Playmaking in Pyrmont Bringing history to life in ‘The Sugar House’
“My own grandfather, Roy, had worked as a fitter and turner at the Colonial Sugar Refinery, which dominated this peninsula for so long.”
City of Forgetting Rats, cranes, rubble and politicians
"The Sydney skyline is home to more than 50% of Australia’s cranes."
Here Be Monsters ‘Exclusion Zone’ at the Griffin Theatre’s Batch Festival
Inspired by ‘Stalker’, the classic Andrei Tarkovsky film, ‘Exclusion Zone’ is a theatrical expedition into the unknown heart of Kings Cross, inviting audiences out of their seats and into the streets.
Suggested
Life is Beautiful and Bleak ‘Sami in Paradise’ at Belvoir Street Theatre
'Sami in Paradise' takes Nikolai Erdman’s comedy 'The Suicide' – written in late 1920s Stalinist Russia – and turns it into a laugh-out-loud tragedy of refugee life.
Greeks’ Creek Last summer at Prince Alfred Municipal Public Pool
It was the mid 70s and it was the waning days of the old inner-city summers. ‘Greeks’ Creek’, as it was known to most of the kids at Redfern Public School, was in full flight...
Down the Hatch The Bourbon Hotel
These days it’s so quiet here that if the wind is in your favour, the cicada buzz of Max’s Village Tattoo will accompany you across the road, all the way to The Bourbon’s doors.
Features
Nick Cave Premonitions of Love
“The impulse was to hide. But it turns out that being forced to grieve openly basically saved us.”
Marrickville or Mirvacville? A development that could shape where our city is going
“The proponent seems to have confused south Marrickville with downtown Hong Kong” - Inner West Council Mayor, Darcy Byrne
Sleep Well Beast How The National brought me back from the dead
‘Let's just get high enough to see our problems, let’s just get high enough to see our fathers’ houses.’
The Dead Kangaroo A road of mythical proportions is being dreamed up beneath Rozelle
The proposed Rozelle interchange is a paranoid maze of linking roads and bypasses that connect everything to just about everything, including future motorway projects.
Culture
Ready Player One The games people play
In Steven Spielberg’s 'Ready Player One', the teenage Watts (Tye Sheridan) is locked into a contest for control of an expansive virtual reality platform, the OASIS.
Into the Wild Artistic Director Eamon Flack’s vision for Belvoir
Australia is such a knotty, pent-up, uptight society. Any way we have to release those things we should go for.
Cathode Ray Comfort The demise of Asian video stores
Most of these video stores are gone now in Sydney; in the age of streaming, even my 65-year-old mum uses YouTube on her phone to get the latest Taiwanese variety shows.
Phantom Thread The everyday sadism of marriage
It’s commonplace to observe that the opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference. Love and hatred exist on a spectrum ... traversed at the speed it takes to watch one’s partner laugh too long at their own joke, or eat a messy breakfast.
The Local
4 and 20 Blackbirds Baked in a Pie A recipe to crow about
I remember driving through the bush with my father. He hated crows and every time we saw one, he’d pull over to the side of the road, carefully and quietly pull out the loaded .22 he kept under the seat.
Tropicana Bob and the Min Min Lights The beating heart of Sydney’s wayward bohemians
For whatever reason The Trop – a hole-in-the-wall with two rooms and indifferent spag bol on offer – took off with the local layabouts and the arty types.
Parliament On King A taste for the world
“When I started this, I saw the headlines... But I wanted to do it because it felt like the right thing to do.”
Newtown’s Best Variety Act Behind the scenes at Clem’s Chicken Shop
Newtown was a no-go zone when Clem's was founded: “I remember Peter once walking to school and he got rolled for his shoes.”