Things to do in Sydney today

Sydney’s Darling Harbour is turning to ice. No, the great big body of water that surrounds our city hasn't hit sub-zero temperatures (although you’d be forgiven for thinking it has based on recent weather) but rather an ice skating rink has arrived in town. Have you always wanted to try a triple axel? Or maybe Home Alone 2 is your favourite cosy movie thanks to the Rockefeller Centre ice skating rink. Well, now is your chance to live out those dreams under our very own city skyline.  If you’re looking for a date night idea or something to occupy (read: tire out)  the kids then this is just the ticket for you. From Saturday, June 28 until Sunday, July 20, you can head on down to the harbourside precinct to strap on the skates and glide like a majestic penguin – or clamber around like Bambi on ice. Knee pads aren’t included, so it might be wise to wear a thick pair of pants to cushion any falls.  Once you’ve had your dash on the rink you may be ready to grab a bite to eat or rest your weary legs. Thankfully, Darling Harbour is within walking distance of plenty of Sydney’s very best restaurants and most delightful cheap eats.  If you love to romanticise winter, skating beneath the lights of Sydney’s CBD towers sounds like the perfect way to lean into the cooler months. The rink is open daily from 10am until 9pm at the Palm Grove Forecourt, and skating costs $28 per adult, $20 for children and $15 for toddlers. Skating penguins can be booked for an extra $10 to keep the little...

I have reviewed many shows at the Sydney Opera House, and never – never – before have I been so utterly flabbergasted at the lack of scrutiny and professionalism upheld by a creative team in the running of a production.  For starters, the immense buzz in the the Drama Theatre’s foyer was squashed before the audience had even entered the stalls, as a sign informed us that Hollywood star Tom Cruise would in fact not be appearing at this performance of The Murder at Haversham Manor. This was swiftly followed by the show’s operator, Trevor (Edmund (Eds) Eramiha), wandering up and down the aisles, followed in tow by the stage manager Annie (Olivia Charalambous) as they asked us, the audience, if we had seen a lost dog, Winston, who it appeared was to be a character in the show. Completely unprofessional! After this was resolved, the director of the The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society greeted us all, ensuring that this production would not follow the mishaps in their previous works, and that they finally have funding and a script that suits their society. It would not be another low budget production (such as their summer season of James, where is your Peach?) and that they do have a full cast, as to avoid a repeat of the debacle of their most recent musical, Cat. The cracks that began to appear even before the curtain lifted on The Murder at Haversham Manor only continued to widen as the show played on, the whole evening building up into a fiasco of disastrous heights – and,...

Mother-daughter relationships can be complicated even under the best of circumstances. When you add adoption, a language barrier, and years of estrangement into the mix – well, you get more baggage than a flight from Sydney to Seoul.  You may be familiar with Michelle Lim Davidson from both the stage (The Feather in the Web) and screen (The Newsreader, Utopia, Play School). In Koreaboo, her moving playwriting debut presented by Griffin Theatre Company in association with Belvoir St Theatre, Davidson draws on her own life to investigate the complexities of intercountry adoption, and the precarious experience shared by many adopted children – living caught between two very different cultures, but feeling like they belong to neither.  Davidson plays Hannah, a 30-something-year-old woman who was adopted from Korea as a baby and grew up in Newcastle. After a break-up, she travels to Korea to spend time with her biological mother, Umma (Heather Jeong). Hannah’s plan is to spend time getting to know the woman whose love she’s longed for since before she can remember. She offers to help Umma at the family’s convenience mart, and Umma reluctantly agrees. It’s not until they discover a shared love of K-pop and performing that Umma’s walls start falling down, and Hannah really gets to know her Sex-and-the-City-quoting, Turtle-Chip-eating Umma.  Jeong portrays the cheeky, sassy, larger-than-life Umma with apparent ease, and her command of movement, language and voice is a strong...

The Hunter Valley gets cold in winter. Real cold. Come mid-year, temperatures in one of New South Wales’ most popular wine country destinations drop to the single digits. What’s worse than feeling the bite in the air is when you’re not even compensated with piles of fluffy snow for your troubles.The Hunter Valley Gardens took matters into their own hands and for one month and one month only, have created a spectacle of a winter wonderland for the whole family. The botanical venue already takes the cake for the largest Christmas light display in the Southern Hemisphere so expect nothing short of magnificent for their ‘Christmas in July’, if you will. In terms of the kids (and kids-at-heart) burning off some steam, there will be a mega snow play zone for snowman building and snow angel making, a 45-metre ice slide toboggan, and an ice skating rink. When you’re ready to thaw out, you can step away from the chilly action and grab a bite to eat from the food stalls dishing up all the fan favourites, from woodfired pizzas and burgers, to souvlaki plates and dumplings. For dessert, load up on warm doughnuts, crepes and ice snow cones. Who said chilly treats are only for summertime?To keep the fun times rolling, the Hunter Valley Gardens will still be operating their permanent rides, like the teacups, carousel, superslide and ferris wheel that you can purchase additional ticket passes for.  Snow Time in the Garden begins on Saturday, June 28 and runs until Sunday, July 27....

On my seven-month-old baby’s bookshelf sits a brightly illustrated children’s book about Marie Curie. Its pages celebrate her love of science, her marriage to physicist Pierre Curie, and her status as the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. These are the facts most often recited, but women are rarely one-dimensional. Alongside moments of triumph, often lie moments of despair and self-doubt. It is one of those lesser-known chapters that Lauren Gunderson explores in The Half-Life of Marie Curie, a play that premiered off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theatre in 2019, and was later released as an audio drama on the Audible platform. The play now makes its Australian premiere at Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre under the direction of Liesel Badorrek (The Glass Menagerie). Gunderson, frequently referred to as “the most produced living playwright in America”, has a signature formula across her 20-plus plays: identify a compelling duo, hone in on a pivotal historical moment, inject sharp, rhythmic dialogue, and keep it snappy – 90 minutes or less. The result is a biographical vignette interspersed with theatrical poetry. The plays often just recount history – however, at its best, her formula  can thrillingly heighten a core emotional conflict. In this case, it’s the friendship between Marie Curie and Hertha Ayrton, and the impact these women had on each other. Though often relegated to a footnote in Curie’s story, here Ayrton commands center stage... The narrative begins at Curie’s...