Things to do in Melbourne this weekend

It’s called A Doll’s House, Part 2 and in many ways it delivers precisely what it promises on the packet: this is a serious attempt to imagine what happens when, 15 years after the fact, Nora Helmer (Marta Dusseldorp) – she who severed a deeply-held bond with her audience back in 1879 by walking out on her marriage and her children – comes back. Playwright Lucas Hnath has the audacity to stage that return, and in so doing manages to build a superbly supple series of dramatic and intellectual links between Henrik Ibsen and the current zeitgeist. If there were any doubts that fusty old dramas can still reverberate through the collective consciousness, then this play scuttles them.Nora has, virtually from the moment she first appeared in that wintery Copenhagen night, come to represent a certain proto-feminist position that is both searingly convincing and deeply problematic. Hnath ingeniously mines the original play’s ambivalences around what constitute proper female behaviour, stretching them into a spiderweb of current concerns. Nora abandons her children but she does so to survive, and this play accepts her decision at face value, and then spears her on the spike of consequence. Any woman who’s ever felt damned if she did and damned if she didn’t, is sure to relate.Although this is equally true of Nora’s oft-maligned husband Torvald (Greg Stone). Having carried the burden of raising a family without a mother, Torvald is understandably reluctant to let her back in, especially

You can keep your private jets and your stretch limos – there's no more Melbourne luxury than a gussied-up tram. And the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant is offering a special one-day-only menu so Melburnians can cruise around their city in style.  There are three different fancy meals to be had – cheese and wine, high tea, and a champagne breakfast. They are $50 each, and 10 per cent of the ticket price will go to support the Cancer Council's Daffodil Day.  If you have always wanted to give the Tramcar Restaurant a go (and let's be honest, most of us have wondered what it's like inside as we see the sleek burgundy trams go past), this is a chance to do so for half the cost of a normal lunch and a third the cost of dinner service. Bookings are essential, so plan your outfit and secure your tickets. It sure beats a half-stale pastry on the 86. 

Your weekend trawl through the Queen Victoria Market is about to get a whole lot tastier. Central Beer District is a pop-up craft beer oasis taking up residence at the famous market for six weeks this winter. Every Saturday and Sunday from August 4 until September 9, Central Beer District will host a rotating selection of Melbourne’s thirst-quenching microbreweries. Lead by indie brewers Brick Lane Brewing Co, Central Beer District will also feature the top drops from Two Birds Brewing, Hop Nation, Brewmanity, Coldstream Brewery and Stomping Ground. As well as getting the chance to savour some top-notch tipples, Central Beer District will give visitors the chance to meet the brewers behind their favourite beer and discover what makes them tick. The pop-up will also feature food trucks like Digging For Fire (who’ll be slinging 12-hour slow-cooked pulled pork and burgers) and live music for the boogie-inclined. You can find Central Beer District pouring beers in the Queen Vic Market’s A-Shed every Saturday and Sunday between August 4 and September 9.

Melbourne’s west is getting its own little slice of White Night this August when West Projections Festival returns for its fifth year. West Projections Festival 2018 will feature more than 25 artists who will light up the west with large-scale projections, animation, performance, virtual reality and sound installations from August 3 to 26. The month-long festival of lights, sounds and art has expanded this year to include pop-up locations in West Footscray and Seddon, as well as in its home base of Footscray. A total of 36 locations will be lit up this year including laneways, bars, restaurants, supermarkets, art spaces and train stations. The theme for this year’s festival is non/Fiction, so you can expect the festival highlights to have a distinctly literary edge. West Projections encourages visitors to take self-guided tours, but this year it will also be running special events for those looking for something different. Highlights include This Will Be My Last Test (a multidisciplinary performance in an alleyway), a virtual reality dance party at Mr West and an immersive family disco. The official festival launch is happening Friday, August 17 at Nicholson Mall, Footscray. The free event will have live music, performance, virtual reality and lots of live projections to light up the night.

Afternoons at Little Collins St Kitchen are getting a mighty chocolate makeover this August and September. Every Saturday until September 15 the venue is offering a chocolate afternoon tea, a sweet twist on its regular high tea menu. The limited-time afternoon tea comes with all the traditional sweet and savoury favourites, some of which have been given a chocolatey update. Wear your stretchy pants because this menu includes treats like chocolate scones, milk chocolate baked-cheesecake and white chocolate and Malibu macarons. The pièce de résistance? The afternoon tea is forgoing the traditional glass of bubbles for a devilish Chocolate Martini. Guests will also be able to take a break from their chocolate binge with smoked salmon finger sandwiches, roasted cauliflower quiches and mini pulled pork sliders. The chocolate afternoon tea is only available Saturdays until September 15 at Little Collins St Kitchen (find them at Sheraton Melbourne). Bookings are $65 per person.

