Mentor Bella ready to square the ledger
For actress Bella Heathcote, winning the Heath Ledger Scholarship was ‘a godsend,’ now she’s ready to return the favour.
Television
Hotel Cocaine: a biting tale of avarice and violence
Chris Brancato’s Hotel Cocaine traces the rise and fall of charismatic gangsters and is promoted with a line that says it all: ‘There’s No Business Like Blow Business’.
Golden Boy swallows Logies award nods
The TV hit based on Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe has claimed 11 Logies nominations, with the awards night to return to Sydney for the second time in 37 years.
Ladies are back in black in a clever and droll TV series
A TV series inspired by Madeleine St John’s novel takes up the thread where the hit film version left off.
Comedian takes viewers to the edge of humour’s acceptability
Shane Gillis was fired as an SNL cast member before he even got on the air because of what were deemed offensive jokes on his podcast. So the philosophy of Tires is to go for broke.
How Austin Butler’s career shifted into high gear
In the wake of his BAFTA and Golden Globe Award winning performance as Elvis, Austin Butler has become one of Tinsel Town’s most sought-after actors. His latest film tracks the rise and fall of an outlaw motorcycle gang in 1960s and 70s Chicago.
Benedict Cumberbatch’s dark turn
Benedict Cumberbatch shines in Eric, a new six-part series about a missing child. It is a show as compelling as it is odd.
‘Being in the Bridget Jones films wasn’t good for my love life’
Sally Phillips on playing Shazza in Bridget Jones, her role in the new ABC comedy Austin – and mending a rift with Hugh Grant.
‘Baby Reindeer’ inspiration sues Netflix for $260m
Fiona Harvey, who has identified herself as the delusional, violent woman at the centre of the hit series, claims its claim to be true is the ‘biggest lie in TV history’.
Gore and vengeance aplenty as Dragon returns
If you thought you had built up a cast-iron stomach, immune to whatever horrors the Game of Thrones franchise may hurl your way, think again.
This love story leaves an indelible mark
Despite the horror, and there’s plenty of it, the The Tattooist of Auschwitz has hope and love at its core.
Lifting the lid on the truth behind Black Panthers
Readers might recall the 1970s fear and hostility that surrounded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Its role is under considerable review in America’s still-complicated racial narrative.
More laughs in the ledger as Colin from Accounts returns
The show is full of heart without being saccharine, and quirky without being twee.
The steam just keeps rising
Bridgerton returns for part one of a third season that’s as silly as it is saucy, with Nicola Coughlan’s Penelope in fine form.
The timeless skewer of egos
Tom Wolfe’s 1988 laceration of male pomposity, A Man in Full, resonates with relevance, splendidly brought to life in David E. Kelley’s lavish new TV series.
Five things to watch this weekend
For those left looking for a cop drama to tide you over after Blue Lights, you can’t do much better than The Responder.
The final chilling chapter in Robert Durst’s story
A factual reimagining of US killer suspect ‘Bob’ Durst’s story, Jinx – Part Two, is one of conjecture but makes for hypnotic, intense and compelling television.
Five things to watch this weekend
The third season of Netflix’s daft and delicious Regency-era bodice-ripper, Bridgerton, is here.
The timeless lord gets his mojo back
Will a new star and Disney money rescue Doctor Who? Russell T Davies talks about second acts.
This quirky Irish thriller makes for a perfectly pleasant few hours
Ireland is such a sexy ticket for television right now that you could probably pitch a series about a running tap and TV types would cry, ‘Sold!’, providing it delivered nuns, the Blarney stone and the craic. This is no exception.
Baby Reindeer: the truth about Netflix’s ‘lying’
It is not so much that lying these days is more prevalent – it is just that telling lies has become perfectly acceptable, even mainstream.
Paws for thought: Colin leaves ABC a-counting its losses
Colin From Accounts is one of Australia’s biggest global television hits in decades. The story of a guy, a girl and a wee disabled dog, how on earth did the ABC let this puppy go?
‘I’d walk down the street and people would say, Jacinda!’
Comedian Melanie Bracewell on her new stand-up show, her famous cricketing family – and going viral with her Jacinda Ardern impressions.
Blighty gets the full bells-and-whistles Planet Earth treatment
David Attenborough is right: nature in the United Kingdom can be just as dramatic as anywhere else.
The tragic undoing of the buffalo
Documentarian Ken Burns captures the casual demise of the buffalo – and the people who revered them – by America’s white settlers.
Television’s Bogie and Bacall are back for round two
Their show Colin From Accounts is a global hit. But does the smart, funny, sexy onscreen repartee of Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall translate to real life?
‘He’s a psychotic liar’: TV ‘stalker’s’ on-air outburst
Internet sleuths outed Fiona Harvey as the Baby Reindeer ‘stalker’ – a disturbing tale that took Netflix by storm. But the story got a lot weirder after Piers Morgan put her to air uncensored.
Novelist combined murder mystery with the Tudor dynasty
CJ Sansom overcame a troubled childhood to produce the best-selling Shardlake novels.
Sexy new Doctor? Who cares about ABC?
The new Doctor Who is brilliant. The ABC’s top brass will be the ones in fear of extermination once its new chairman Kim Williams starts asking how they lost the rights to this sci-fi juggernaut.
Tangled in twisted conceit
Jenny Popplewell’s documentary recounts the case of Jennifer Pan, a serial liar whose demanding immigrant parents were shot in their home in 2010.
Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/television/page/7