No scribe in the stalls has ever quite matched the Melbourne actor's brief turn as a theatre reviewer for the long-departed Argus newspaper. A small taste: "Writhing onto the stage," he wrote of one production's dancers, they treated the audience to "the agonised twistings of a run-over cat"

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In the culture wars our conservative governments are batting for, and paying, the other side. Though it always ends in their own masochistic humiliation, they never consider a cultural policy which would remove the Left's stranglehold, patronage and dominion over the taxpayers' arts dollar

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When Playwriting Australia (PWA) acknowledges the traditional custodians and pays respect to “elders past, present and future”, its play-acting words are giving thanks for smart offices on level three of a nice address in Sydney’s Rocks—paid for by us. Over the four-year period from 2017 to 2020 PWA will receive two million dollars from the […]

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All Australian plays are rubbish, apart from those which are underrated and underplayed. But which are which? The website australianplays.org, operated by the Australian Script Centre, promotes, publishes and sells play scripts. Funded by the Tasmanian, New South Wales and Commonwealth governments, it holds 2225 scripts by 909 playwrights. It’s a glossy treasure trove—or a […]

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Weather forecast: very hot, late storm. A revolution is coming. A civilisation is collapsing. Be afraid, be warned. We can’t stop it. We can’t hold back. It is going to happen. Go, read Chateaubriand. Be afraid for those coming after us. It’s mid-summer and hot. Usually, in Hobart, I remind our neighbour, watering his roses, […]

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Welcome to Theatre Street. The weather is fine today, and the year is twenty-something. Although you could be in Sydney or Melbourne, I’ve placed my fantasy street in the great Pacific city. Not long ago this was a dusty and decaying thoroughfare, not far from Central Station. Now, it’s a dynamic streetscape which houses half […]

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It’s late October. The Coalition for Marriage has a problem airing a television commercial supporting the No vote in the same-sex-marriage survey. The commercial has been classified as MA 15+ by Free TV Australia. Because of its sexual explicitness it will only be viewable after 8.30 p.m. The words that offended were taken from the […]

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In Australia, stupidity rises, totalitarianism descends. Between them, the judges of the prestigious premiers’ literary awards in Victoria and New South Wales gave prize money of $165,000 to honour a play script in which the central male Aboriginal character is so phoney he confuses European and Australian trees: “We start our walkabout just before the […]

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Did Malcolm Fraser confuse his memories of what was said on the telephone and what took place later at Government House? Sir John Kerr said he did and Fraser insisted his version was correct, so who to believe? Certainly not the latter, a most unreliable source

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Two effeminate young men in dresses prance onto the stage. When the laughter and cheering stop one of them agreeably lisps to the other, “By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.” When King James saw The Merchant of Venice in 1605 this is probably what Portia looked and sounded […]

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