Culture

  • Circus Oz supports indigenous Australians

    Circus Oz supports indigenous Australians MELBOURNE — On Thursday, September 24, at the Melbourne Town Hall, Circus Oz will be joined by Archie Roach, Ruby Hunter, Linda Gibson, Milton White and Aboriginal dancers for a performance to raise funds

  • Colonial perceptions are persistent

    Last November, Channel Nine screened the documentary Cape of Dreams in a number of cities. In it, the Aboriginal people of Cape York, the Merkins, were described as cannibals: "There were hundreds of cases of miners being killed

  • Behind the urban apocalypse

    Ecology of FearBy Mike DavisMetropolitan Books, 1998342 pp., $55 Review by Ben Reid Natural disasters are generally viewed as independent of human control. However, their impact is inextricably linked to the social structures of particular

  • A play for our century

    A play for our century Mother Courage and Her ChildrenBy Bertolt BrechtDirected by David RitchieNew Theatre, Newtown, SydneyUntil October 24 Review by Brendan Doyle Fifty years ago, Bertolt Brecht was in Stockholm, exiled from his native Germany

  • Stock market tigers

    Stock market tigers There's a rouble in the rubbleBut the trouble with the bubbleis it's burst. I said to Renie Rivkinit's time to put the boot in,the Hang Seng grown flakyand the Nikkei looking shakytime to sell right nowbefore the Dow turns

  • The GST

    The GST A song by Peter Hicks and Geoff Francis Little Johnny has a brand new fiscal plan,To bring prosperity to this land,It's dressed up like the Christmas turkey,Juicy, plump and fat.But when you strip away the skin,Underneath you'll find an

  • A nightmare Australia must avoid

    GST: the Winners and LosersBy Austin DonnellyWrightbooks, 1998129pp., $?? Review by Sue Boland GST: the Winners and Losers is Austin Donnelly's second book about a goods and services tax. The first, The GST and Fightback Package — a Nightmare

  • Take your seasick pills

    Mary Bryant — A musicalBy Nick Enright and David KingDirected by Crispin TaylorEnsemble Theatre, SydneyUntil October 10 Review by Brendan Doyle Try to imagine the movie Titanic redone as a musical, set in a longboat on a tiny theatre stage,

  • Series glosses over the real Mosley

    Series glosses over the real Mosley MosleyA Channel Four productionWith Jonathan Cake and Jemma RedgraveABC TVSundays beginning September 20, 8.30pm The screening of this four-part drama series on the life of British fascist Oswald Mosley spawned

  • British Labour on record

    Labour: A Party Fit For ImperialismBy Robert CloughLarkin Publications1992 Review by Ben Courtice The famous Russian communist V.I. Lenin would have shuddered if he had foreseen how his characterisation of the British Labour Party (BLP) as a

  • Theatre that proves a point

    Earlier this year, I set up New World Order Theatre in Brisbane. There was no manifesto to mark its birth, nor raving reviews to greet its first production. It happened, like so many things, because it seemed like a good idea at the

  • Domestic violence, mutton birds and murder

    SnorkelLa Mama Theatre, 205 Faraday Street, CarltonBy Richard BladelDirected by Peter HoughtonWith Carmen Mascia, Christopher UhlmannUntil 13 September Review by Vannessa Hearman Snorkel tells the story of two siblings bonded by a history of family