It’s a scenario that seems fashioned out of the zeitgeist: a wealthy, respected man is threatened with ruin by the revelation of a single act of corruption in his youth, and a society twists itself in knots to protect and shield him from dishonour. But this is Oscar Wilde, so we can rest assured that nothing will comply precisely with societal norms, and we’re certain to have a hell of a lot of fun on the way down.An Ideal Husband is Wilde’s most serious comedy, which places it somewhere between the frivolous genius of his perfect farce The Importance of Being Earnest and the luxurious solemnity of his highly symbolic Salomé. It plays alternately as a sophisticated comedy of manners and a proto-noir thriller; blackmail, insider trading and political intrigue rub up against flirtation, marital skirmish and appropriate uses of the button-hole. Sir Robert Chiltern (Simon Gleeson) is the coming man in late Victorian society, a politician of strict and unimpeachable ideals. His wife, Lady Chiltern (Zindzi Okenyo) holds him to these ideals; she’d place him on a literal pedestal if she could explain it to her guests. These include her gloriously frivolous sister-in-law Mabel (Michelle Lim Davidson), the scandalously entertaining Lord Goring (Brent Hill) and his phlegmatic father the Earl of Caversham (William McInnes), the chief gossip Lady Markby (Gina Riley) and her mysterious, and subsequently dangerous, friend Mrs Cheveley (Christie Whelan Browne). The plot is too good to give a

What will your funeral be like? Who will go? What will they say? Will there be tears? What will the music be like?  Magda Szubanski wants to discover the answers to these very Tom Sawyer questions, and she will be appearing at her very own funeral during Melbourne Writers Festival.  There will be big-name guests, but just as with a funeral for the dead, you won't know who they are until you arrive. You can expect toasts and eulogies, plus of course the very funny Szubanski. The event will be hosted by Emilie Zoey Baker.

This joyful celebration will set the tone for the festival and will kick things off in style. The evening is a toast to survival, joy, resilience and pure existence.  Popular children's book author Andy Griffiths (of the Treehouse series) will be on the decks DJing the party, and the night will include performances from soul singer Mojo Juju, spoken word artist Sukhjit Kaur and rapper Fablice Manirakiza, who came to Australia as a refugee from war-torn Burundi in 2007.   Australia’s first gay and lesbian youth chorus, shOUT Choir, will be providing tunes, and art collective the Boon Companions will also be performing. American singer-songwriter Andrew WK will be giving a keynote address, and the whole night is hosted by Sista Zai Zanda. This is not your mother's book club party. 

The Great Ocean Road and Yarra Valley Chocolateries are famous for their month-long festival dedicated to hot chocolate in all its delicious forms, and this year is no different. A total of 31 limited-edition hot chocolate flavours will be available to try throughout August 2018, with eight new flavours introduced every week.  Each flavour is created using a coverture chocolate base, which has seasonal and exotic ingredients, herbs and spices added to it. On the menu this year you can expect flavours like hazelnut-chocolate, pistachio, chestnut, mint, pumpkin chai, cookies and cream and for the real chocoholics, triple chocolate brownie. For the adventurous hot chocolate lover there's are wacky flavours like avocado and black sesame, as well as plenty of wild, showstopping elements like exploding marshmallows and edible cups. Some of the showstopping flavours for 2018 include a blue mermaid hot chocolate, a bohemian raspberry hot chocolate and a glow worm hot chocolate (don't worry, the only bugs in it are made from chocolate).  Every limited-edition hot chocolate flavour you order at either the Yarra Valley or Great Ocean Road location comes with an extra shot of milk, white or dark chocolate as well as a giant marshmallow. Too many flavours to choose just one? Book into a tasting session, where $20 lets your try eight different flavours and create three hot chocolate spoons to take home.  The Yarra Valley and Great Ocean Road Chocolaterie and Ice Creamery hot chocolate

You might know Apollo Bay as a summer seaside haven, but in winter, things are very different in the town where the wild forests of the Otway National Park meet the Southern Ocean. The Winter Wild festival launched in 2017 in response to the 2015 Colac Otway bushfires, which had a lasting impact on the region's coastal communities. It's Victoria's answer to Dark Mofo and well worth traveling down the Great Ocean Road for. This year's festival takes place over two weekends in August. The first weekend, August 10-12, will focus on the theme of death. There will be live music from the likes of Adalita, Tropical Fuck Storm and Mike Elrington, live art featuring fire, water, sound and performance, spoken word poetry and guided audio tours on the meaning of human existence. Two weeks later the WinterWild festival will return to Apollo Bay for a weekend of events themed around birth. Food will take a starring role with the Hungry Gentleman (Max Allen and Richard Cornish) hosting a tasting session where you'll gain a greater appreciation of why we eat what we eat, while conservationist and Yuin man Jack Pascoe will explore the history of Australian Indigenous food and drink.  There will be gutsy rock 'n' roll from NUTSACK and The Refuge playing at the Brewhouse, while at the Moksha event you can dance the night away with an electronic dance party. Controversial satire film Terror Nullius will also be screened over both of WinterWild's weekends.  Events at WinterWild are separatel

Ronnie van Hout has been creating aliens, robots and lonely figures for more than 30 years, confounding and thrilling art fans in equal measure with his uniquely funny brand of existential absurdism. He's best known for creating sculptures that depict himself as a childlike figure, but has created work across video, photography, installation, sculpture and text. This exhibition marks Buxton Contemporary's first survey of an artist's work since it opened earlier this year. There'll be more than 20 of Van Hout's works on display, drawn from both private collections and major public institutions. The works take inspiration from sci-fi, cults, classic cinema and even art history. The exhibition also features two brand new works.

