Concrete Playground

Friday, 8th January - Saturday, 16th January
@ Sydney Theatre

To be or not to be? This is a question that every theatre company should ask of themselves whenever attempting to stage a classic text, for no quicker are old... Read More »

Thursday, 14th January - Sunday, 17th January
@ Red Rattler

An observant and sometimes handsome Englishman named G.K Chesterton once wrote that "Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions". What he might have meant is that... Read More »

Friday, 8th January - Sunday, 17th January
@ Bondi Pavilion

Short films come in two flavours: the quick, one-two punch of a comic gag and the perfectly concentrated, pithy concept piece. A festival with only one type will stagnate pretty... Read More »

Tuesday, 12th January - Sunday, 17th January
@ The Studio, Sydney Opera House

Now, I know what you're thinking: mind readers are full of shit.British mind-reader Phillip Escoffey does not want you to believe that he's a psychic, in fact he's a cynic.... Read More »

Saturday, 19th December - Sunday, 17th January
@ East Sydney Doctors

Since when do people stand around in doctors' surgery waiting rooms when they're not ill? Since East Sydney Doctors started moonlighting as a contemporary art gallery a year or so... Read More »

Friday, 8th January - Sunday, 17th January
@ Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House

Touted as the dance event of the Sydney Festival, Bale de Rua is coming to town with a whole lot of sweet dance action that smacks of Brazil. Using original... Read More »

Tuesday, 12th January - Sunday, 17th January
@ Seymour Centre

University comedy troupes and political satire can either be the best thing in the world or the worst. Just look at The Chaser, as an example of either, depending on... Read More »

Sunday, 10th January - Sunday, 17th January
@ CarriageWorks

Crowded House, Jane Campion, Russell Crowe. Any time a New Zealander does anything noteworthy we wander over like the swaggering older siblings we are and claim them as our own.... Read More »

Wednesday, 16th December - Wednesday, 20th January
@ Various cinemas

What on Earth has Jim Cameron been doing for the past 12 years? Well, not much - technically - for he has gone virtual, turning that closely guarded world of... Read More »

Thursday, 17th December - Wednesday, 20th January
@ Various cinemas

With its nods to noir filmmaking and the comical and popular Spanish culebrones style, Broken Embraces unravels through the eyes of the charming and troubled main character Harry Caine née... Read More »

Saturday, 26th December - Wednesday, 20th January
@ Various cinemas

There's a moment in Jane Campion's (The Piano, In the Cut) latest film Bright Star, wherein Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) lays on the bed, light streaming through the window, a... Read More »

Saturday, 26th December - Wednesday, 20th January
@ Various cinemas

The words, "The Beatles" are never uttered in Sam Taylor-Wood's debut feature film Nowhere Boy, and, for the most part, neither are the screaming girls that the phrasing conjures. That's... Read More »

Wednesday, 9th December - Wednesday, 20th January
@ Event Cinemas

In a post-apocalyptic world, ruined by the scientific hubris of mankind, only a small contingent of machines remains: those that wrought the destruction, and a handful of handmade dolls cowering... Read More »

Thursday, 7th January - Sunday, 24th January
@ CarriageWorks

Humans and their desire to experience images of dazzling immediacy and sensory adventure were given a wonderful (but soon to be forgotten) gift in 1962: the ‘Sensorama’. A pre-digital and... Read More »

Thursday, 29th October - Tuesday, 26th January
@ Art Gallery of NSW

These days you can’t tell if it’s going to rain or shine. You could be heading to the beach and get caught in the rain, so rather than hedge your... Read More »

Thursday, 3rd December - Wednesday, 27th January
@ Various cinemas

With the patience of a nine year old (that is to say, none at all), it feels that the world has been holding its breath for Spike Jonze's screen adaptation... Read More »

Wednesday, 13th January - Saturday, 30th January
@ A Backyard In Paramatta

Alicia Talbots latest work, The Fence, is quite different to most other shows you’ll see in the Sydney Festival. For starters, in the venue listing where you would expect to... Read More »

Wednesday, 6th January - Saturday, 30th January
@ Griffin Theatre

Irish playwright Mark O’Rowes Crestfall is made up of three monologues for women. The trio of intersecting stories all take pace on the same day, based around the site of... Read More »

Saturday, 26th December - Saturday, 30th January
@ Various cinemas

There is no doubt Guy Ritchie has stamped his mark upon Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic Sherlock Holmes. Ritchie’s now trademark temporal jumps, bare-knuckled fighting and fraternal banter is all... Read More »

Saturday, 26th December - Saturday, 30th January
@ Palace Academy Cinemas

Australian audiences are destined to begin and end 2009 in a French classroom. Pourquoi? Early 2009 was spent watching Laurent Cantet's Palme D'Or winning The Class, fascinating in François Bégaudeau's... Read More »

Wednesday, 23rd December - Sunday, 31st January
@ Belvoir St Theatre

Adapted for the stage from the novel by Guus Kuijer, The Book of Everything takes place in Amsterdam in 1951 - with the trauma of WWII German occupation still clearly... Read More »

Saturday, 21st November - Sunday, 31st January
@ Object Gallery

The fifth recipient of Object Galleries Living Treasures title, Australian ceramicist Jeff Mincham is a craftsperson of the highest order. Since he first exhibited his work in 1976 at Adelaide's... Read More »

Thursday, 7th January - Sunday, 31st January
@ The World Famous Spiegeltent

Details on what you can expect from Smoke and Mirrors, the new show debuting at this years Sydney Festival, are about as vague and mysterious as the show's name would... Read More »

