culture

After almost six distinguished decades in a notoriously fickle industry, Nancye Hayes is still captivating Australian theatre audiences with her indomitable mix of sass and charm. “Some people can’t stand musicals, but they’re joyful and moving. Music is very emotional and touches people.”

Malthouse Theatre’s skilful audio adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas’s Loaded epitomises 2020 – yet somehow it feels dislocated from its time and place.

The poetic vernacular of Angus Cerini’s Wonnangatta brings a dark comedy to its violent story.

Four years ago, children’s author Ted Prior thought he had finished with his beloved character Grug. But with a new book and a theatre adaptation celebrating its 10th anniversary, it seems that he is far from done. “I just enjoy the way young children think and the way they do things – and I think there is a bit of the young child in all of us.”

After a quarter of a century as one of Australia’s finest stage actors, Anita Hegh is well placed to channel Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own. “Although it is a much kinder world for women than it has been, there’s still a long way to go.”

Catherine Văn-Davies found that her starring role in SBS’s Hungry Ghosts excavated intimate family histories. “For most of my life, Mum wouldn’t talk about the war. But with intergenerational trauma, even if they don’t tell us the experience in their own words, we’re so sensitive to our parents.”