-era period drama, puts the Chinese-Australian experience front and centre. BW talks to series lead Yoson An, (Mulan, Creamerie) and director Corrie Chen about Chinese cowboys and finding dramatic gold in the history of 1850s Ballarat.
Meanwhile, BL previews the new season of Succession, and finds the Roy family as deliciously vicious as ever. Stick around to find out what ‘Shiv all the way’ means in his community.
Also: BW is obsessed with a hot 939-year-old Korean goblin, why aren’t you? William Shatner blasts off to the final frontier, and that Four Corners investigation on Sony Music Australia.
Show notes:
Facing the music: The Sony Music scandal: https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/facing-the-music:-the-sony-music-scandal/13579828
New Gold Mountain: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-13/new-gold-mountain-review/100523478
Amanda Rosenberg in Vulture on Gong Yoo thirst: https://www.vulture.com/article/squid-game-gong-yoo-thirst-watch-next.html
Succession season 3: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/oct/04/succession-season-three-review-as-glorious-and-furious-as-ever
Jaguar Jonze asks ‘Who Died And Made You King’ in scathing new song about industry abuse: https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/news/musicnews/jaguar-jonze-who-died-and-made-you-king-song-denis-handliln/13576612
Today’s show is a preview of some of the works screening at Sydney Film Festival.....the first is about one of the most accomplished Australian film directors you’ve probably never heard of - John Farrow. He won an Oscar and worked with stars like Robert Mitchum and John Wayne and we meet two men who have finally brought his story to the big screen. Plus, one of Japan's great new talents Ryusuke Hamaguchi.
Globally and at home, artists are engaging with the reckoning happening around race and colonisation. But where do recent migrants and refugees to Australia fit into the dialogue?
Tasmania's renowned contemporary dance company Tasdance is celebrating 40 years. The company's artistic director Adam Wheeler grew up in Launceston, but there was a time when he could not get off the island quick enough. So, what changed?
Also, we visit the Queenstown shed hosting the new Tasdance work Collision at this year's The Unconformity and with the Melbourne Fringe Festival going digital for a second year, we meet some of the artists finding new ways to make work.
In 2019, John Boyne faced huge online backlash for a book he wrote about a trans teenager and he's channelled that experience in to his new comic novel, The Echo Chamber.
Also, Booker Prize shortlisted author Nadifa Mohamed on The Fortune Men and Emily Bitto’s Wild Abandon, about men, booze, tigers and America.
Social media’s ablaze over Who is the Bad Art Friend, aka “the kidney story,” the New York Times Magazine long read chronicling a very extra saga about live kidney donation, friendship, white saviours, allegations of plagiarism, artistic license and, horror of horrors — the publication of group chat texts.
If you’re wondering whether to read the 9,500-plus word piece, rest easy, BL + BW have done the heavy lifting and happily unpack the entrails for you.
Twenty years after the release of Mariah Carey’s Glitter, we’re taking another look at the infamous box office flop and asking, did the critics really get it right back then, or do the haters need to GTFO? With Maria Lewis, ACMI assistant curator, author and Mariah Carey superlamb.
Also: what’s the connection between anti-vax protests in New York City and Australia? And what’s next for Britney Spears now that her father Jamie’s been suspended from her conservatorship?
Show notes:
Who’s The Bad Art Friend?: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/magazine/dorland-v-larson.html
ACMI Glitter watch party: https://www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/acmi-watch-party/glitter/
Crowds of anti-vaccine protesters chant 'save Australia' during rally in New York: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/crowds-of-anti-vaccine-protesters-chant-save-australia-during-rally-in-new-york/cbfa3a6b-300b-4ad8-82c6-ef8fb94db80a
A special edition this week, dedicated to the new Australian film Nitram, which dramatises the long lead up to the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre. In a wide ranging discussion, director Justin Kurzel and screenwriter Shaun Grant discuss what inspired them to make a film about this real life tragedy, the themes they sought to explore, as well as the similarities and differences to their earlier films Snowtown and The True History of the Kelly Gang.
It's 50 years since artists from Papunya began painting on board, heralding the Western Desert art movement, 'the last great art movement of the 20th Century' according to one famous critic. Plus, an artist's tribute to the iconic Leigh Bowery. A Japan-Australia photographic project featuring Mari Katayama. And Darwin's Street Art Festival brings new life to empty walls.