Monday roundup

A number of bits and pieces catch my eye this morning:1. Arts Minister Peter Garrett has asked the Australia Council and Screen Australia to...

News just in: Hamlet/MIAF bites back

Great news for those who missed the MIFF screenings of A Poor Theatre's brilliant film The Tragedy of Hamlet: Prince of Denmark. Malthou...

Australia as a paradigm of the mentally impaired

A quick flash: a disturbing piece on censorship by David Marr in the SMH this morning. In its ceaseless quest to backpedal to the 1950s (and...

Little Alison's Sudden Ascension

No one is more surprised than I am. As of now, Ms TN is moonlighting as the Australian's Melbourne theatre reviewer, standing in for the...

AA Gill sticks his fork in

You have to pity the London crrrritics. Just as the spat over Nicholas Hytner's full-frontal attack reached an uneasy detente, AA Gill r...

Unbelievable

Our very own Max Gillies in excellent form. From the good folks at GetUp! And thanks Richard...

Make It New

David Williams over at Compromise Is Our Business passes on the news that the Australia Council is inviting responses to its latest planning...

Fight! Fight! Fight!

UPDATE: Encore Theatre Magazine follows up with editorial and more reaction from London's critical elite, who have lined up as one man t...

Helloooo, Helsinki!

Tonight was Eurovision night here, and addicts of Europop kitsch (which seems to include 90 per cent of Australian theatre bloggers) refused...

Sarko

As widely expected, Nicolas Sarkozy won the French presidency on the weekend. It's an election that has been somewhat anxiously observed...

Green Room Awards

The Green Room Awards were announced yesterday. The big winners were La Mama and the Malthouse, with the latter winning 10 awards. La Mama i...

Newsy bits

TN has got a little behind lately on various Bits, but I'm not going to make any more mimsy excuses. You all know why, and if you don...

New plays?

A quick pointer before I dash to Sydney towards the SMH, where entertainment blogger Chris Dobney uses Stephen Sewell's latest play at B...

Advertisement for myself

Yes, I have a new chapbook out, I must be a real poet. It's almost a slim volume, running to 40 pages, and is beautifully made by Cusp ...

Mad as a Coote

The Liberals have announced their arts policy and, by gum, I'm off to tell those demonstraters outside Bracksie's office (just down...

Rex Cramphorn Memorial Lecture

This Sunday, get along to the Malthouse to hear Daniel Keene deliver the Rex Cramphorn Memorial Lecture, an annual lecture to honour the mem...

Stars etc

American bloggers are getting very excited about the appointment of Cate Blanchett and her husband Andrew Upton as the joint artistic direc...

Desperate Days in the Bunker

I feel like I can't be bothered to mention this, but I suppose I should. Perhaps it's anticipatory hysteria at the thrashing the neo...

Arts funding: some further thoughts

Some notes arising out of the present discussion:1. The question of funding the arts is a no-brainer for artists. Not, as alleged by populis...

Speaking up for theatre

I just did something unprecedented, and closed off the comment thread to my post on the threat to La Mama's funding. TN had swum into th...