ABC RN Arts
462 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingEach week day RN Arts programs zoom in on a specific area of art and culture, brought to you by a specialist presenter. Subscribe to their podcasts separately by searching by name in your podcasting app.
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Episodes
How The Avalanches made it through “seven layers of sh*t”
July 23, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBIf you’ve ever wondered what’s for lunch at Perry Farrell’s house, or where The Roots’ Questlove turns for DJ inspiration, look to The Avalanches for the answer. The Melbourne-based electronic group has collaborated with some of the biggest names in music and waded through “seven layers of shit” to complete their long-awaited second album, Wildflower. Avalanches founding member Tony Di Blasi tells all to BW and BL. Tennis champion Naomi Osaka is havin...
A wedding, a funeral + Yvonne Strahovski
July 22, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.6 MBFreshly nominated for an Emmy award, we meet The Handmaid's Tale's Australian star Yvonne Strahovski who stars in a new sci-fi. Director Emma Seligman chats about her indie festival hit Shiva Baby, and Spanish filmmaker Icíar Bollaín on her subverted rom-com Rosa's Wedding.
Mark Howett and Neil Armfield reach out to a new generation
July 20, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.2 MBNeil Armfield cut his teeth at Sydney's Nimrod Theatre Company before co-founding Belvoir, but his earliest forays into theatre-making were a way to escape some challenges at home. He shares his story with Mark Howett as one of our Legends of Australian Theatre. Also, we visit a war-torn city and a family confronting the cost of survival in Samah Sabawi's play Them and we meet two comedians who have found the funny side of tragedy, bringing personal ...
What happens when the internet cuts out? Rumaan Alam on his prescient domestic thriller
July 19, 2021 00:05 - 53 minutes - 74.1 MBUS author Rumaan Alam’s Leave The World Behind is a timely novel about isolation, fear, class and racism. Also, the 20-something women who are starring in coming of age novels and Rawah Arja's Punchbowl Boys High drama The F Team.
Justin won MasterChef, but Kishwar won our hearts
July 16, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBThe epic season 13 finale of MasterChef saw WA youth pastor Justin Narayan completing all four rice crispies and clinching the title. But Kishwar “just at home” Chowdhury is the winner of our hearts, and isn’t that what matters? It’s a truth universally acknowledged that the “brain, it’s multifaceted; brawn, it’s one dimensional”. This binary will be tested in the new season of Australian Survivor and we’re gagging already. Finally — we sample some...
Pod extra with 2021 Miles Franklin winner Amanda Lohrey
July 15, 2021 06:30 - 17 minutes - 15.6 MBAmanda Lohrey has been announced as the 2021 winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award for The Labyrinth. Amanda tells Claire Nichols that her aim was to write a narrative that felt like a meditative walk into and out of a labyrinth.
1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything + Black Panther's Winston Duke
July 15, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 50 MBWe meet Winston Duke, the lead actor in new film Nine Days, who you probably know from Black Panther and the Marvel films more generally, but first up we're going back in time to 1971 and a new documentary series that believes this was the year that music changed everything.
Artist Dale Harding joins forces with mother Kate, and a war photographer snaps the climate crisis
July 14, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.3 MBThe mother-and-son collaboration of artists Dale and Kate Harding works across generations, artforms —and worlds. Textile artist Kate makes quilts, while Dale’s work is most commonly seen in the rarefied world of contemporary art. So why did they join forces for an exhibition? Plus, the photojournalist who turned his lens from the war in Afghanistan to the climate crisis at home. And a bespoke shoemaker mixing art and fashion. ...
Kylie Bracknell and Mark Howett — Leading lights of the West
July 13, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.3 MBWe meet an artist whose canvas has been some of the world's biggest stages, but his palette is ever-inspired by Noongar Boodjar. For our next conversation between Australian stage icons, Kylie Bracknell sits down with designer and director Mark Howett. Also, as part of our High School Playlist series, we travel from London in 1959 to Alice Springs in 2039 and encounter a fish falling from the sky in Andrew Bovell's When the Rain Stops Falling. ...
What does the Miles Franklin shortlist say about Australia?
