'I think the rock swallowed them up': Ian Michael takes on an Australian classic

The Stage Show

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When director and actor Ian Michael first saw the stage play of Picnic at Hanging Rock, adapted by playwright Tom Wright, it was as a theatre attendant. Now, he is directing it at the Opera House for the Sydney Theatre Company. The Noongar theatre-maker has forged an exciting career performing deeply personal stories alongside innovative productions. His production of the gothic story of the Victorian school girls who go missing on St Valentine's Day, interrogates a colonial nightmare and its fixture in the Australian imagination.

In 1954, model Shirley Beiger shot and killed her boyfriend outside the ritzy Chequers nightclub in Sydney. The case was a media sensation, especially when Beiger got off without any charges. It has inspired the cabaret A Model Murder staged inside the Darlinghurst Court House, where the original trial took place. Performers Amber McMahon and Maverick Newman give us a taste of the court action, along with writer Sheridan Harbridge.

In the hit Edinburgh Fringe show, Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen, Samuel Barnett is a stand-up comedian regaling us at breakneck speed about his unfulfilling love life and very hectic brain. When a new and dazzling man comes into his life, everything could change, except for his new partner's extremely inconvenient medical condition... but is everything as it seems? Sam and director Matthew Xia join Michael to unpack this charismatic character, written by Marcello Dos Santos.

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