Meet the new wave of Australians taking London by storm

When Clive James, Barry Humphries, Germaine Greer and Robert Hughes escaped to London in the 1960s, they created an archetype: the Aussie expat. Over half a century later, London is still a magnet for Australians of talent and ambition. For them, London is all about opportunities.

Jennifer RobinsonCredit: Mark Cocksedge

I first met lawyer Jennifer Robinson in November, at an event organised by PEN Melbourne. She was in Australia to discuss what’s really been happening to Julian Assange. She should know. She has been his legal counsel since his arrest in 2010.

Robinson was raised in Berry, NSW, the eldest of six children. Her family trains racehorses. What she misses most about home — apart from the weather, the big blue skies and the surf — is the Monday nights when her siblings play touch rugby together and then have a family dinner at her sister’s house. They are a close family, she tells me, with a strong ethos of looking out for others. An ethos which is deeply ingrained in the work she does today.

Robinson studied the Indonesian language, Bahasa, at school and university and then volunteered for a year with a small NGO in West Papua. This was when the leader of the West Papuan independence movement, Benny Wenda, was imprisoned. She was followed by Indonesian Intelligence, her office was raided and she was threatened with arrest and deportation.

"That was confronting for a 21-year-old," she says. "I naively thought my Australian passport was going to protect me."

Robinson won a Rhodes scholarship in 2005 and went to Oxford University. From there, she joined the London chambers of the famous Australian, human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson. And so commenced her stellar career. She chooses to live in London because of the opportunities it provides to do international work.

"There is a perception that if you choose to leave Australia, you don’t like it. That’s just not true. I love Australia."

Her way of contributing to home is to use the platform she has in London to represent and assist Australians and issues relevant to Australia. In the past year alone, she has helped an Australian family get their dad, Brisbane man Hazem Hamouda, out of prison in Egypt. Robinson secured his release from the notorious Tora prison after a horrific 433-day ordeal.

She is representing the Matildas, the Australian women’s soccer team, in their case against FIFA over unequal prize money 

Julian Assange arrives at a British court in April.Credit: Getty Images

for the women’s World Cup. (They received just 7.5 per cent of the men’s prize.)

Robinson is often invited to comment on Australia’s conduct. In 2017, she found herself on stage at New York's Lincoln Centre, between the first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, and Hillary Clinton. The previous speaker was Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. She was invited to speak about Australia's treatment of refugees, on a panel which was entitled Australia’s Shame.

And then there is Julian Assange. Robinson is the longest-serving member of his legal team, and is a regular visitor to Belmarsh prison in south-east London, where Assange is incarcerated. "It appears that Australia is incapable of protecting an Australian citizen in the face of US interests," she says. "Julian faces 175 years in prison for the same publications for which he won the Sydney Peace Prize and the Walkley award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism."

What does an Australian passport actually stand for? That’s a question she has been asking since her earliest days in West Papua.

Architect Rory Hyde, 37, has a dream job. He is the curator of contemporary architecture and urbanism at London’s famous Victoria and Albert Museum. He is also a Design Advocate to the Mayor of London. Now that’s the title of a person who is well connected.

Although Hyde left Melbourne 11 years ago, he still hankers after a decent Australian coffee. To this end, we meet at the Australian-owned cafe Granger & Co. in Kings Cross. I ask him why he left. "In Melbourne, architecture was entirely about real estate and lifestyle," he says. "Architects focussed on two questions: What can I design next? And then: Who will commission it?"

Architect Rory Hyde.Credit: Mark Cocksedge

Ideas tumble out of him. For Hyde, architecture should not be about ego or private privilege. Architects need to enter into a social contract. Their main client should always be the Common Good.

After all, he says, in the National Health Service, medical people have to serve everyone. They can’t just attend to the rich or the residents of the inner city.

It makes me realise how rare it is to hear Millennials talking about "the common good". Yes, they are a generation with a social conscience. But their conversation is so often shaped around the "personal project". Woke Millennials are likely to suspect that "the common good" is a lie which marginalises individuals who are not "common". And in some cases, that’s true. But Hyde’s expansiveness and optimism are like a breath of fresh air.

In fact, Hyde’s first exhibition at the V&A was called All Of This Belongs To You. He built a neon sign that framed the entrance to the building. The show featured installations about the role of design and architecture in defining us as democratic, urban citizens. The Financial Times reviewed it as "hugely ambitious… an important, subtly subversive show of a kind that is very rare in the consumer-led world of contemporary design."

Hyde studied architecture at RMIT, where he went on to complete his doctorate. He and his partner, Amy Silver, moved to London seven years ago, after a stint in Amsterdam. I ask how Brexit will affect him.

"If your project is openness and pluralism, then it’s a very depressing prospect. Boris’s mantra, that we are going to 'strike out on our own', is cloaking an exclusionary, xenophobic project. It redefines what Englishness is in a very negative, black and white way."

Does London have anything to teach Australia?

