Renowned HIV+ theatre maker and queer arts producer Jeremy Goldstein surveys Sydney WorldPride Arts for The Queer Review, and finds a radically inclusive multi-artform festival of gender, identity, and sexuality. Beyond the Mardi Gras and the usual circuit parties, WorldPride Arts reinvents the harbour city as one of the world’s greatest LGBTQIA+ cultural destinations. I... Continue Reading →
Theatre Review: CAMP (Seymour Centre, Sydney) ★★★1/2
CAMP, a new play by Elias Jamieson Brown, chronicles the rise of the Australian Pride movement through the women who fought through their pain and losses to win us the freedoms we enjoy today. It’s a decades spanning tale, elevating Australia’s own Gay Liberation story, just in time for Sydney WorldPride 2023. Sydney, in the... Continue Reading →
Theatre Review: Blessed Union (Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney) ★★★★★
There’s a simple pleasure to be had in sitting back and watching everything on stage being done well. Belvoir’s new queer family dramedy, Blessed Union, is seamlessly terrific. Funny, emotive, and probing. Flawless. No notes. I could end the review here, but obviously I won't... Ruth (Danielle Cormack) and Judith (Maude Davey) have always upheld... Continue Reading →
Exclusive Interview: Australian drag superstar Etcetera Etcetera on her Sydney WorldPride one-woman show “Big Screen, Small Queen (Everything I Didn’t Learn at Film School)”
Already loved in Australia for her glamour and quick wit, non-binary drag and visual artist Etcetera Etcetera leapt onto the international stage thanks to her appearance on the first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under. Since then she's toured the nation and sashayed down fashion week runways, while her activism has seen her become... Continue Reading →
Mardi Gras Film Festival 2023 Review: Outrageous – The Queer History of Australian TV ★★★★
In the 1970s, while the rest of the world was struggling to show LGBTQ+ characters as anything other than jokes or morality tales, one country led the way with fully-fledged gay characters front and centre. Australia’s Number 96 was a sexy soap opera about the lives of people sharing an apartment building, putting sympathetic gay... Continue Reading →
Mardi Gras Film Festival 2023 Review: Gateways Grind ★★★1/2
The Gateways Club, or the Gates as it was known, was the centre of lesbian London for decades. A watering hole in the heart of Chelsea, it one of the only exclusively lesbian venues in London, frequented by a mix of women of all classes, including the likes of author Patricia Highsmith. Running from the... Continue Reading →
Queer Screen Mardi Gras Film Festival marks 30th anniversary during World Pride – full lineup announced
The lineup for the 30th anniversary of Queer Screen’s Mardi Gras Film Festival—running February 15th until March 2nd, 2023—has just been announced including several world and Australian premieres. A total of 166 films will screen over 16 days in cinemas, outdoors, and on demand at home alongside a program of panel discussions, workshops, industry networking... Continue Reading →
Theatre Review: Dead Skin (Kings Cross Theatre, Sydney) ★★★★
Watching Dead Skin—which won the State Theatre Company of South Australia’s Young Playwright’s Award and had its world premiere at the Kings Cross Theatre Sydney this week—I was impressed by the complexity of the narrative structure, the ease and flow of dialogue that authentically captures the energy and angst of youth, as well as the... Continue Reading →
Queer Screen’s 28th Mardi Gras Film Festival lineup revealed
Queer Screen’s 28th Mardi Gras Film Festival has announced its full lineup of queer treats that will debut both in cinemas in Sydney and online on-demand across Australia from February 18th to March 4th 2021. MGFF will screen 94 films including narrative features, docs, shorts, and episodics, with 70% of those available on-demand. The program... Continue Reading →