This ambitious exhibition, which premiered as part of Sydney Festival 2017, constitutes the first major survey of artworks by the late Myuran Sukumaran – one of the 'Bali Nine' convicted of drug smuggling in 2005. Co-curated by artist Ben Quilty and Campbelltown Arts Centre’s director Michael Dagostino, the show is conceived as a reflection on the power of art to redeem, and on the death penalty and alternative forms of justice. Sukumaran learned to paint during his incarceration in Kerobokan prison. Around 2012 he was put in touch with Quilty, who became his mentor and friend. He was working towards a Bachelor of Fine Art at Monash University when he was executed in April 2015. In addition to around 100 of Sukumaran's portraits and paintings, Quilty and Dagostino commissioned works by six Australian artists: Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, Megan Cope, Jagath Dheerasekara, Taloi Havini, Khaled Sabsabi, and Matthew Sleeth.

Architect Jefa Greenaway curates the first national survey of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander design this month at the Koorie Heritage Trust Galleries in Federation Square. Showcasing Indigenous design projects from across fashion, interiors, product design, landscape, architecture and town planning, the exhibition hopes to challenge preconceptions about Indigenous design and highlight the depth and diversity of design talent around Australia. Designers include Marcus Lee Designs, who re-designed the guernsey for the 2013 all-Indigenous AFL International Rules game in Ireland, fashion from Arki The Label and Teagan Cowlishaw, and textiles by Injalak Arts and Babbarra Design just to name a few.

The famous weekly Fed Square book market shut up shop in 2017, much to the despair of Melbourne's bibliophile community. But the closure was only a temporary one, with the free market reopening at Abbotsford Convent in 2018. Whether you eat, sleep and breath books or are just curious, the market has a vast selection of new and second-hand titles to browse from. From sci fi to non-fiction, the Melbourne Book Market has every genre presented by a revolving cast of veteran Melbourne booksellers. Tweed jackets are encouraged, but not compulsory. After deciding on your next bedtime read take some time to stroll around the convent's picture-book perfect gardens or fill up with a pay-what-you-feel meal at Lentil As Anything. For more information on the next market visit the Abbotsford Convent website or the Melbourne Book Market Facebook page.  

After two centuries of seclusion – and with just one international port open – Japan threw its doors open in 1854, resulting in an influx of Japanese art and culture to Europe. At first, Japanese aesthetics began showing up in western art, but when artists like Degas and Van Gogh started to understand more about the underlying movements and principles, the infleunces started to become more profound.  This exhibition looks at "Japonisme" and how it helped form the foundations of western modern art. It's made up of works from the NGV collection covering paintings, works on paper and the decorative arts. European works are presented with the Japanese works that inspired them. Alongside artworks like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s 'Divan Japonais' poster, the NGV has assembled a full British domestic interior demonstrating the Japanese influence on design and furniture.  Japonisme: Japan and the Birth of Modern Art is free and open at the NGV for the run of the winter blockbuster, MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Way before the #metoo era, New York feminist art collective Guerrilla Girls were shining a light into the murkiest corners of the global establishment with their posters, billboards, books, videos and lectures highlighting gender and racial inequality in the world of art, politics and popular culture. Now the group are having the last laugh, with their work collected by the very museums and galleries they mocked – including the Tate Modern in London, The Whitney in New York and the Venice Biennale. This retrospective brings together 129 of their most controversial and best-known works, spanning from their earliest days in 1985 to late 2016.

Part of the Yalingwa visual arts initiative, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art's new exhibition features new works by ten leading Aboriginal artists about everyday, contemporary Indigenous life. Expect an up-to-the-minute exploration of life across Australia, drawing in humour, family, community all drawn together with connections to the artists' Indigenous ancestors. The exhibition is curated by Hannah Presley. The artists involved are:  Benita Clements, a Western Arrernte artist from Hermannsburg, based in Alice Springs. Clements will present a new suite of watercolours in the form of autobiographical tableau, narrating her daily life, family, hunting and painting. Vicki Couzens, a Gunditjmara and Keerray Woorroong artist from the western districts of Victoria. Couzens’ new commission will incorporate a soundscape sharing a nostalgia for home, family and a nice cup of tea. Robert Fielding, a Western Aranda and Yankunytjatjara artist from Mimili community on the Anangu Pitjatjantjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. Fielding has created a new photographic essay for the exhibition which re-contextualises everyday objects. Jonathan Jones, a member of the Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi nations of south-east Australia, based in Sydney. Jones is best known for his site-specific installations, but his new commission subtly acknowledges 60,000 years of connection by evoking a sense of nostalgia and celebrating a commonly known, native, seed-eating parrot. Vincent Namatjira, a W