Tuesday, 10th November - Sunday, 31st January
@ Museum of Contemporary Art

Political art is at its best when it not only gives expression to the ‘big questions’ facing a society, but also forces the audience to think about answering those questions.... Read More »

Friday, 2nd October - Sunday, 31st January
@ Art&About

Once again the City of Sydney is transforming, well, thecity of Sydney, with its public art program Art&About. While there aremany pretty things lining the more conspicuous promenades, it’s down... Read More »

Sunday, 10th January - Sunday, 7th February
@ Slot

If you thought Abstract Art was a movement relegated to the history books and the minds of hairless historians at the end of the 1950s you would be right, and... Read More »

Friday, 18th December - Sunday, 7th February
@ Sydney Theatre Company

When Sydney Theatre Company released their 2009 program including an "untitled project" from Steven Soderbergh, there were some grumpy mummers from prospective subscribers who felt that being asked to sign... Read More »

Saturday, 9th January - Wednesday, 10th February
@ Belvoir Downstairs

Flacco is an angry alien, a spitting, frothing creature that is only barely contained within the human form of author, performer and illustrator, Paul Livingston. In contrast, Marty Murphy is... Read More »

Thursday, 7th January - Thursday, 11th February
@ Various cinemas

People jump up and down a lot in Nancy Meyers movies. Her heightened, playful worlds of wealthy white characters may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but Meyers has established herself... Read More »

Tuesday, 5th January - Friday, 12th February
@ Belvoir Downstairs

Throughout the Sydney Festival period, Belvoir Downstairs will play host to a mixed bag of comical stories and performances. Just like the man in the lolly shop, this program has... Read More »

Thursday, 7th January - Sunday, 14th February
@ Belvoir St Theatre

Part girl, part monster of the deep, Claudia O'Doherty is a three-dimensional being from Aquaplex, a futuristic underwater city that exploded. As the sole survivor, she has come to share... Read More »

Saturday, 3rd October - Sunday, 14th February
@ Art Gallery of New South Wales

Having never quite managed to be in the right place to see a Kaldor Public Art Project in the flesh, I'm pretty excited about the Art Gallery of New South... Read More »

Friday, 8th January - Saturday, 20th February
@ Sydney Opera House

Beneath the thin veil of silliness in Voltaire’s Candide, little escaped his vicious attack: religion, art, politics, theologians, governments, armies and philosophers – especially Leibniz and his theories of the... Read More »

Tuesday, 12th January - Saturday, 20th February
@ Mrs. Macquaries Point

Rob Bryant, General Manager of the OpenAir Cinema can sum up the experience in three words, 'Sydney in summertime'.This isn't just an outdoor cinema, Mr. Bryant explains, "It's an experience... Read More »

Wednesday, 25th November - Sunday, 21st February
@ Art Gallery of NSW

While his name may sound more like a cartoon character thought up to teach you about the birds and the bees, Rupert Bunny was an incredible  Australian artist celebrated for... Read More »

Saturday, 21st November - Sunday, 21st February
@ Art Gallery NSW

Though he both arrived and exited his life in Victoria, it was Paris in which this much beloved Australian artist flourished. Between 1885 and 1933, Bunny lived in France, for... Read More »

Friday, 1st January - Monday, 1st March
@ Various Cincmas

A sly father figure with a good-humoured but nevertheless illegal penchant for the ways of the underground; a maternal force who reluctantly accepts her partner's shortcomings in light of his... Read More »

Thursday, 14th January - Friday, 12th March
@ Various cinemas

George Clooney has been making a habit of anthropomorphising himself this summer. First he played a fox in Wes Anderson's spell-binding Fantastic Mr Fox and now, in Up In The... Read More »

Thursday, 3rd December - Sunday, 14th March
@ Belvedere Amphitheatre, Centennial Park

The new program for The Moonlight Cinema kicks off with Sam Taylor Wood’s John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy. This beautifully constructed film steps behind the legend to reveal a young... Read More »

Saturday, 31st October - Sunday, 14th March
@ Museum of Sydney

Plundering the depths of Martin Sharp's personal collection, rumoured to be  labyrinthian in its documentation, the Museum of Sydney has unveiled an exhibition comprised of some of Sharp's most iconic... Read More »

Wednesday, 13th January - Saturday, 20th March
@ North Sydney Oval

Taking up residence at the North Sydney Oval, the 2010 Starlight Cinema kicks off with a preview screening of the hilarious British political satire In the Loop. Then for the next two... Read More »

Wednesday, 27th May - Friday, 26th March
@ Cockatoo Island

I can still hear the rousing tune that plays to William Kentridge's video installation, "I am not me, the horse is not mine." Such is the infectious effect of this... Read More »

Thursday, 10th December - Sunday, 11th April
@ Museum of Contemporary Art

In a world where the new is often demanded but rarely considered or discussed for any length of time, the Berlin-based Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson is a memorable exception. A... Read More »

Monday, 21st December - Sunday, 23rd May
@ Australian Maritime Museum

I was about just verging into adolescence when my parents took me to Loch Ness. It was painful attempting to keep up that despondent, outsider teen thing when all I... Read More »

Sunday, 13th December - Wednesday, 1st December
@ Powerhouse Museum

Bleached perms. Feathered earrings and feathered hair. Acid-wash. Ra-ra skirts. Rayban Wayfarers. Swatch watch envy. Eyeliner for all. Crop tops over leotards. Bangles, tons of bangles. They may be 80s... Read More »