"Trains," he says immediately. "The London Underground is incredible. Each train carries 1200 people. I travel on the Victoria Line. A train arrives on the platform every 60 seconds. Every hour, 80,000 people are delivered to the centre of London. People complain about it. The heat and the overcrowding. But if they were on the roads, nothing would get done," he says."In Melbourne, people are not really attached to their cars. They are attached to convenience. Melbourne has to stop building roads and build a real train system."

Hyde is energised by the plurality of London, by the pulse and the competition. But, he says, "London is a brainy place, not a bodily place. As an Australian, you are so connected to the environment ... to the sea, to surfing. Here, even when you go to the park, you have to wear gloves," he laughs.

Theatre agent Sian Smyth.Credit: Mark Cocksedge

When Sian Smyth was 14 and living in Perth, she wanted to be Bridget Jones. Not the boyfriendless, stressing-about-your-weight Bridget Jones. The one with the glamorous TV job, the tumultuous love-life and her own apartment in London.

Now 37, she works as a talent agent at Hamilton Hodell, one of London’s most prestigious theatrical agencies: their clients include Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie and Tilda Swinton. I arrive at her office in Soho and struggle up four flights of narrow stairs, wondering how Stephen Fry, their most famous client, manages.

Smyth welcomes me with a perfect London accent. She is warm and mischievous. There is a hint of 1960s rock star in her long black hair, fringe and knee-high boots. Her own list includes seven Australians. "When you’re dealing with high-level talent, you soon learn that an agent needs a good deal of strategy in helping clients craft their careers.

"The best careers are built from getting the right balance of stage and screen. And helping clients make good choices along the way."

Smyth can’t really think of anything she doesn’t love about living in this diverse, vibrant and fast-paced city. Apart from missing her family. And maybe the London commute. Curiously, she says, London has given her a better standard of living.

"In Australia, I could never afford property. Or if I could, I’d have to live in Woop Woop."

Here, she owns her own flat, which is a three-minute walk to the nearest tube station, and a 20-minute ride on the underground to Piccadilly Circus.

Smyth also has great news for Australian actors. Once, you would only be cast if the script called for an Australian. But these days, casting directors are searching the planet. Take Smyth’s client, Australian actor Georgia Blizzard: she was cast in a lead role in a new ITV series called The Singapore Grip. "They could not find the right girl in the whole of the UK," Smyth says.

"Australian actors have a reputation for being hard workers and for being well trained. Australia’s leading drama schools – WAAPA, NIDA and VCA – are turning out some of the best new actors in the world." Word is getting out.

When Michael Crawford — the very first Phantom of the Opera — swept onto the stage at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London, Josh Piterman was just 11 months old.

Musical theatre performer Josh Piterman.Credit: Mark Cocksedge

Thirty-three years on, Piterman, of St Kilda East, is the latest in a long line of singers to don that iconic mask, in this very same theatre — just around the corner from Piccadilly Circus.

As I arrive, I hear my name called from across the street. Piterman, wearing a beanie and exercise gear, bounds toward me like the friendly boy next door. At Stage Door, we go through the familiar ritual of checking in. I picture the legendary Sarah Bernhardt (who played Joan of Arc here in 1890) bustling in from the cold and greeting the porter as he hands over her keys and mail.

Piterman’s dressing room is palatial. It has three separate areas, like a small flat. "It was Sir Lawrence Olivier’s," Piterman tells me. "He practically lived here."

Well you could.

So how did the Melbourne boy land this plum role? Piterman explains that he flew to London for a series of auditions after the casting people saw him in a video belting out the aria, Nessun Dorma, in a show at the Sydney Opera House. Then he returned to Australia. And waited.

One night, when he was performing at the formal Australian Club in Sydney, his agent rang.

"I need to know whether you’d like to play the role of The Phantom on the West End," she said uncertainly. "Yes," said Josh. "That’s why I went to London to audition."

"OK," said the agent slowly. And then she shrieked, "BECAUSE THEY’VE OFFERED IT TO YOU!"

Piterman screamed so loudly that the Australian Club sent in security.

In London, he and his partner, singer/songwriter Charlotte Black, rented a "furnished flat". On the day they moved in, they discovered there were no knives or forks. No plates or cups. "And the mattress definitely needed replacing."

Piterman’s parents flew to London for the opening night. "It wasn’t until they came through the door of my dressing room after the show that I truly understood how much this means to me," he says.

This is what Piterman loves about London: "Theatre-going is etched into the soul of every individual. The public go to the theatre for nourishment. It’s almost spiritual. Being an artist is valued."

He is furious about the Morrison government’s decision to rob the arts of its own ministry and lump it in with trains: "The message is clear. The arts are not of value. The arts aren’t useful."

Is there anything you hate about London? "Nothing that I didn’t sign up for. The weather? Yes, it’s shit. But you’re going to London. Pack accordingly."

Do you miss anything about Melbourne? "I really miss footy. I am a massive Western Bulldogs fan. And I miss space," he says. "If I could have my dream of where I’d end up living, it would be somewhere on Mornington Peninsula: beach, fresh air, shrubbery, tranquillity and silence."