See & Do
The best movies, TV, music, podcasts and books of the year (so far)
As a sort of mid-year stocktake, our critics have picked their favourite pieces of pop culture from the first half of 2022.
- by Debi Enker, Garry Maddox, Melanie Kembrey, Barry Divola and Robert Moran
Latest
Forget girl bosses, I’m just here for the insane nanny
Magic or not, Mary Poppins is still lugging enormous lamps around in her handbag and claiming to be able to speak to dogs.
- by Deirdre Fidge
Nils Frahm’s music: a mind-altering beat or a mind-calming tone?
After eight years since his first run of sold-out shows at the Sydney Opera House, Nils Frahm returns to the building, to soothe Sydney audiences.
- by Bernard Zuel
A Doll’s House review: Nora breaks the shackles, but not our hearts
Joanna Murray-Smith has done a shrewd job of updating Ibsen’s play, without bruising its essence.
- by John Shand
★★★★
Arts
The glory and ugliness of showbiz laid bare in this razor-sharp show
There’s no one better to take us behind the curtain of Australia’s musical theatre world than Christie Whelan Browne.
- by Cameron Woodhead
Slow moments of stillness that lacked luminosity
The Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra’s latest performance of Eybler’s String Quintet in D major has lightness but lacked light.
- by Peter McCallum
‘I’m not doing it unless it shoots here’: Chris Hemsworth brings Hollywood home
The Aussie A-lister weaves a tangled web in Netflix’s new dystopian film Spiderhead.
- by Robert Moran
It is hard to make Picasso surprising - but this remarkable show succeeds
He may have dominated the 20th century like no other painter, but Picasso saw himself as a talent that could not be constrained by time.
- by John McDonald
No one would publish my novel, and now it’s up for the Miles Franklin
Rightly or wrongly, being a self-published author feels undignified. Second-best.
- by Michael Winkler
‘It’s Sydney. We’re boiling’: A city of winter sceptics strikes again
We know our weather’s not perfect. But through chattering teeth and subzero homes, we just pretend it is.
- by Richard Glover
‘Victory for spinster theatregoers’ after Arts Centre denied tourist a ticket
Melbourne Arts Centre changed its ticketing policy after fielding criticism for what some said was discrimination against single theatregoers.
- by Nick Miller