Comedy
Julia Morris: I don’t want your honest feedback
She was in New Faces in the 80s, and television satire Full Frontal in the 90s, then swept the boards on Australia’s first Celebrity Appearance and hosted I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here. Affectionately known as Lady J-Mo (courtesy of her husband buying her the title of Lady online), she is touring the country to let everyone know: “I Don’t Want Your Honest Feedback.”
Yep, she’s looking great - but don’t tell her how much slimmer she looks off-screen, as she’s heard it all before. And with years of experience, and a couple of Helpmanns, and Logie awards under her belt, she probably doesn’t need any either.
- Julia Morris’s I Don’t Want Your Honest Feedback, is at QPAC, Brisbane on 27 August
Theatre
La Traviata
Melbourne theatre group Sisters Grimm presents a satirical version of Verdi’s romantic opera, La Traviata, with their own inimitable style. Verdi’s tragedy tells of lovelorn courtesan Violetta, who is forced to choose between a life of disgrace with the man she loves, or one of servitude to a well-respected Baron.
Sisters Grimm’s version, starring Ash Flanders and directed by Declan Greene, twists the classical story and drags it through the sweatshops of Mumbai, and past the wastepaper basket of the Australian federal minister for the arts. They delve into the increasing gap between wealth and poverty, filling it with opera, protest and drag.
- La Traviata is on at Sydney’s Belvoir from 29 August to 20 September.
Film
Fashion Mavericks on film
It’s Melbourne Spring fashion week, and ACMI’s Fashion Mavericks on film series looks at those at the top of their fashion game. The series opens with film-maker Jean-Marc Manivet’s 2014 documentary #Couture, The New Queens of Haute, which looks at designer Iris Van Herpen’s futuristic designs along with his sister Delphine’s wardrobe of couture wedding gowns
The two designers represent the most avant garde of contemporary designers: Van Herpen, with her innovative use of materials including plexiglass and rhodoid, and Manivet with herdresses, which are extend the bride’s everyday stylebeyond traditional tulle and puff. Yet traditional couture maisons dominate Paris Fashion Week, so the director looks at the hurdles they face to become The New Queens of Haute.
- #Couture, The New Queens of Haute will screen at ACMI, Melbourne on 28 August
Music
Holy Holy
Brisbane singer-songwriter Timothy Carroll and Melburnian guitarist Oscar Dawson first crossed paths as volunteer English teachers in Southeast Asia. Years later, Berlin-based Dawson crashed at Carroll’s Stockholm apartment, where they collaborated on their first recordings. The result is Aussie rock band Holy Holy.
Their first full length record, When The Storms Would Come was created with the help of producer and collaborator Matt Redlich, showcasing their lyrical sound and classic storytelling, amplified with weighty reverberating piano lines and rhythmically dense drumming. Now they take their sound on the road with this When The Storms Come tour.
- Holy Holy play at The Republic Bar, Hobart on 28 August
Ideas
Is this how you feel?
Art and science collide in a new exhibition entitled Is this how you feel. Science communicator Joe Duggan has curated an exhibition of letters, written by leading climate researchers, which describe how they honestly feel about climate change.
While science isn’t usually about emotions, that’s all about to change – just like the ozone layer. Those researchers who have spent their lives understanding climate scienceabandon their clinical, measuredlanguage and discuss how the issue makes them feel. The results are heartfelt, raw – and unmissable.
- Is This How You Feel is at fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne from 18 to 28 August