July 12, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBAhead of the Miles Franklin Award announcement, we preview the shortlist and find overlapping themes of migration, violence, fractured families and climate change. Aravind Adiga, Amanda Lohrey, Andrew Pippos, Daniel Davis Wood, Madeleine Watts and Robbie Arnott also reflect on what their novels say about Australia today.
Stop Everything! It’s a NAIDOC Week takeover!
July 09, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBZiggy Ramo and Rhianna Patrick take over Stop Everything for NAIDOC Week. Rhianna Patrick, head of podcasts and audio for IndigenousX, speaks to Dr Margaret Harvey, theatremaker, actor, storyteller, and Jasmin McGaughey, writer and editor, about First Nations futurism, Torres Strait Islanders in pop culture and navigating protocol while sharing traditional stories. Christine Anu also gets a lot of love. Hip Hop artist Ziggy Ramo chats with model, a...
Cate Shortland's Black Widow, Perfumes, Mystery Road
July 08, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 50 MBAustralian director Cate Shortland speaks to us about entering the Marvel cinematic universe with Black Widow, and the ally she found in Scarlett Johansson. Plus, director of French box office hit Perfumes, and we revisit a conversation on tropical noir Mystery Road for NAIDOC week.
Betty Muffler: the phenomenal artist healing country
July 07, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.3 MBThe Art Show’s new presenter Daniel Browning finds Indigenous artists who enact healing and cultural rejuvenation through their artwork – from senior Pitjantjatjara elder and Betty Muffler, whose practice as a traditional healer – or ngangkari – extends to her monochromatic canvases mapping the topography and spiritual odysseys of her ancestor to the work of mainland Torres Strait Islander artists working in still lives and comic superheroes. ...
Wesley Enoch and Kylie Bracknell on language, culture and connection
July 06, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.3 MBTaking on Macbeth is a mammoth task for any director but try translating and performing it entirely in Noongar. In our next conversation between legends of Australian theatre, Wesley Enoch meets Noongar actor, director and translator Kylie Bracknell (Kaarljilba Kaardn). Also, we hear a scene from the world premiere of York at Black Swan State Theatre Company and visit performer Paul Capsis and director Chris Drummond in rehearsal for Brink's music-ri...
'We are where we are because of resilience' — Larissa Behrendt's book about grief, family and literary travel
July 05, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBIndigenous author Larissa Behrendt questioned whether to include a First Nations lawyer in her latest novel, but she says it felt more authentic given it's a world she knows intimately. Her novel, After Story, explores grief, family and literary travel. Also, Kim Scott on the legacies of history that have inspired his works and Alice Pung's first novel for adults, One Hundred Days, is about a pregnant teenager and her controlling mother. ...
A lockdown care package for Australia
July 02, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBMillions of Australians are in lockdown, the national covid vaccine rollout is confusing to say the least — but we’ve got you, dear listeners! BL + BW have prepared a care package of highlight interviews from the first half of 2021 for a safe, no contact delivery in your audio feed. Crazy Rich Asians actor Remy Hii, veteran of three quarantines, shares some tips on surviving lockdown and shares his vision for what’s next in Australian storytelling....
Directors' Fortnight preview + Phyllida Lloyd's Dublin drama
June 30, 2021 17:05 - 54 minutes - 49.6 MBBritish director Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia, The Iron Lady) on her new film Herself, a Dublin set drama about a mother escaping a toxic marriage. Phyllida also speak about working with Meryl Streep. Plus, an informative chat about the behind the scenes workings at the Cannes Film Festival.
Surrealists at sea, fake food, and the Beijing Silvermine
June 30, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.3 MBCzech brothers Dušan and Voitre Marek escaped communist political repression for Australia, but their Surrealist art was met with incomprehension in 1950s Australia. Now decades of their vibrant artistic output is on show, raising the question -- why aren't they better known? Plus, sculpture meets imitation food and the found photos that document China's embrace of capitalism.
Emma Jane Unsworth on the 'messy, punky stuff' of women's lives and bodies
June 28, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBEmma Jane Unsworth examines 21st century women in all their conflicted, messy glory in this in-depth interview about her books including Adults and Animals.