Melbourne's electronic music scene in the 1960s and '70s was groundbreaking and edgy, and at the heart of it all was the analogue synthesizer, produced by EMS (Electronic Music Systems).  The Grainger Museum at the University of Melbourne was at the forefront of that musical experimentation, when composer Keith Humble returned from Paris to establish an avant-garde music studio there.  Synthesizers: Sound of the Future celebrates that period of musical history at the Grainger Museum with dozens of important instruments on display, incluidng the EMS VCS-1 – one of only three in the world – and an EMS VCS-3, which was used by Pink Floyd, Brian Eno and Jean-Michel Jarre.  In addition to the exhibition display, Synthesizers also includes live performances in association with the composition and interactive composition programs at Melbourne Uni, as well as experimental sound group Liquid Architecture. One piece that will be performed is a take on Keith Humble's 'Music for Moments' improvisatory piece.

Would you trust your kids to build a house? How about a whole village? Castlemaine artist Ann Ferguson is working with Maryborough preschoolers for a new interactive exhibition at the Central Goldfields Art Gallery. It Takes a Child to Grow a Village features dozens of tiny ceramic houses created by children in local kindergartens and day care centres. The petite houses and buildings will then form a tiny, Lilliputian-esque town, which will be on display at the CGAG between from August 2 to September 3.   

On the morning of August 21, 1968, the new St Kilda Road premises of the National Gallery of Victoria opened its doors to the public for the first time. The imposing, brutalist construction, a bluestone monolith in the heart of Melbourne’s Southbank, had taken six years – and $14 million – to complete, and was now the largest art gallery in the country. But despite these impressive credentials, the inaugural show in the NGV’s new temporary exhibitions hall seemed, at first glance, to shirk this grandeur. A blockbusting showcase of a megastar or a survey of true blue Australiana might have been a more obvious curtain-raiser. But instead, curators John Stringer and Brian Finemore elected to champion 40 emerging Australian artists working in bold, contemporary practices, largely influenced by the hard-edged, post-painterly movements thriving in America at the time. The contentious show was titled The Field. “Many of the artists, nearly half of them, were under 30; Robert Hunter was the youngest at 21. And very few of them had ever had solo exhibitions, let alone had their work hung at a national institution,” explains Beckett Rozentals, curator of contemporary Australian painting, sculpture and decorative arts at the NGV. “The exhibition was quite divisive and its reception was very varied. Not that the artwork itself was at all controversial; people had been exposed to geometric colour-field works prior to this. But for many, it seemed bizarre to open the gallery’s new premi

It’s called A Doll’s House, Part 2 and in many ways it delivers precisely what it promises on the packet: this is a serious attempt to imagine what happens when, 15 years after the fact, Nora Helmer (Marta Dusseldorp) – she who severed a deeply-held bond with her audience back in 1879 by walking out on her marriage and her children – comes back. Playwright Lucas Hnath has the audacity to stage that return, and in so doing manages to build a superbly supple series of dramatic and intellectual links between Henrik Ibsen and the current zeitgeist. If there were any doubts that fusty old dramas can still reverberate through the collective consciousness, then this play scuttles them.Nora has, virtually from the moment she first appeared in that wintery Copenhagen night, come to represent a certain proto-feminist position that is both searingly convincing and deeply problematic. Hnath ingeniously mines the original play’s ambivalences around what constitute proper female behaviour, stretching them into a spiderweb of current concerns. Nora abandons her children but she does so to survive, and this play accepts her decision at face value, and then spears her on the spike of consequence. Any woman who’s ever felt damned if she did and damned if she didn’t, is sure to relate.Although this is equally true of Nora’s oft-maligned husband Torvald (Greg Stone). Having carried the burden of raising a family without a mother, Torvald is understandably reluctant to let her back in, especially

The second act opens with a number that could easily stand for the whole: it’s called ‘When Everything Old is New Again’, and it involves white pants, precision dancing, and ladles of melted cheese. The Boy from Oz turns 20 this year, as does the Production Company, responsible for this staging. Both the show and the company are unapologetic champions of the daggy and the aged. It’s pretty much a match made in heaven.Peter Allen wasn’t exactly an acquired taste; he was more of a black hole of taste – only white and covered in sequins. A musical about him, constructed around his occasionally beautiful but more often ghastly songs, might sound on paper like the great Aussie slang for spew: a technicolour yawn. But in practice, it’s a hell of a lot of fun. It isn’t subtle, or nuanced, or even remotely challenging, but it’s damn entertaining, and in musical theatre that counts for a lot.Of course, the shoes are hard to fill, and that’s not even talking about the man himself. Todd McKenney initiated the role to much acclaim, only to be pipped (or bludgeoned, depending on who you ask) by Hugh Jackman. It’s hard to imagine the show storming Broadway without that cast change, and it’s hard to imagine Rohan Browne supplanting anyone’s memories of either of those previous performances. But he’s by no means a disaster. He can dance better than Allen, and his singing – while occasionally off key, and generally lacking in texture – is certainly passable. His take on the man is quite compl

