Arts and culture
Relief
Recently I touched on the subject of evaluating works of art prompted by what seemed to me rather an empty…
Jessie Traill: A biography
She could have been one of our great-aunts. She was from that remarkable generation of educated, unmarried women who chose…
Wendy Bowman, 2019 by David Darcy Darling Portrait Prize 2020
She is not a theoretical or idealogical environmentalist. Wendy Bowman became an activist when her crops were ruined by polluted…
Keith Urban using a Maton guitar, recording Gimme Shelter in Olympic Studios, London
We are critical of ourselves for not designing or manufacturing things any more. Well, there is a contrary example in…
Laughing Child by John Brack
In a futile attempt at participating in the current cultural revolution, I tried to suffer ‘harm and offence’ from an…
Richard Tognetti
This week the Australia Chamber Orchestra should have been delighting audiences with their usual brilliant performances to celebrate the 30th…
Belgravia
Belgravia is the rather coldly beautiful residential part of London bounded by Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Buckingham Palace. It is also…
Sydney Opera House during Vivid Sydney Festival
To state the obvious, these are extremely testing times for the performing arts and live entertainment generally. Although galleries are…
Cover of May issue of Apollo
We are all being digitised one way or another. Performing arts companies, not able to perform, are gamely putting themselves…
Dame Mary Gilmore working from home in 1952
She lived in a flat in Kings Cross, was a lifelong socialist, a regularly observant Presbyterian, a Dame of the…
Queens of print
The Spectator has been celebrating its 10,000th UK issue with justifiable pride; it is an astounding achievement. Australia has long…
Geraldine Brooks and Darleen Bungey
Major award-winning biographies of Arthur Boyd and John Olsen have preceded the third book by Darleen Bungey. It is less…
The Elgin Marbles
He grew up in Eastwood on Sydney’s Northern Line. Geoffrey Robertson’s brilliant career got off to a flying start with…
Geoffrey Blainey
He coined the phrase ‘tyranny of distance’ which not only entered the language but encapsulated the view that many Australians…
Anne Glenconner
It is said that Shakespeare wrote King Lear in quarantine from the plague. Some have been suggesting that this year’s…
Lloyd Rees Solitude 1978
‘How much of our village do we burn to contain this?’. That was the chilling headline of an article in…
Christos Tsiolkas
This was not the ideal beach book for the Christmas holidays but now we are in different times, it has…
Mozart’s Clarinet
A couple of friends have nominated it as music they would like played at their funerals. I’m not into programming…
David Hallberg
The artistic leadership of a major performing company is, by definition, important. The Australian Ballet has a forthcoming vacancy of…
David Williamson
‘That sinkhole of ambition and superficiality we call Sydney.’ That’s a direct quotation from the Melbourne Theatre Company’s promotion of…
Trent Dalton
He’s barely in his forties. He’s married with two nearly teenage daughters. He lives in Brisbane. He’s a staff journalist…
Bruce Beresford at home in Birchgrove 2018
Sydney’s Archibald has the name and the fame, but there is a new kid on the block: the Darling Portrait…
No Pay? No Way!
As a sort of protest, I am not going to the opening of No Pay? No Way! at the Sydney…
The Happy Prince
Many people have had a go at it. Ever since Oscar Wilde published The Happy Prince and Other Tales in…
Luca Micheletti and Anna Dowsley
A taciturn Glaswegian and an unlikely knight of the realm, David McVicar has directed several of Opera Australia’s most admired…
