Author Archives: Murray

The current program line up on ABC KIDS looks exciting and varied, and led by the enormously successful BLUEY is on an excellent trajectory.  Acquiring and commissioning programmes from the ABC’s most reliable partners locally and from Canada, UK and … Continue reading →

It’s an easy laugh – enjoying a family that’s weirder than yours. But when nations collide and people get hurt… well that’s no laughing matter. Luckily we don’t have to take the clash of these people too seriously in this … Continue reading →

Tom and Meg, teenagers in a school play, are bobbed and buffeted in a waters meet of social change in 1967, striking out through family eddies for their own identity one moment and floundering against the will and grief of … Continue reading →

Sport for Jove’s highly acclaimed production of this comedy was a delight that surpassed my highest expectations. Setting the play in 1920s silent movie Hollywood and making Kate a bold and spirited aviatrix was as near a stroke of genius … Continue reading →

I caught Hay Fever last Thursday week. Silly time of year, autumn, to contract such a flush of the senses but the actors fairly bristled and blustered through Noël Coward’s witty dialogue as they lolled in the bath tub, broke a … Continue reading →

Last Friday I had an audience with King Charles III. In an animated session when many contemporary issues were aired he (spoiler alert) threatened to dissolve parliament and confronted abdication in, at times, a quasi Shakespearean style. Some speeches were delivered … Continue reading →

Hmmm… the Ides of March. Last night I saw two Pythons live at the State Theatre in Sydney.  An omen?  Whatever, it was a buzz to see these comedy legends in the flesh – even from up in the gods. … Continue reading →

I saw Opera Australia’s dazzling production of The Pearlfishers last weekend and I’ve been swimming in Bizet’s music ever since.  The score was an exotic delight from the first note of the overture to the last echo at lights out – … Continue reading →

Tom Stoppard is a staggeringly brilliant playwright!  The somewhat Georgian symmetry of the stage set belies the chaos of the intersection of ideas and times that will play out across the space until some order is restored and most questions … Continue reading →

This is the fourth year for Opera New England – an initiative that couples great vision with bold ambition.  Their offering this January was Verdi’s La Traviata in which Violetta, a high-class courtesan (read ‘party girl’) returns to society but … Continue reading →