Cirrus@Austlit

'Who is Rampaging Roy Slaven? An Australian icon, a raconteur, an athlete of unsurpassable - and some may say improbable - sporting feats. Whether it was riding Rooting King to another Melbourne Cup victory, commentating the Olympics or hobnobbing with the country's upper crust, Rampaging Roy Slaven has lived an extraordinary life.

'But even some of the greatest men come from humble beginnings. Before he shot to fame as Australia's most talented sportsman, he was just another kid in Lithgow, trying to avoid Brother Connell's strap and garner the attention of Susan Morgan from the local Catholic girls school.

'Blessed follows one year in the life of the boy who would become Rampaging Roy Slaven, a boy who, even at the age of fifteen, knew he was destined for greatness but had to get through high school first.' (Publication summary)

'In Geoffrey Blainey: Writer, Historian, Controversialist, Richard Allsop provides a welcome study of a remarkable, and remarkably polarising, intellectual figure in Australian public life. Placing Blainey with Keith Hancock and Manning Clark in the pantheon of Australia’s leading historians, Allsop observes that, unlike them, Blainey’s body of work has not been comprehensively examined. He sets out to remedy this and to meet the need identified by Graeme Davison 20 years ago for a “more mature” review of Blainey’s writing—one that resists “reading his earlier work for signs of the emerging controversialist” (xiii). From this perspective, Allsop largely succeeds.' (Introduction)

'For his much anticipated new play, playwright John Doyle (The Pig Iron People) offers a powerful meditation on science, spirituality and human frailty.

'Paul Blackwell (When the Rain Stops Falling, Tartuffe, The Ham Funeral) returns to STC as Vere, a physicist at the peak of his career and still enthusing infectiously about his subject. Out of the blue he is given a shattering prognosis and must rapidly reconcile his professional ambitions and personal relationships with the certainty of his own mortality.

'One of the great debates of our times, God versus science, is played out with Doyle's typical charisma and cheek. The play is brimming with intellectual engagement, gallows humour and wise, witty footnotes to culture.

'Director Sarah Goodes (The Splinter) makes her Drama Theatre debut with this thoughtful and topical new Australian work.' (Publisher's blurb)

'Australia, 1996. The winds of change begin to blow like a gale through the nation as a new government has taken the reins.

'"From now on people will have to make their own way in the world. People will no longer be rewarded for being weak. The madness is over... The people have spoken. This is what they want, this is what we voted for, and if you don't see it like me, then you are out of step. So get used to it."

'Nick's out of step; he's a writer. No writer has ever lived in Liberal Street before. And the residents are making sure he knows it.' (Publisher's blurb)

'MARKING TIME tells the story of Hal, a small town boy who has just left high school. The world is at his feet. He falls in love with Randa, an Afghani refugee, in a year of momentous change - from the optimistic time of the Sydney Olympics up until the post-September 11 world of a scared and divided nation.'

Source: Screen Australia.

'A six-part miniseries which follows six young Australians who go to war, full of confidence and bravado. They land in Singapore in 1942, just in time for surrender. With 15,000 others, they are marched off to Changi prison camp. Together, the six boys survive three and a half years of incarceration. Along the way they see many mates disappear to various work camps and while Gordon loses a toe, Curley nearly his mind, Eddie his faith, Bill his ability to trust, David his memory and Tom his soul, they never lose their central dependence on each other. Almost sixty years later, the six prepare to get together for what may be their last hurrah.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 17/3/2014)

Episode three of John Doyle's six-part series Changi.