Tourism Western Australia | February 2024 • 27 February 2024

See the stars come out

The trees speak in captivating colour and librettos soar across pristine sands. Giants roam the city streets, stars light up under the Milky Way, and fairytales come to life. Perth Festival is a cultural cavalcade that has been firing imaginations and lifting spirits for more than 70 years, sharing hundreds of spellbinding stories in myriad artforms over three glorious weeks.

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 | 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.”

Seesawmag • 15 September 2023

Umbrella academy the theatre of dreams

How did they do that? There’s no point in asking Mary Poppins as we all know the titular nanny never explains anything. But it’s a question I find myself asking time and again as this three-hour re-imagining of PL Travers’ book and Disney’s 1964 classic whizzes by. A house opens and folds like origami, unveiling a living room one minute, a kitchen the next. A desolate park transforms into a cornucopia of colour, the joy of life springing from every corner (and statue). A children’s bedroom morp

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 | 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.

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.

Seesawmag • 21 September 2022

Let's talk about the future: better health and wellbeing

The arts were all around us in the pandemic. In the concertos and rock anthems we played to soothe our troubled souls. In the novels that took us to a different time and place. In the films and television shows we binged to forget, at least temporarily, the grim reality sweeping the planet. Even in the things we made, to varying degrees of success, to keep our spirits up.

In some ways, West Australians were more immersed in the arts than ever, even though galleries and theatres were shut and pe

Seesawmag • 6 August 2023

Laying it on the line

It’s my first foray into the Royale Theatre in Northbridge and I’m pleasantly surprised. The intimate space, with tables at the front and booths at the back is a world away from the bustling games room and bar downstairs.

Seesawmag • 22 July 2023

Three times the joy

The curtains are a little late opening to Government House Ballroom thanks to a temperamental grand dame. To be fair, she’s 227 years old, hasn’t been out for about 15 years, and the weather has wreaked havoc with her system.

“She was fine this morning,” classical pianist Geoffrey Lancaster tells the audience. “But then we got here and barumph!”

So she required a little extra love (or tuning) before being introduced to the world, or at least those of us who had come to hear Lancaster, violinis

Seesawmag • 17 July 2023

Playing with real treasures

Christopher Cartlidge is enamoured of a beauty called Fabio. Like the male model who launched a thousand romance novels, his Fabio is Italian and powerfully built. But this one is also subtle, with hidden depths – and more than 200 years old.

“Fabio is a brilliant quartet viola that I’m fortunate to be in possession of thanks to the generosity of (South Australian cultural centre) UKARIA,” Cartlidge says.

“I’ve nicknamed him Fabio because he is fabulous! He sings with such power and clarity bu

Seesawmag • 22 June 2023

Give me that rock 'n' role music

Turn the dial up to 11! How else to describe the rare joy that is RocKwiz Live to the unfamiliar? Part quiz night, part rock concert and part comedy show, this national treasure gives members of the public the chance to show off their musical knowledge while simultaneously providing musicians – newcomers and veterans – with a platform to perform in front of an appreciative audience.

The TV program that started it all ran for 12 seasons on SBS and was recently given a reboot on Foxtel after a s

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.

Seesawmag • 15 June 2023

Creating poetry in motion

Rupert Guenther grew up surrounded by art and ideas. It was not uncommon to come home from school in Melbourne and find the likes of renowned Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt or Australian mezzo-soprano Suzanne Johnston in the living room. This revolving door of musicians, artists and philosophers clearly left its mark.

“It was a very creative time,” Guenther says from the Toodyay farm that has been his home for the past two years. “My siblings all played music, so it was a natural progr

Seesawmag • 15 May 2023

Raising the voices of forgotten artists

Ever heard of Raffaella Aleotti? You might guess at her Italian roots but if you said she was a 16th century composer, then I want you on my table at the next quiz night. For like so many of her era and, let’s face it, many more since the Renaissance, Aleotti’s work has largely been overlooked, not because of its quality but because of her gender.

Seesawmag • 27 March 2023

Jackson sings a different tune

“I wanted to be like this guy more than anything when I was at school,” Joel Jackson says, indicating the distinctive tones of another double J wafting in the background. “I was known for playing him all the time – my buddies would call me Jack Joelson!”