THE cello and the synthesiser may seem like odd bedfellows. In fact, I’m struggling to think of a song where they both heavily feature. But this makes them the perfect combo for Audible Edge, a three day festival of experimental music held across Fremantle and Perth. The cello in question will be played by Perth…

SPORTS-related concussion injuries are increasingly gaining attention in Australia with almost 3,100 hospitalisations in 2020–21, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Now Perth’s Black Swan Theatre Company is shedding light on the issue through its state-wide tour of the award-winning play Barracking for the Umpire, with a Perth pre-tour, encore season. Set…

IT’S a graduation show with a difference. On Sunday night, a flamboyant and perhaps slightly nervous bunch of burlesque performers will take to the stage at the Charles Hotel in the Fresh Faced Follies Grad show. All recent students from the Sugar Blue Burlesque Academy, there will be glitter and mascara everywhere as they power…

WITH the new footy season underway, there’s no better time to see the affectionate and at times heart-breaking tribute to over beloved game – Barracking for the Umpire. The critically-acclaimed play revolves around Doug Williams – the greatest footballer Donnybrook has ever seen – and his devoted wife Delveen, who has stood by his side…

DAMAGE embodies the essence of Australia’s troubled and complex treatment of refugees.  Its synopsis is deceptively straightforward: on a desolate night, Ali, a refugee prohibited from working by his visa but taxi driving nonetheless with another’s license, picks up an elderly woman with a faltering memory. Thus commences a journey into an increasingly alienated urban…

THERE’S still time to catch some great French movies at Luna Leederville before the Alliance Francaise Film Festival winds up on April 2. Now in its 35th year, the 2024 festival has a diverse line-up of 41 films with everything from gritty dramas to lavish period pieces. It’s not short on star power either with…

THERE’S a poignant backstory to the new Mace Francis Orchestra single No Postcode. The track was commissioned by Francis’s close friend Victor O’Connor, who wanted it played at his funeral. No Postcode was sadly premiered at O’Connor’s wake, but despite the sombre occasion, the song is not a lament and sounds like Frank Zappa wrote…

“May the French horn be with you…” Well, not quite, but the classical world and the Star Wars universe will collide when the WA Symphony Orchestra accompany a special screening of The Force Awakens at the Riverside Theatre in Perth. The nearly 100-strong orchestra will perform John Williams’ musical score live to the film, adding…

THE pull of your childhood is like nothing else. Perth artist Jo Darbyshire had not been to her hometown Lake Grace in five decades, but after doing an artist residency there in 2019, she reconnected with her past and all the glowing memories came flooding back. “It had been 50 years since I had lived…

A NEW movie of stark contrast by British film director Johnathon Glaser, The Zone of Interest depicts the lives of a German commandant and his family living next door to Auschwitz.  In the shadows of the barbed-wired walls of the horrendous extermination camps, Hedwig and Rudolf Hoss have created a beacon of domesticity and a…