richard jordan

We're thrilled to be joined once more by the wonderful Marek Larwood to chat about the 1976 futuristic death-cult sci-fi thriller, LOGAN'S RUN.

Sisters Hayley and Mandy McElhinney are two of Australia's finest stage and screen performers. Having built their careers as individuals, they now join forces for their playwriting debut. The pair have written and will star in Dirty Birds at the Black Swan State Theatre Company — a strange, funny and moving portrait of two women trying to find their place in the world.

Also, the plight of asylum seekers involved in a 2010 maritime disaster that left 50 people dead has inspired This Rough Magic — a new, dreamlike play that weaves their story into Shakespeare's The Tempest. And we take a walking tour of London's famous theatre district, the West End, with theatre producer and columnist for The Stage, Richard Jordan.

Performer James Thiérrée takes audiences into surreal worlds that leave us pondering some big questions about life on Earth. As the son of two pioneers of contemporary circus and the grandson of Charlie Chaplin, it's no wonder James sees the world differently. His latest mind-bending work of physical theatre is called Room.

Also, Richard Jordan drops by to share the story of an actor who once starred in two productions simultaneously at London's National Theatre and we're joined by the author of Verdi, Opera, Women, Susan Rutherford, to discuss what women in the 19th century might have thought of La Traviata's ill-fated courtesan protagonist, Violetta.

Dancers Ako Kondo and Chengwu Guo travelled great distances at a very young age to join The Australian Ballet. Here in Australia, they’ve risen to become award-winning artists and principals at the company — but they also found each other, beginning a fairy-tale romance and inspiring each other to new heights.

Also, Broadway's longest-running show The Phantom of the Opera will soon give up the ghost, and ahead of a new Australian production, we ask Agatha Christie biographer Laura Thompson why The Mousetrap — the longest-running play in London — endures.

In the twenty-fourth episode of Season 6 (Heists, Cons, & Grifters) Kyle is joined by fellow podcaster Daniel Lopez (of the Ghosts Podcast) and musician Ben Childs to discuss the coded innuendo and systemic criminality in the world of principled thieves, blue collar mobsters, and self-preserving stool pigeons that makes up the underworld of Peter Yates' The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973).

The Wadawurrung story of Parrwang, a magpie that lifted the sky to bring light to the land, is now an opera. Parrwang Lifts the Sky is by the Yorta Yorta composer and singer Deborah Cheetham and presented by Victorian Opera.

Also, we visit a rehearsal of The Dispute, a work performed and co-created by children with experience of family separation, hear performance from the new Australian production of Chess and check in on London's West End theatres as they reopen their doors.

Writer and comedian Ben Elton's career in the arts began in the turbulent 1980s and he has worn his passions and politics on his sleeve ever since.

Also, we meet the choreographers behind the viral hit "art film" Black Swan from K-pop megastars BTS and discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the performing arts sector.

With the yuletide season drawing near, a live radio play version of the 1946 Christmas film It's a Wonderful Life will be staged in Perth, theatre producer and columnist Richard Jordan discusses the emerging transfer hubs for new theatre in New York and London, Fiona Blair reviews the Australian premiere of Oil by British playwright Ella Hickson, Leith McPherson leads us through some vocal warm-ups to get mouths moving and tongues twisting, and the Women's Circus stage their triennial large-scale production: The Drill.