Lin Manuel Miranda and Jon Chu’s colourism problem In The Heights
June 25, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.3 MBIn The Heights, from Crazy Rich Asians director Jon Chu and based on Lin Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’ Tony-award winning musical, is a slice of summer joy with a colourism problem. The glaring omission of Afro Latinx cast members in a film set in the New York neighbourhood of Washington Heights, which has a predominantly Dominican Republican population, has been called out as erasure. The filmmakers say they’re aware of it and discussed it...
Jon M. Chu on In the Heights, Three Summers, David Byrne
June 24, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.6 MBCrazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu talks about directing In the Heights, the new film based on Lin Manuel Miranda's musical. We meet the maker of a Brazilian film about a housekeeper left to her own devices when her bosses are thrown in jail for corruption, and revisit a conversation with musical superstar David Byrne.
The wondrous Hilma af Klint, Tania Ferrier's angry underwear and the question of portraiture
June 23, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.7 MBThe rediscovery of Hilma af Klint's abstract paintings has taken the art world by storm, but what meaning can we find in her powerful, mysterious work? The curator of the largest exhibition to reach Australia talks us through her symbols and spiritual quest. Plus, hear from an artist whose feminist-inspired underwear became a hit with the likes of Madonna. Then it's time to ponder… what do artists actually want to portray in a portrait? ...
'There are no bodies' — Alexander McCall Smith on his version of Scandi crime fiction
June 21, 2021 00:05 - 53 minutes - 49.4 MBYou've heard of Nordic Noir but what about Scandi Blanc? Bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith has taken the noir out Swedish crime fiction in his latest series starring the warm-hearted detective Ulf Varg. Also, writer Jessie Tu on her preoccupation with loneliness and a big sweeping narrative about a fictional female pilot who goes missing in the act with US author Maggie Shipstead.
Steven Canals on Pose, Billy Porter and the future
June 18, 2021 00:05 - 53 minutes - 74.1 MBLive, werk, pose! Steven Canals, co-creator, executive producer, writer and director of Pose gets deep and meaningful with BL + BW, reflecting on the end of the award-winning series which has been hailed as groundbreaking for trans representation. Steven shares what it was like to be in the room when Billy Porter shared his HIV status with the cast and crew of Pose, and his view of the current TV landscape. Also, what do we think about the news that ...
Pod Extra with Jessie Tu on the lessons of loneliness
June 17, 2021 22:18 - 48 minutes - 44.4 MBAustralian writer Jessie Tu says the question of female likeability should no longer exist and it's an idea she explores in her fiction. In this in-depth conversation, she also discusses child prodigies, music, racism and even Sex and the City.
Loki, Martin Eden, The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard
June 17, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.6 MBDirector Pietro Marcello on Martin Eden, one of Jason's favourite films of the past 12 months. Australian director Patrick Hughes on his big name Hollywood action comedy The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, and British director Kate Herron on working with Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson for Marvel TV series Loki.
Eddie Perfect turns introspective
June 15, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.3 MBComposer and performer Eddie Perfect's Broadway adventures included some of the highest highs and lowest lows of his career. Now with two Broadway credits and a Tony nomination on his CV, he's touring a new show of stories and songs: Introspective. Also, Robyn Nevin has been a leading talent in Australian theatre for decades, but her latest role may be one of her toughest yet — in A German Life, she becomes Brunhilde Pomsel, secretary to the Nazi min...
'Why not make it accurate' — Andy Weir on putting the science in sci-fi
June 14, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBAndy Weir is most famous for The Martian, the science-heavy Mars survival story that was made in to a hit film starring Matt Damon, and now he's back now with a new book, Project Hail Mary. Journalist Jacqueline Maley on motherhood and ethics in her debut and the final in Michael Mohammed Ahmad's trilogy featuring his alter-ego, Bani Adam.
Brian Moylan’s Real Housewives tell all
June 11, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.3 MB“Everything Housewives becomes Housewives” is the mantra of Real Housewives recapper, scholar and journalist Brian Moylan. Brian’s New York Times bestselling book, The Housewives: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewives is drenched with detail. It answers fans’ burning questions and charts the rise of the Bravo television franchise. Brian joins BL + BW for an extended chat about table flipping, boat rides from hell and who pays for the trips? OK, s...
