Seesawmag • 10 September 2023

From WAAPA to Winifred

Lucy Maunder is still catching her breath after landing in Perth – and not just because of her part in Mary Poppins. While the effervescent musical is undoubtedly an endurance test for cast and crew, Maunder’s energy the week leading up to this interview has been consumed by someone much smaller, if every bit as endearing.

West Weekend | 1 December 2018 • 6 October 2023

Northern lights

It’s the kind of exposure tourist operators dream about. The cover of a national magazine. Except the description was far from a ringing endorsement. “It was on the front of Caravan Australia as Australia’s worst caravan park in 2004,” recalls Lake Argyle Resort’s current custodian, Charlie Sharpe. “It was so run-down ... nobody wanted it. It was derelict, horrible, it was an absolute debacle.”

West Weekend | 10 November 2018 • 8 October 2023

Diamond in the rough

The November heat is relentless, sweat seeping from every pore almost as soon as we step outside. But there is no denying the harsh beauty of the landscape. The vast skies. The rich colours of the earth. The gorgeous gum standing sentry by the riverbank. “See that tree,” Frauke Bolten-Boshammer says, as she dabs her face with a damp towel. “That’s where I found Friedrich.”

West Weekend | 13 October 2018 • 6 October 2023

Man of degrees

The tears came out of nowhere. Driving down the tree-lined back roads of Yallingup last month, singing along to Paul Kelly and Neil Finn at the Sydney Opera House, no doubt murdering some of the most-loved tracks from two of the best songwriters in the business. As the first bars of To Her Door rang out, I cranked up the volume. It’s a song I’ve heard countless times before but suddenly, almost inexplicably, I was crying.

West Weekend | 4 February 2017 • 14 October 2023

Moment of strewth

That voice. Distinctive. Unforgettable. A voice that greeted Australians for 11 years with a signature “G’day viewers.” That helped put Australia on the map, persuading the Poms to drink an ice-cold Fosters and encouraging the Yanks to put another shrimp on the barbie. And the voice behind one of the most quoted lines in cinema: “That’s not a knife ... this is a knife.”

West Weekend | 20 April 2019 • 6 October 2023

No guts, no glory

The teenager’s hand shot up in an instant. A shy student, Chris Ikonomidis wasn’t one to share much in class but when the careers counsellor asked everyone to tell her what they wanted to do when they left school, he didn’t hesitate. “I said ‘Oh, I want to be a soccer player’, and everyone giggled at me, and she said 'yeah, but Chris what do you want your job to be'?"

West Weekend | 7 April 2018 • 14 October 2023

Country calling

"Gutharraguda, Gutharraguda, Gutharraguda ...” We’re sitting under a shelter next to the impossibly turquoise waters of Big Lagoon, in the World Heritage area of Shark Bay. It’s Darren Capewell’s country and like all good
hosts, he’s treating his guests to something special.

West Weekend | 20 January 2018 • 6 October 2023

Going the distance

It looks like an old passport — those hard, foldable ones you might have seen floating around in your parents’ or grandparents’ drawers. But the seemingly innocuous document is shocking on so many levels. It certifies that Mavis Westerman, a Njamal woman born and raised in Western Australia like generations of her
family before her, is a citizen of Australia.

West Weekend | 28 January 2017 • 8 October 2023

Home truths

The doorbell rings midway through our conversation. We can’t see from our position on the couch at the back of the mezzanine but a purple unicorn has just entered the cavernous room below bearing a bunch of balloons. “It’s for Violet,” the public relations manager calls out. “Oh, thanks! That’s the second present someone’s delivered for my daughter,” the bemused dad says to me. “It’s a bit spooky.”

West Weekend | 19 August 2017 • 8 October 2023

Playing for keeps

Ewen Leslie was panicking. The end of school was rapidly approaching and his dad had issued him with an ultimatum: pass Year 12 or you will have to repeat it. So the 17-year-old John Curtin student started looking at his diminishing options.

West Weekend | 15 December 2018 • 14 October 2023

Double act

Kim Doig was adamant. She was sure her friend’s brother was lovely but the 19-year-old also knew Matt Ebden was a professional tennis player — there was no way she was going to get involved with someone who spent so much time away from home.

West Weekend | 22 July 2017 • 6 October 2023

Robin's nest

It’s 7.35am and Preston Pensini is already at his desk, ready for morning muster. He’s surrounded by the paraphernalia of school — work sheets, colourful posters and textbooks — but it’s a long way from your regular classroom. There’s only him and tutor Jenny in situ, there’s not another class within cooee and there’s no school oval to run around on at lunchtime, though there’s always the prospect of a late-afternoon ride on Tsar.

West Weekend | November 2017 • 14 October 2023

Bully for you

When Maggie McKenna tells me she really identifies with Muriel Heslop, I try not to let my scepticism show. How could this pretty, vivacious slip of a thing, with a smile as wide as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, relate to an ABBA-loving social misfit from the backwater of Porpoise Spit?

West Weekend | 22 April 2017 • 6 October 2023

Fanning the flames

Former Docker Shaun McManus watches like he’s “bleeding inside and I’m just praying to God that we win”. Cricket legend Justin Langer, who likens the drama in the lead-up to a big Test match, admits to getting “seriously grumpy if we lose against the Dockers. If we lose, I’m grumpy for a week”.

10 September 2016

The Full Monty

There is something rather surreal about sitting opposite one of the world’s comic geniuses, a man whose hilarious skits were such a part of growing up you can recite them ad nauseam, and discussing hip replacements. It’s a reminder of the passing of time but also an indication that Cleese doesn’t give a hoot about pretending to be something he’s not.