Culture

Alex McKinnon Actor Danny Glover is probably best known for his on-screen roles spanning nearly 40 years, but his appearance in Australia to address a trade union conference comes after a lifelong commitment to civil rights and labour activism. “I was invited here again, by First Nations people, 22 years ago. I went to visit men who were incarcerated and, like in my own country, they were disproportionately people of colour. Then I knew a little bit more about Australia.”

Peter Craven Actress-singer Christie Whelan Browne catapulted to the attention of theatregoers at a young age, untrained but bursting with talent. Here, she talks about fate, timing and discovering a love of musical theatre. “I was the clown, I really made people laugh. Boys told me I was ugly … I used comedy to fit in.”

Emily Bitto On the eve of the release of his directorial debut, Acute Misfortune, adapted from Erik Jensen’s book about artist Adam Cullen, Thomas M. Wright talks about how his reaction to Cullen turned from revulsion to deciding he was the perfect subject. “Adam seemed to stand for so many things that I just can’t. And I think, particularly, cloaking that behaviour and those attitudes behind a veil of art is just fucked.”

Andy Hazel Spike Lee’s new film BlacKkKlansman tells a true story of an African–American policeman infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan. Its themes of blaxploitation, racism and oppression, says the filmmaker, perfectly reflect the political climate we live in now. “When Kevin [Willmott, the film’s co-writer] and I came on board, our No. 1 concern, as storytellers, was to connect this period piece to present day. We had to con-nect. So, we did our research.”

Andy Hazel He trained for a career in British theatre, but Gary Oldman has since appeared in some of Hollywood’s top-grossing film franchises and played some of history’s most famous men. Here, the Oscar winner opens up about learning his craft and the value of insecurity. “It would be a sad day to really be able to sit there and watch yourself and go, ‘Wow, I’m fantastic in this.’ You should always be questioning and pushing yourself, and having doubt and insecurity is a good thing, but it can’t immobilise you.”

Dave Faulkner While Gabe Gurnsey’s Physical is a slow-burn techno album that evokes the unfolding of a big night out, Rebel Yell’s Hired Muscle delivers a sharp slap of industrial primitivism.

Will Cox All We Can’t See, an exhibition of works responding to the incident reports published as the Nauru Files, leaves the viewer deliberately overwhelmed in the face of the trauma it interrogates.

Helen Razer Hannah Gadsby’s show Nanette has been met with rave reviews. But can it deliver on what others promise for it?

Jennifer Down Unravelling Steve Coogan and The Trip to Spain.

Maxine Beneba Clarke Waiting for Peak Uncomfortable Gonzo with John Safran.

Omar J. Sakr A drive with founder of western Sydney literary collective Sweatshop, Michael Mohammed Ahmad.

Reviewer: CR How fast the world moves, and how nice this can be for those of us caught in its spin. Just a few years ago, it would have seemed weird for a debut novel to combine the ingredients the author has mixed here, but in the literary landscape of 2018, Confessions …

Reviewer: JR Sam Twyford-Moore, former director of the Emerging Writers’ Festival, has written a weird, garrulous, scattergram of a book about mania and the experience of life at what Saul Bellow once called the speed of intensest thought. So what is The …

Reviewer: CG Sisonke Msimang’s father fled South Africa and the violent repression of the African National Congress (ANC) in the early 1960s. She was born in Lusaka, Zambia and raised in a family at the centre of a revolutionary community in exile. They were …