A fact largely relegated to elite level Charles Dickens trivia: the author operated a reform home for ‘fallen’ women in Victorian England. The care at Urania Cottage was gentler and more domestic than most comparable institutions at that time. Once the women had completed their rehabilitation, their passage would be booked on a ship to one of the colonies – like Australia – where they could have a chance to settle into a ‘respectable’ life, free from their pasts. The ultimate goal, of course, was marriage. Seanna van Helten’s play draws a direct line from obscure Dickensian fact to the foundation of Australian colonial history. It had its premiere last year in Sydney, where we gave it four stars. Now it's getting a brand new production by She Said Theatre in Melbourne, directed by Penny Harpham. The design is by Chloe Greaves and the cast includes: Zoe Boesen, Gemma Bird Matheson, Jing-Xuan Chan, Tahlee Fereday,  Artemis Ioannides, and Veronica Thomas.

What is the sum of a life shared together? For married couple Maggie and Billy, the past and present intermingle and the house they share becomes filled with visions of their younger selves in playwright Abi’s Morgan’s elegiac tale of the ties that bind. Lovesong had audiences reaching for the tissues when it first premiered in 2011 in collaboration with pioneering British physical theatre company Frantic Assembly, and no doubt this production by Red Stitch Actors Company will have the same effect. Featuring a live cello score, it’s directed by Denny Lawrence (Love Love Love) and features Paul English, Gillian Murray, Dylan Watson and Maddy Jevic.

When Blasted premiered in 1995, it left audiences reeling. The Daily Mail famously labelled it “a disgusting feast of filth” and critics dismissed its graphic scenes of rape, torture and mutilation as a cheap ploy for attention by its creator, British playwright Sarah Kane. Kane died by suicide four years later, at the age of just 28. More than 20 years later, the talented Anne-Louise Sarks is introducing the play to a new generation, in a production with Malthouse Theatre starring Fayssal Bazzi (Sami in Paradise), Eloise Mignon (The Wild Duck) and theatre veteran David Woods. As the play opens, a misogynistic middle-aged journalist is attempting to seduce a naïve and troubled young woman in an expensive hotel room. But when a soldier and a war zone explode through the window, a nightmarish train of events is set in motion.

In Yiddish mythology, a dybbuk is a dislocated soul that possesses the body of a living being, often a young woman. Director Samara Hersch puts the concept under a feminist lens, combining traditional stories and songs with contemporary compositions to examine the ways in which the dead speak through the female body and challenge the voicelessness of women through history. Created for two performers, a vocalist, three musicians and a choir of intergenerational Yiddish speaking women, it’s been described as part performance, part concert and part exorcism.

Colin Friels embarks on the first solo theatre piece of his long career in this sprawling one-hander by British playwright Justin Butcher. Originally performed by the late, great English actor Pete Postlethwaite, the play broke all UK box office records when it premiered in 2011 and went on to tour internationally. It tells the tale of an ancient circus clown who, after his last performance, retires to his dressing room to await the dawning of a new millennium and reflect on his extraordinary life as witness to many of the darkest events of the twentieth century. Friels will be directed by Alkinos Tsilimidos, who collaborated with him on MTC’s 2012 production of Red.

It’s a scenario that seems fashioned out of the zeitgeist: a wealthy, respected man is threatened with ruin by the revelation of a single act of corruption in his youth, and a society twists itself in knots to protect and shield him from dishonour. But this is Oscar Wilde, so we can rest assured that nothing will comply precisely with societal norms, and we’re certain to have a hell of a lot of fun on the way down.An Ideal Husband is Wilde’s most serious comedy, which places it somewhere between the frivolous genius of his perfect farce The Importance of Being Earnest and the luxurious solemnity of his highly symbolic Salomé. It plays alternately as a sophisticated comedy of manners and a proto-noir thriller; blackmail, insider trading and political intrigue rub up against flirtation, marital skirmish and appropriate uses of the button-hole. Sir Robert Chiltern (Simon Gleeson) is the coming man in late Victorian society, a politician of strict and unimpeachable ideals. His wife, Lady Chiltern (Zindzi Okenyo) holds him to these ideals; she’d place him on a literal pedestal if she could explain it to her guests. These include her gloriously frivolous sister-in-law Mabel (Michelle Lim Davidson), the scandalously entertaining Lord Goring (Brent Hill) and his phlegmatic father the Earl of Caversham (William McInnes), the chief gossip Lady Markby (Gina Riley) and her mysterious, and subsequently dangerous, friend Mrs Cheveley (Christie Whelan Browne). The plot is too good to give a

