LIGHTHOUSE GIRL builds from a slow murmur to a tempest of blood, fury and pathos that had the audience in tears. Based on the real life story of 15-year-old Fay Howe, a lighthouse keeper’s daughter, Dianne Wolfer’s book is set on Albany’s Breaksea Island at the outbreak of World War One. “It speaks the universal…

FOLLOWING a revamp of the historic Rosemount Hotel in North Perth, the famous circular bar is no more. But don’t worry, the hotel is now set to become one of Perth’s premier live band venues, with new bar areas, mezzanine viewing platforms and an upgraded PA. “It will be a renaissance the likes of which…

MOTHERS who killed their children in the early days of the colony is the heart-breaking subject matter of The Spaces Between Us. Based on PhD research by ECU’s Amanda Gardiner, the art exhibition focuses on 55 cases of infanticide between 1829 and 1901. Archival records showed themes of fear and shame during the deeply conservative…

MADNESS frontman Suggs is bringing his new one-man show to Perth. Suggs: My Life Story in Words and Music will feature loads of his trademark comedy, but also includes poignant segments about growing up in London and his quest to discover more about his estranged father, William. Suggs was three when his father walked out,…

ART emulates art, playing at real life, in So You Think You’re Charlie Smith. The play examines the specious nature of reality television, and is very topical given the recent media frenzy over claims of fakery in the Channel Nine show Married At First Sight. One character says the show is a set up and…

LIFE’S big Cs — cancer, communism and Catholicism intertwine in the poignant Royal David’s City. The quotidian characters in this play are instantly recognisable as anyone’s next door neighbour, mum, aunt, or those annoying religious door knockers. And while their stories are confronting, like real life there’s plenty of laughs during the darker moments, including…

NEVER Tilt Your Chair Back on Two Legs is a sonic double bill of percussion, exploring the role of women throughout history. Mum’s dinner table etiquette on chair tilting and elbow leaning probably didn’t include the musicality of knives and forks. “Antique silverware really does sound like bells,” percussionist Louise Devenish tells the Voice. The…

PERTH audiences are hard to crack and it’s uncommon for more than two curtain calls. As for standing ovations, I thought they’d gone out of style — until the premiere of Tim Minchin’s musical Matilda. Rising to their feet, the audience in the packed theatre clapped and wolf whistled as the cast took bow after…

DERELICT carparks, fetid alleyways and the odd crooked road sign gleaming in the moonlight; artists Ian Williams and Nathan Brooker love to document mouldering urban landscapes in thick slathers of oil. They call the subject matter deadspace: functional areas that have been abandoned and are no longer of use to society. In a modern update…

TO say director Rachel Perkins is a little nervous about her new movie Jasper Jones is an understatement. Her screen adaptation of Fremantle author Craig Silvey’s coming-of-age tale was released Thursday, but at last year’s preview screening at CinéfestOZ she was so nervous she had to bail. “I had to leave the screening because it…