Julie Delpy + creating ancient Rome for TV
June 10, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBLegendary and multi-talented French actor Julie Delpy discusses her impressive new film about divorce, grief and turning her back on conventional ways of showing women and tragedy on screen. Plus, Australian cinematographer Denson Baker on recreating the sunlight of ancient Rome for TV.
Portrait of a nation: the Archibald at 100
June 09, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.2 MBAustralia's Archibald portrait prize has been running for 100 years and remains wildly popular with punters, with its spats and controversies often more memorable than its artworks. What lies behind its appeal, and with a history of portraying and awarding a narrow range of distinguished Australians — what does it really say about us? Plus, meet the contemporary jeweller whose necklaces and rings tell stories of industry, social history and even arch...
For playwright Jen Silverman, theatre became the answer to any question
June 08, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.2 MBAmerican playwright Jen Silverman is a true believer in the power of theatre. She compares her first encounters with the theatre to walking into church. Her plays have enjoyed great success in Australia and now she has written her first novel, We Play Ourselves. Also, Opera Queensland are on the road and looking to make opera fans of country music lovers with their show Are You Lonesome Tonight and as Melbourne returns to lockdown, we revisit our sto...
'We don't talk about Mummy issues' — Lisa Taddeo's follow-up to Three Women
June 07, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBLisa Taddeo attracted worldwide attention with her 2019 non-fiction book, Three Women, which explored the depths of three real women's sexual desires. Now Lisa has taken that insight into the female experience, and put it in to a novel called Animal. We also take a look at how authors name their heroes and villains, and visit Perth-based children's author Shirley Marr at her favourite writing location.
The one about the Friends reunion
June 04, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.3 MBIn the highly anticipated Friends reunion, the original cast gets together for just the second time since the hit sitcom ended in 2004. They were on a break! BW reflects on the seemingly random assortment of celebrity cameos who dropped in to talk about how much they loved Rachel, Ross, Monica, Phoebe, Chandler and Joey, and what, if anything, we learned from the whole episode. Spoiler warning. The Mare of Easttown finale left us feeling devastated, ...
Sci-fi, AI and an android rom-com
June 03, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBThe director of TV hit Unorthodox has a new rom-com about a soulful android screening here as part of the German Film Festival, she speaks to us about the film. Creator of the Al Pacino led series Hunters on his new sci-fi show for Amazon, and the director of Lapsis, a charming indie set in the gig economy in a near future New York.
'Frankenstein was a really bad parent': Patricia Piccinini's mutants light up a ballroom
June 02, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.3 MBPatricia Piccinini returns to press our ethical buttons with new hyper-real silicon sculptures, staged in a hidden ballroom above Melbourne's busiest train station. Pus, what's the state of drawing in Australia? The simple act of putting pencil to paper used to be central to almost all art practices and art schools, but is it still? Two leading drawing artists make the case.
Alan Cumming is not acting his age
June 01, 2021 00:05 - 53 minutes - 73.2 MBSince his Tony Award-winning performance as The Emcee in the musical Cabaret, Scottish performer Alan Cumming has been increasingly enamoured of the form, opening his own cabaret bar in New York and now taking charge of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Also, we learn about the unifying power of roller derby in the play Ugly Virgins at the Blue Room Theatre in Perth and meet the gig economy workers involved in the new APHIDS theatre work about the hidde...
'In this moment, I had to be there' — Patricia Lockwood on writing about the life and death of a child
May 31, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBThe privilege of writing about the loss of a child: Women's Prize shortlisted author Patricia Lockwood on No One Is Talking About This which is laugh-out-loud funny in the first half, and is cry-out-loud devastating in the second half. And Sincerely, Ethel Malley in which Stephen Orr resuscitates the great Australian literary hoax of Ern Malley but with a twist: he reimagines a life for Ern's made-up sister, a woman called Ethel. ...
Come on, Drag Race!
May 28, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBMalcolm Spellman, showrunner and head writer of the MCU’s The Falcon and The Winter Soldier talks to BW about his approach to infusing contemporary politics into the superhero TV series. BW + BL read the entrails of Drag Race Down Under’s latest expulsions and surprise returns. No Mare of Easttown debrief this week, but BL + BW talk through Andrew Yang on Ziwe, the joy of Art Works on ABC TV Plus, and the third season of Master of None. Show notes...
