Arts and culture
His brilliant boggling career
It’s interesting to see that Mel Gibson, no less, is in the blood and violence TV streamer The Continental which…
By hook or by crook
Anne Henderson has produced a series of important books on the Menzies era. Her latest volume adds to this considerable…
Diamond-bright hoot
Oh to be in London with Barrie Kosky calling the shots in the first part of Wagner’s Ring Cycle Das…
Mermaid out of her depth
It’s strange the different strands of culture we constantly negotiate. The Rolling Stones bring out a new album and this…
Poets don’t stink
The Australian Book Review poetry prize is upon us again and it’s worth mentioning that the ABR editor Peter Rose,…
The terribleness of a progressive Bond
The latest Bond villain is Nigel Farage. Not literally, of course. But he was clearly a major inspiration for the…
Everybody’s friend
It was cheering in its way to hear, from the lips of that shrewd urbane man Tony Burke, that 246…
A woke witch hunt has taken over the arts
Remove the preconceptions that stop you seeing clearly, and it is hard to tell the difference between how the arts…
The masterful technique
Isn’t it weird to hear reports of eminent curators at the British Museum leaving because various priceless artworks (often of…
Bob, Robbie & Robert
It’s fifty years they tell us since the creation of Utzon’s Opera House and it’s strange to think how this…
Dazzled by her gift
If you have never seen Bernadette Robinson give yourself a treat and see her current one man show, Divas. It’s…
Magniloquent horror
The experience of watching Warwick Thornton’s The New Boy, his film with Cate Blanchett as the nun running an orphange…
Shakespeare in black and white
Sarah Karim-Cooper first came to public attention at the cosmetics counter. Her book on makeup in Renaissance theater, Cosmetics in Shakespearean…
Kundera’s last laugh
So now Milan Kundera is gone at the age of 94. It’s easy to forget the tremendous weight, the sheer…
The Sound of Freedom, a revolutionary act
During times of universal deceit, wrote George Orwell, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. Our time can certainly be…
Stop trying to make high culture funky
Clive Myrie, now probably the top face of the BBC, and host of their television coverage of the Proms, had…
How the Unbearable Lightness of Being enthralled a generation
If during the 80s and 90s you were any kind of book lover, Milan Kundera – who died this week…
How to build the bomb
Graham Greene used to say that none of the great literary works he had read as an adult had the…
In praise of Milan Kundera
The Czech-born writer Milan Kundera has died, at the age of 94. Four years ago, Toby Young wrote this tribute…
Keeping Ralph on his toes
It would have been interesting to hear Barrie Kosky and Kip Williams talk about the theatre on Tuesday night. In…
An icy restraint
The world has seemed like a procession of deaths lately. Generally, of those in old age. Of all of them,…
In praise of encyclopedias
Simon Winchester recalls the time — he was not yet three — when, stepping into his rubber boot, he was…
Captivating marvels
It’s fascinating to hear that one of the greater theatre directors we have produced, Neil Armfield, is directing Anthony LaPaglia…
Literary festivals are no fun
This is the season when literary festivals start to happen all over the UK. From the highlands of Scotland to…
Jenny Boyd goes beyond the muse
The beautiful muse to great male artists is a tricky figure, omnipresent in history but a bad fit for our…