You know when those wedding receptions have started to sour, after you’ve eaten the chicken despite the fact you ordered the fish, when the cheap Champagne tastes cheaper by the hour, and some dodgy DJ thinks the ‘Time Warp’ is just the thing to get the intergenerational dancing going? You remember when madness, in the form of soul-crushing ennui, takes its toll? That’s pretty much the sensation one gets watching yet another revolution on the merry-go-round for this spent and cynical production of Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show. Like you’re under sedation.Rocky Horror is seminal in many ways; from those who were lucky enough to experience the original 1973 stage show in London, to those who watched the film either in interactive midnight screenings or furtively late at night on TV, the piece has always held a kind of subversive, sexy fascination. It took all the clichés of post-war science fiction film and fetishised them, upended their heteronormativity and their political conservatism, and produced something truly cult. The problem with cult is that – once it becomes mainstream and gets reiterated in increasingly anodyne ways – it loses its power to shock and surprise. In fact, it loses its raison d’être. This production is, of course, tainted by the allegations made against former star Craig McLachlan last year; despite what the producers may wish, they hang like a cloud of pollution over everything that happens on stage. Todd McKenney has been brought in to reboot or

Mamma Mia! is the jukebox musical to end all jukebox musicals. It’s one of the most commercially successful pieces of entertainment of all time, having grossed US$2 billion since its 1999 West End premiere. To put that in perspective, only three movies have ever grossed more (sorry Harry Potter, you just haven't got the pull of Benny and Björn). It spawned the 2008 Meryl Streep-led film, which earned a sweet $600 million, and a movie sequel called Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is due to be released in July. So why does the show – with an inconsequential and frequently illogical story about a young woman on the weekend of her wedding trying to learn which of three men is her father – continue to inspire people all around the world to open their wallets and head out to the theatre? It owes its success almost entirely to the ABBA music it hangs its hackneyed but gently funny narrative off. Songs like ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Mamma Mia’ and ‘Waterloo’ are among the greatest pop songs ever written, with melodies so broadly appealing they can fill dancefloors pretty much anywhere in the world. But there’s also a serious dramatic heft to some of the ballads – ‘The Winner Takes it All’, ‘SOS’, ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ – that means even when Catherine Johnson’s book fails to successfully stitch together musical vignettes, most numbers land with some weight. But there’s something about this new Australian production, with design, choreography and direction by Australians, that feels a littl

Melbourne’s west is getting its own little slice of White Night this August when West Projections Festival returns for its fifth year. West Projections Festival 2018 will feature more than 25 artists who will light up the west with large-scale projections, animation, performance, virtual reality and sound installations from August 3 to 26. The month-long festival of lights, sounds and art has expanded this year to include pop-up locations in West Footscray and Seddon, as well as in its home base of Footscray. A total of 36 locations will be lit up this year including laneways, bars, restaurants, supermarkets, art spaces and train stations. The theme for this year’s festival is non/Fiction, so you can expect the festival highlights to have a distinctly literary edge. West Projections encourages visitors to take self-guided tours, but this year it will also be running special events for those looking for something different. Highlights include This Will Be My Last Test (a multidisciplinary performance in an alleyway), a virtual reality dance party at Mr West and an immersive family disco. The official festival launch is happening Friday, August 17 at Nicholson Mall, Footscray. The free event will have live music, performance, virtual reality and lots of live projections to light up the night.

Ronnie van Hout has been creating aliens, robots and lonely figures for more than 30 years, confounding and thrilling art fans in equal measure with his uniquely funny brand of existential absurdism. He's best known for creating sculptures that depict himself as a childlike figure, but has created work across video, photography, installation, sculpture and text. This exhibition marks Buxton Contemporary's first survey of an artist's work since it opened earlier this year. There'll be more than 20 of Van Hout's works on display, drawn from both private collections and major public institutions. The works take inspiration from sci-fi, cults, classic cinema and even art history. The exhibition also features two brand new works.

This ambitious exhibition, which premiered as part of Sydney Festival 2017, constitutes the first major survey of artworks by the late Myuran Sukumaran – one of the 'Bali Nine' convicted of drug smuggling in 2005. Co-curated by artist Ben Quilty and Campbelltown Arts Centre’s director Michael Dagostino, the show is conceived as a reflection on the power of art to redeem, and on the death penalty and alternative forms of justice. Sukumaran learned to paint during his incarceration in Kerobokan prison. Around 2012 he was put in touch with Quilty, who became his mentor and friend. He was working towards a Bachelor of Fine Art at Monash University when he was executed in April 2015. In addition to around 100 of Sukumaran's portraits and paintings, Quilty and Dagostino commissioned works by six Australian artists: Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, Megan Cope, Jagath Dheerasekara, Taloi Havini, Khaled Sabsabi, and Matthew Sleeth.