My Name is Gulpilil and Ten Skies
May 27, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBA conversation about one of Australia’s finest screen actors, David Gulpilil, with the director of a new documentary about his life and work, and film scholar Erika Balsom on her beautifully written new book which examines avant-garde filmmaker James Benning’s 2004 film Ten Skies.
Behind the portraits of the cult 'Aussie' poster series
May 26, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.3 MBFor years now, Peter Drew's been challenging notions of Australian identity in his 'Aussie' poster series — join him as he pastes up his next series around Melbourne's laneways. Then hear about how Walt Disney Studios preserves its vast film stills archive, which holds the earliest sketches of beloved characters including Bambi, Dumbo and Pinocchio. Afterward, introduce yourself to Yul Scarf, a multi-disciplinary artist and recent art school graduate ...
Deborah Cheetham opera heralds a new dawn
May 25, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.3 MBThe 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 ...
'If felt new and it was hard' — Jhumpa Lahiri on writing in Italian
May 24, 2021 00:05 - 48 minutes - 66.6 MBIndian American writer, Jhumpa Lahiri, has made her name writing fiction in English, but in recent years she has been writing in Italian including her latest, Whereabouts, which she also translated into English. Also, Ella Baxter on how her writing relates to her artistic practice making death shrouds and philosopher Hugh Breakey on his philosophical romance The Beautiful Fall.
Montaigne’s in Technicolour at Eurovision
May 21, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.3 MBMontaigne talks about working through the disappointment of the cancelled 2020 Eurovision Song Contest to come through with a new song, Technicolour, for the 2021 competition, and the process of competing via video from Australia. Happy 20th, Shrek, it’s time to celebrate millennial culture. Hannah Reich mounts an impassioned defense of the Academy Award-winning film in the face of unappreciative critics. Finally, BL reviews Underground Railway, the...
Female anti-heroes in Cruella and I Blame Society
May 20, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.6 MBWe meet Gillian Wallace Horvat, the protagonist of I Blame Society, a slasher black comedy about a young female filmmaker in Los Angeles driven to kill by the frustrations of a male dominated Hollywood, and Craig Gillespie, the Australian director behind the new punk inspired Cruella starring Emma Stone and Emma Thompson also joins us.
Finding Australia's lost impressionist, and the beauty in gumnuts
May 19, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.3 MBWho exactly was Iso Rae, the Melbourne-born impressionist painter who honed her craft in northern France? Plus, a different take on a distinctly Australian 'ready-made' — the gumnut — with Colombian-Australian artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso.
How a dancer overcame a spinal injury to shine on the international stage
May 18, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.3 MBWhen dancer Amy Hollingsworth was just 18, she suffered a potentially career-ending injury. Yet, she didn't just recover — she flourished. She's now the artistic director of the Australasian Dance Collective, which is about to make its return to the stage. Also, we hear a scene from Andrea James and Catherine Ryan's Australian gothic play Dogged now at Sydney's Griffin Theatre and we consider the journey of social dance, particularly hip-hop, from th...
Shaun Tan finds the sublime in the ordinary
May 17, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 49.6 MBOscar winner, Shaun Tan, tells of his appreciation of seemingly ordinary objects, like a bar of soap, and how he applies mindfulness to his practice as a writer and painter.
Kate Winslet is a Philly 40 in Mare of Easttown
May 14, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 74.3 MBCheesesteaks, vaping, wawa coffee and a Philly 40. Kate Winslet as gritty, grizzled, hard bitten grandma detective Mare Sheehan is out to solve a murder durdur, while juggling many commitments including a fling with hot Guy, Pearce. BL demonstrates his encyclopedic knowledge of RuPaul’s Drag Race queens AND hear from very special guest, Michelle Visage, RuPaul’s ride or die, and currently judging Drag Race Down Under. Let’s get loud because Bennif...
Angourie Rice, Pablo Larraín's Ema, Alice Rohrwacher
May 13, 2021 00:05 - 54 minutes - 50 MBRising Australian star Angourie Rice talks about starring opposite Kate Winslet in buzzy new cop show Mare of Easttown. A critic's chat on Chilean director Pablo Larraín's new film Ema, and Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher talks about lockdown and making her short film Four Roads.