Cirrus@Austlit

'The wildly impressive, raucously funny and deeply moving second novel from award-winning writer, actor and director for television, theatre and film, Brendan Cowell, confirming the talent he showed in his bestselling debut novel from 2010, How It Feels.

'Peter 'The Plum' Lum is a 48-year-old ex-star NRL player, living with his son and girlfriend in Cronulla. He's living a pretty cruisey life until one day he suffers an epileptic fit and discovers that he has a brain disorder as a result of the thousand-odd head knocks he took on the footy field in his twenty-year-career. According to his neurologist, Plum has to make some changes - right now - or it's dementia, or even death.

'Reluctantly, Plum embarks on a journey of self-care and self-discovery, which is not so easy when all you've ever known is to go full tilt at everything. On top of this, he's being haunted by dead poets, and, unable to stop crying, discovers he has a special gift for the spoken word. With spectral visits from Bukowski and Plath, the friendship of local misfits, and the prospect of new love, Plum might just save his own life.

'From award-winning writer, director and actor, Brendan Cowell, Plum is a powerfully moving, authentic, big-hearted, angry and joyous novel of men, their inarticulate pain and what it takes for them to save themselves - from themselves. It's got a roaring energy, a raucous humour, a heart of gold and a poetic soul.' (Publication summary)

A hard-drinking advertising executive is given a second chance by his long-suffering girlfriend, on condition that he stays away from alcohol for a year.

'It is the question on everybody’s lips: Where are all the romantic comedies?! Tragedy? Bah! Pathos? Schmathos! We want ROMANCE! With COMEDY! We want ROMANTIC COMEDY! Well, here you have it. Not one but two. On the same night! Two interconnected tales of true love and stupidity from two of the hottest playwrights around.' (Production summary)

'It could be called Two Men, One Woman, a Park and a Dog – and everyone knows that nothing breaks the ice like a cute dog. Brendan Cowell’s funny new play paints a not-so-flattering portrait of the tricky line between mateship and romance, and of the insatiable appetite of Jack Russell terriers for the most disgusting things they can find.' (Production summary)

'From award-winning actor and writer Brendan Cowell comes a brilliantly perceptive take on everything true Australians hold dear: mateship, family, footy and sex scandals.

'First there’s Dean, a former NRL star who’s switched codes and cities. Then there’s his brother Liam, the footy workhorse who tries to clean up Dean’s mess but mostly just makes things worse. And finally, there’s Amber, the teenage athlete who rests uneasily on the edge of complicity and victimhood. The team footy trip to Thailand is where things start to get ugly, but when the brothers meet on game day it’s a showdown Melbourne will never forget.

'The Sublime cuts through the media-managed world of professional football to expose human foibles that exist way beyond the sporting field. Director Sam Strong combines forces with actor Josh McConville to create a fiery production for lovers of any code, and for those who’ve never set foot inside a stadium.' (Production summary)

'In 1817 Van Diemen’s Land stands on the brink of civil war. A former British soldier and escaped convict leads a well trained and disciplined guerilla in armed revolt against the brutal colonial establishment. In desperation, Governor Macquarie releases the most notorious man in the colony, an Aboriginal resistance fighter called Musquito, to track down and kill the most wanted man in the Empire: the outlaw Michael Howe.' (Publisher's blurb)

'An old friend, a best friend, a first love and the dreamer Neil Cronk who connects them all...

'Four schoolfriends are on the verge of adulthood and the next 12 hours will change the course of their lives... Friendships will be broken, virginity lost, love unleashed and secrets buried.

'A decade later, one is dead, one is famous, two are getting married, and the truth is about to erupt.

'Wildly funny, brutal, tender and true, How It Feels is a coming-of-age story set in Sydney's Sutherland Shire with stopovers in Bathurst and London. Brendan Cowell's electrifying debut novel is a devastating ode to youth, capturing the beauty of growing up by the beach, and the darkness which moves beneath its surface. Because this is how it feels.' (From the publisher's website.)

'It is Friday night in Suburbia, and Australian families wait for CHAD.

'The newly-elected Australian Government, in conjunction with a super multinational, CHAD, now work together for the greater good. CHAD has expressed extreme dissatisfaction with profit margins, national enthusiasm and spiritual practice in their new acquisition. CHAD means business and that means more fitness, more happiness, more efficiencies, more Good News and an all-round boost in Australianness.'CHAD is a religion/industry where all members/citizens invest in order to receive enlightenment. CHAD is a strike-force of identically cloned males in their early twenties. Every Australian home is getting one. And CHAD arrives tonight. He'll collect 20% of your income. But he is a really neat guy.'

Source: Sydney Theatre Company website, http://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/
Sighted: 26/02/2007

'Ruben Guthrie is on fire. At only 29, he is Creative Director of a cutting edge advertising agency, lives with his Czech supermodel fiancé and drinks like he invented it. Ruben seems invincible, until one fated evening when he drinks so much vodka he thinks he can fly. Before Ruben knows it his fiancé has left him, his Mum is escorting him to AA meetings and his bottomless schooner of confidence has all but drained away. For the first time in his life, Ruben Guthrie is alone.'

Source: www.belvoir.com.au
Sighted: 22/04/2008

The first Australian drama series to be made specifically for pay television, Love My Way follows the lives of a group of thirty-somethings who explore issues of friendship, step-parenting, divorce, and relationships. It deals with the randomness of life and the need many of us have to carve out a place in the world.

Central to the series is Frankie Paige, who attempts to negotiate the web of contemporary relationships, juggle the priorities of family obligations, and be both successful at love and fulfilled professionally, while hoping that 'happiness' might occur if all the other things fall into place. She lives with Tom, a once-successful chef who now cooks at the local rehabilitation hospital. Just down the road in a much nicer house lives her ex-husband (and Tom's brother), Charlie. An emotionally stunted architect/surfer now married to Julia, he and Frankie still have a relationship through their daughter, Lou. Throughout the series, these principal characters are pulled and strained by desires and contradictions that appear to be part and parcel of modern life.