Architect Jefa Greenaway curates the first national survey of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander design this month at the Koorie Heritage Trust Galleries in Federation Square. Showcasing Indigenous design projects from across fashion, interiors, product design, landscape, architecture and town planning, the exhibition hopes to challenge preconceptions about Indigenous design and highlight the depth and diversity of design talent around Australia. Designers include Marcus Lee Designs, who re-designed the guernsey for the 2013 all-Indigenous AFL International Rules game in Ireland, fashion from Arki The Label and Teagan Cowlishaw, and textiles by Injalak Arts and Babbarra Design just to name a few.

Storm Riders, an immersive, 360-degree virtual reality film is, in part, a re-envisioning of artist, filmmaker, virtual reality proponent and former pro skateboarder Shaun Gladwell's earlier video artwork Storm Sequence (2000). That work saw him skateboarding down on Bondi Beach – this time he's placed two young Muslim women from London at its heart: Chadnee Shah and Farhana Hussain. Previously screened as part of a VR program Gladwell curated for the Sydney Film Festival, you can experience it at Melbourne’s ACMI through October, with a headset-free version available on the SBS VR app. An engrossing, immersive look at life in both cities, the 30-minute film is about way more than just updating Gladwell’s work. VR has come a long way from the military tech Gladwell encountered while Australia’s official war artist in Afghanistan in 2009, a role art schoolmate Ben Quilty also took on. The cameras used aren’t much bigger than a ping-pong ball, so it was really easy for Shah and Hussain to document their skateboarding and show Gladwell round their neighbourhood. “It’s this tiny little thing and it’s very unassuming, unintimidating, and Chadnee and Farhana both started to use it as a diary,” he says. Read our full interview with Shaun Gladwell.

After two centuries of seclusion – and with just one international port open – Japan threw its doors open in 1854, resulting in an influx of Japanese art and culture to Europe. At first, Japanese aesthetics began showing up in western art, but when artists like Degas and Van Gogh started to understand more about the underlying movements and principles, the infleunces started to become more profound.  This exhibition looks at "Japonisme" and how it helped form the foundations of western modern art. It's made up of works from the NGV collection covering paintings, works on paper and the decorative arts. European works are presented with the Japanese works that inspired them. Alongside artworks like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s 'Divan Japonais' poster, the NGV has assembled a full British domestic interior demonstrating the Japanese influence on design and furniture.  Japonisme: Japan and the Birth of Modern Art is free and open at the NGV for the run of the winter blockbuster, MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Way before the #metoo era, New York feminist art collective Guerrilla Girls were shining a light into the murkiest corners of the global establishment with their posters, billboards, books, videos and lectures highlighting gender and racial inequality in the world of art, politics and popular culture. Now the group are having the last laugh, with their work collected by the very museums and galleries they mocked – including the Tate Modern in London, The Whitney in New York and the Venice Biennale. This retrospective brings together 129 of their most controversial and best-known works, spanning from their earliest days in 1985 to late 2016.

Part of the Yalingwa visual arts initiative, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art's new exhibition features new works by ten leading Aboriginal artists about everyday, contemporary Indigenous life. Expect an up-to-the-minute exploration of life across Australia, drawing in humour, family, community all drawn together with connections to the artists' Indigenous ancestors. The exhibition is curated by Hannah Presley. The artists involved are:  Benita Clements, a Western Arrernte artist from Hermannsburg, based in Alice Springs. Clements will present a new suite of watercolours in the form of autobiographical tableau, narrating her daily life, family, hunting and painting. Vicki Couzens, a Gunditjmara and Keerray Woorroong artist from the western districts of Victoria. Couzens’ new commission will incorporate a soundscape sharing a nostalgia for home, family and a nice cup of tea. Robert Fielding, a Western Aranda and Yankunytjatjara artist from Mimili community on the Anangu Pitjatjantjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. Fielding has created a new photographic essay for the exhibition which re-contextualises everyday objects. Jonathan Jones, a member of the Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi nations of south-east Australia, based in Sydney. Jones is best known for his site-specific installations, but his new commission subtly acknowledges 60,000 years of connection by evoking a sense of nostalgia and celebrating a commonly known, native, seed-eating parrot. Vincent Namatjira, a W

In a city as busy as Melbourne it can be impossible to find time to work out, let alone enrich your life with art. But what if you could do both at once? Enter New York-based choreographer Monica Bill Barnes, who is bringing her boundary-defying dance company to Melbourne for The Gallery Workout, a 50-minute, heartrate-raising morning tour of the National Gallery of Victoria, and gallery and backstage areas at the Arts Centre Melbourne. You'll follow dancers around the buildings and do a simple cardio workout to a pumping soundtrack of disco hits – played from a boombox strapped to one of your escorts – while learning just a little about the works on display Monica Bill Barnes & Company is a contemporary dance company that "brings dance where it does not belong". The workout was created for New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it was performed 100 times last year. In keeping with the lush surrounds, the dancers wear sequinned gowns and sneakers while you're invited to don whatever makes you feel comfortable. The Gallery Workout is each Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning from July 14 to August 18, and participants will be met at Arts Centre's Smorgon Plaza. It's in Melbourne as part of MEL&NYC, a program bringing some of New York City's most popular and innovative cultural institutions to Melbourne.

