Barbara and the Camp Dogs transformed Sydney’s Belvoir Theatre into a pub gig. But what started as a comedy became a searing tragedy about Australia’s inability to listen to Indigenous people.
Bangarra’s current season of three new works, Ones Country, is uneven in parts but worth seeing for the diversity of Indigenous stories from some new choreographic voices.
Donald Horne saw Australia as a lucky country that was squandering its luck. His bold ideas captured the nation’s imagination. But being a public intellectual is no longer easy. Who will come up with the next grand ideas?
The Sound of Falling stars brings 31 male singers who died young, including Sid Vicious, Jim Morrison and Jeff Buckley, back to life, and forces us to question our role in their fates.
The Guardians of the Galaxy team are rocking the universe again in the latest volume of the science fiction blockbuster. But how does the science stand up to some number crunching?
Online ratings and reviews may seem like a good way to see what other consumers think of a product but they can be to simplistic and misleading, research shows.
This year has got off to an awful start. Thank God for the Adelaide Festival, a blaze of hope, skill and fun. Here are our critics’ highlights of a beautifully crafted program.
The Art Gallery of South Australia has created something special with Versus Rodin. Works by 65 contemporary artists, surrounded by the gallery’s Rodin collection, take on a wonderful glow.
Surely only a weirdo wouldn’t enjoy the smell of flowers and pine forests? But as Kate Grenville writes in her latest book, fragrance causes untold misery to many of us.
After Fifty Shades of Grey there was debate about its romanticisation of an abusive relationship. The sequel confirms that this wasn’t a misconception.
Thomas Barlow is more used to writing factual reports on science innovation, so his first novel gives an entertaining insight into the science community.
From My Island Home to Treaty, Indigenous musical luminaries gathered in Sydney on Tuesday to sing classic songs marking the fiftieth anniversary of the 1967 referendum.
Most people who see Myuran Sukumaran: Another Day in Paradise, opening today as part of the Sydney Festival, will already have a strong opinion on the artist and his death – but a few may have their minds changed.
After the deaths of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher in the last days of 2016, the release of a new documentary about their lives, Bright Lights, feels serendipitous. Already shown to some film festivals…
Lion, which has screened to critical acclaim around the world, seems to think it’s a political film. In reality it’s an effective melodrama that uncritically embraces a colonial fantasy of white saviours.
Enough with the charming, naughty funny-guy rants. There are too many in a new anthology of Australian comedy writing – and women display a superior comic imagination.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne