Allen & Unwin, Australia, 2021
Set in the seventies in Sydney, The Women and the Girls is a tale of female friendship which invites us to define what it is that constitutes ‘home’.
Three women, quite different in their circumstances and nature, come together, along with their children, to create a household when each decides that her marriage is not meeting up to expectations.
First published in Great Britain by Maclehose Press, an imprint of Quercus Publishing Ltd
Published in 2020 in Australia by Hachette
This is a charming and informative book. I loved it.
Lotte Möller is a Swedish journalist, writer and bee-keeper. This work, while full of classical and literary allusions, is a readable little text about the complexities and social implication s of bee-keeping.
Continue Reading“Lotte Möller – Bees and Their Keepers”
Bungendore Fine Art
2b Ellendon Street Bungendore NSW
Friday 29 January to end February 2021
10am to 4.30pm. Closed Tuesdays and Thursdays
Paintings from travels around the South Coast and other local areas – natural bushland scenes, coastal shorelines, magnificent mountains.
Mick Doust’s interest in painting started in his mid-20s as a plein air painter. He lived in country NSW and there wasn’t a lot of help around for an aspiring painter.
Mick painted every Sunday for many years and during this time an artist friend opened a gallery in town. He started painting seriously after he retired.
More about Mick Doust: https://www.mickdoustart.com/
Bungendore Fine Art: https://www.bungendorefineart.com.au/
Image – Thistle, pastel, courtesy Bungendore Fine Art
Palace Electric Canberra from 4 February 2021
99 minutes, rated M
Danish with English subtitles
Falling comfortably in the currently popular genre of stories centred on female friendships and self-discovery in mature years, The Food Club has been compared with Eat, Pray, Love, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Continue Reading“The Food Club – Film review”
Belconnen Arts Centre
30 January – 6 February 2021
7pm nightly and also at 12.30pm Saturday 6 February
55 mins, suitable for all ages
Featuring acrobatics, juggling, aerials, comedy and dance, this is an energetic, family-friendly, all-in circus celebration of the 30th anniversary of Warehouse in Canberra. The young circus performers have devised a work that explores the weight and richness of legacies.
Continue Reading“Interrobang – Warehouse Theatre”
Atlas Production, Australia, 2020
Readers have looked on in 2020 as the publishing industry has come to grips with COVID-19 and writers have worked hard to get their stories not just published but then publicised.
Who would have anticipated that a novella set on a cruise ship would be one of the stories to emerge in that year, its author finalising her edits at the close of 2019 before so many things changed.
Gallery 3, M16 Artspace until 31 January
Wednesday to Sunday 12 noon to 5pm
https://www.m16artspace.com.au/
The works in this exhibition clearly and beautifully demonstrate the artist’s architecture background. Phil Page is interested in the way cities develop in layers, built one upon another. His works are created in the same way, documenting his memory of place and change.
Green Hill Publishing, Australia, 2021
This is a wonderfully funny, wonderfully clever social-political satire that takes a swipe, albeit not a vicious one, at almost every aspect of contemporary life.
Former diplomat Peter Rodgers aimed to write a book with a laugh on every page, and he has succeeded. There is a serious intent and much research in this work, but the humour is what the reader carries away, demonstrating that a skilled hand has directed it.
Palace Electric and Hoyts cinemas from 14 January 2021
Family CG-animated feature, 78 min
Parental guidance recommended for younger children
The legendary HEINZELMÄNNCHEN of Cologne were gnomes secretly finishing craftmen’s work at night until they were ousted by a tailor’s malevolent wife 200 years ago.
Ever since then, the Heinzels have been hiding in a secret underground habitation where any contact with the upper world – and, most of all, with humans – is strictly forbidden. But one day, lively Heinzel girl Helvi decides that she cannot stand the restriction of this little world any longer.
Continue Reading“The Elfkins – Baking a Difference – Film Review”
Day and evening classes, from 3 February 2021
Folk Dance Canberra Hall
114 Maitland Street, Hackett ACT 2602
www.folkdancecanberra.org.au
With music from countries around the world, you can enjoy the travel currently not possible in real life by attending a class at Folk Dance Canberra. Classes are suitable for all ages and all levels of dance experience.
Folk Dance Canberra is a welcoming community providing physical and social well-being through world dance. No partner necessary (socially distanced Covid safe dancing).
Image: Advanced class with participants from 16 to over 70, courtesy Folk Dance Canberra:
Atlas Productions, Australia, 2020
This debut novel set in Brisbane in the 1890s provides the perfect vehicle for an author with the twin passions of history and social justice.
Joanna Beresford chooses for her heroine Lilian, a young working class woman from an immigrant background, who is forced to fend for herself in the quest for education and improved social standing – and often merely to survive.
At Palace Electric, Dendy and Hoyts in Canberra from 7 January 2021
81 minutes, rated PG – Family
The premise of this originally Danish film (with American voicing) is that our dreams are a kind of sound stage managed by a group of benevolent creatures ensuring we wake in time to avert disaster.
The now rather common story line of a family blending with unlike children having to cope with a sudden unannounced coming together in a home setting, unprepared by previous meetings or outing, feels rather too derivative for my liking.
Continue Reading“Dreambuilders – Film Review”