The NGV's Friday Nights series is back for another round, and this time they’re pairing a string of gigs alongside masterpieces from the Big Apple in MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art. Few things go hand-in-hand like music and art, and NGV Friday Nights’ set-up is the best way to take in the latest NGV exhibition while enjoying the best in local and international acts. This season’s line-up kicks off on June 15 with hammond organ trio Cookin' on 3 Burners and Stella Angelico. The program also boasts sets from the smooth, gospel-tinged Barney McAll, the uber cool powerhouse vocalist Thando, rising hip hop star REMI as well as many more.  NGV Friday Nights includes after-hours entry to the MoMA exhibition, local DJs and access to food and drinks.

It's mostly rising stars who take the stage each Sunday night at Club Voltaire, but big names also check in from time to time, including Dave Thornton, Greg Larsen, Anne Edmonds and Damien Power.

The Melbourne's longest running and most successful improv comedy night, the Big Hoo Haa, is improvised comedy at its rawest: minimal pretension, audience participation and maximum laughter. Anything could happen! Well, not anything. Scripted comedy, for example. That definitely won't happen.

Even though they are little, kids sure can eat a lot of food. And that can cost a lot of money, especially during the school holidays when you’re eating out and about. If you and the rugrats are at South Wharf these school holidays you can at least save a little dough with the winter specials at Munich Brauhaus. From June 25 to August 31 Munich Brauhaus is extending its ‘kids eat free on Sundays’ offer to include every single day of the week. Oh yes. Every single day of the school holidays (and until the end of winter) the family restaurant is allowing one child under 12 to eat for free with the purchase of an adult meal between 11am and 3pm. Your wunderkind can choose from dishes like mac n cheese balls, chicken schnitzel, a grilled chicken wrap or a cheeseburger, all served with mash or fries. If they eat all their vegetables can even treat your tyke to house-made gelato (there’s vanilla, strawberry or chocolate crumble flavours to choose from). As well as offering their kids eat free special every day, Munich Brauhaus is also running family entertainment every Sunday. Kids can get their faces painted or play with something cute and cuddly a the petting zoo. Munich Brauhaus is open daily from 11.30am until late.

Strap those skates on, an all-weather ice skating rink has opened at Eastland.  This winter wonder is no doubt a trip down memory lane for eastside locals who once visited Ringwood’s Iceland, Australia’s first custom-built ice-skating rink, which sadly closed its doors in 2005.  Eastland's custom-built rink is back for its second year and this time there's more of it to enjoy. Due to last year's popularity Eastland has increased the rink's size to 250 metres, 20 per cent larger than in 2017. Guests of all skill levels are invited to glide around the larger rink while surrounded by snow-topped trees and twinkling lights. The rink is covered by a marquee so you can live out your winter wonderland fantasies during rain, hail or shine. New to the Eastland Ice Rink this year is a series of themed days and nights. Relive your favourite '80s, '90s and '00s tunes while skating up a storm with Eastland's Throwback Tuesdays, or bring your date down for the super cool R'n'B Fridays. The rink will also be hosting Sunday Family Fun days where families can not only skate, but enjoy face painting, children's entertainment and kid-friendly music. On Sunday mornings between 10am and 11am the rink will be open to children and adults with special needs – because everyone should be able to feel safe and secure (and have fun) on the ice. Bubs and toddlers can enjoy the rink as well with a 20-minute ice show and kids entertainment on Tiny Tots Thursdays. Adults who've never skated (but always

Take your kids to the Big Apple without even leaving Melbourne. An interactive kids exhibition is happening at NGV, coinciding with MoMA: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art. New York! New York! for Kids provides families with the opportunity to learn more about the city that never sleeps and all the artists who drew inspiration from the bright city lights. The installation provides several activity areas that will keep your child occupied as though they are at Coney Island. City Blocks allows children to use building blocks to create their own miniature version of the Empire State skyline. There is also an area called Let’s Go to New York City! which has an interactive quiz that provides digital souvenir rewards. Additionally, Marble Run allows children to race a marble ball through the city and the City Lights photo booth lets your child’s inner actor or movie director shine. In conjunction with the exhibit, NGV has released a children’s book entitled ‘My Modern Art Book’ which features 23 artists from the 200 artworks exhibited. The exhibition features the likes of Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Frida Kahlo, Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Diane Arbus, Agnes Martin and Andy Warhol. New York! New York! for Kids is a free exhibition for all ages. It will be on display at the NGV from June 9 until October 7.