MAN ABOUT TOWN

Care for some more Dr Who and Torchwood goodness? Then drop in here, to FreemaAgyeman.com , for the trailers for season four and season two of the shows, respectively.

While today isn't quite the scorcher it was on Saturday, it's still getting uncomfortably warm; too warm for my liking. Anything above about 26-27 degrees is too warm for me, and while I no longer suffer nosebreeds and dizzy spells once the temperature climbs above 30 degrees, as I did as a child, I'm still definitely a cold weather kind of guy. Which is why I favour finding ways to escape the summer heat that are simultaneously rewarding, culturally and personally, as well as offer lower temperatures than can be found outside, on the baking streets of Melbourne. Yesterday, my tempature-control plans saw me fleeing to the comforts of the cinema, at least initially. One of the good things about living in Fitzroy is that the city is so close. At 10:15am, on the spur of the moment, I decided to catch the 10:30am session of The Golden Compass at the Melbourne Central Cinemas (comfortable seats, air conditioned, great sound system and - at such an early session - an almost tot...

This measured, magnificent film by British director Joe Wright (based on the novel by Ian McEwen) is all the more remarkable when you consider that it's only his second feature. A period piece, a love story and a meditation upon the nature of fiction itself, Atonement opens with the film's titles seemingly typed on the screen; an aural and visual reminder that what we are about to witness is a story - a fitting motif given that a story , an untruth told by a jealous young girl, is the event upon which the film's drama pivots. Without going into detail about the film's plot (which you can read about elsewhere; and besides, I want to write this post quickly, as I have to bet up in less than five hours) I will say that Wright handles his emotionally-fraught narrative with restraint and subtle flair. Performances are excellent throughout, as is the sound design - driven, at key points, by the repetitive sound of typing to signifiy a shift in scene - and especially the cinem...

Three days into this fortnight of Breakfast radio and I'm loving it. Rising at 4:50so far hasn't been too challenging, though this morning -post-Christmas conviviality - was a bit of a chore. Ah, Christmas. It was circa 1990 that I announced I was no longer celebrating Christmas on the basis that it was fundamentally a Christian capitalist feeding frenzy that at its core enshrined the heterosexual family above other social groups. Being neither religious or straight, and avowing anarchist politics at the time, I wanted nothing to do with Christmas, I said; telling my family that I would no longer be participating in their rituals, and that I neither wanted to be given nor intended to give, Christmas presents. Yes,I was rather an insufferable idealist in my mid-20's, if you hadn'talready guessed. I've mellowed since, but I confess that ever since those days, I've found it hard to re-engage with the spirit of Christmas, though I do still celebrate it in my own way...

Just a quick note to inform those of you who don't already know about it that I'm co-hosting Summer Breakfast on 3RRR for the next fortnight, starting tomorrow morning. Yes, I'm going to celebrate having 10 days off work by getting up at 5am in order to play tunes, read the news, and generally banter with two charming co-hosts: the dashing Declan Kelly in week one, and the super-sonic Camila Hannan in my second week. Feel free to tune in Monday-Friday at 102.7 FM or streaming at www.rrr.org.au for all the fun - as well as the tired, grumpy, why-the-hell-am-broadcasti ng-with-no-sleep lunacy of New Year'sDay; the bah-humbuggery of Christmas Day; and much, much more! Trust me, it'll be frabjous!

Damn, my space bar keeps sticking. Possibly something to do with having slammed my fist into the keyboard in frustration on Thursday morning when Windoze kept freezing. Oh well, at least I managed to get the Return key back in place and working again. (As I said last night, it's been a shit of a week: I don't usually go around beating up innocent keyboards, honestly.) I think yesterday's Shiatsu session has unblocked quite a bit of emotion, judging by last night's grumpy post and how relaxed I feel this morning. And speaking of yesterday... Though I only caught the second half of the show, A Very Bella Christmas at Trades Hall last night was great fun, in an occasionally shambolic way. 'Not bad for a first rehearsal,' Mike McLeish muttered after he and musical chameleon Casey Bennetto had almost butchered then magnificently saved a Christmas carol or two. And a reggae version of 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' that segued into The Specials' 'A...

The last couple of weeks have pretty much sucked, I have to say. Work's been a nightmare: we had to publish not one, but two issues of the paper in one week; indeed, within a day of each other, in order to be able to publish a paper next week, in the lead-up to New Year's Eve. Simultaneously, I've also been working on a 64-page magazine which we're publishing in early January. To say that I've been stressed would be an understatement. On top of which, I've been finalising the appointment of a new General Manager for Melbourne Fringe, and trying to arrange to get home for a couple of days over Christmas, which isn't going to happen now that I've agreed to co-host Summer Breakfast on 3RRR for the next two weeks, starting this Monday. I really must learn to say no sometime. On top of all that, a colleague's partner was killed in a motorbike accident last week (I went to the wake today) which if nothing else puts some of my own personal dramas into conte...

In the pantheon of openly gay and lesbian pop and rock musicians, singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright is one of the brightest stars. More importantly, he is also one of the most talented. The son of folk music royalty (his father is the acclaimed American folk singer Loudon Wainwright III, his mother the Canadian singer-songwriter Kate McGarigle), Wainwright came out as gay when he was a teenager. Consequently, unlike some of peers, he has explored same-sex romance and desire from the earliest days of his career; such as his former habit of falling in love with straight men, or as Wainwright once put it, “ guys I would occasionally have sex with, maybe only make out with, but never be allowed to say they were my boyfriend.” It’s a situation many a gay man pining over a heterosexual friend can identify with; and many a lesbian too. “For me, after a brief therapeutic period, it was apparently revealed that it was a fear of abandonment,” Wainwright explains. “At the end of the day y...

Curious to know what's going on with Captain Jack, Ianto and the rest of the Torchwood crew? If you are (hello, Yarraville Paul !), then click here for details - including some minor spoilers (one of which is news of a proper date between two of my favourite characters - w00t!). And yes - with the year winding down and less theatre and gallery openings to go to than usual, this blog is more reflective of the fan-boy part of my personality. Never fear, my inner critic will return 2ith gusto in 2008 - or before! Oh yeah, and here's a picture of Torchwood season two guest star, James Masters ( Buffy the Vampire Slayer ) as a rogue Time Agent, together with John Barrowman (Capt. Jack) just to whet your appetite...

So yes, I'm quite excited about the new Batman movie, as you've probably guessed. I am truly a fanboy. So, go watch the new trailer here . W00t!

For some strange reason, every week, at least three or four people come to my blog as a result of Googling 'alan brough + gay' or variations thereof. Like, I understand why Google brings them to my blog (I'm gay, I blog about gay issues semi-regularly, and I've reviewed various comedy shows in my time that Alan's appeared in or written) but really: why do you people care so much about this particular comedian's sexuality that you're googling this subject so regularly? Is it just idle curiousity, or what?

The teaser trailer for the new Batman film was leaked a couple of days ago: I've seen a very bad pirated version obviously shot in a cinema which I won't post here, as I'm lead to believe that it will be officially released today, US time, which means we can all see it soon. In the interim, here are the latest teaser posters for The Dark Knight . Kinda cool, huh? There's a third one, a distorted picture of The Joker bearing the words 'Why so serious' that is freakishly cool, but I haven't been able to find a good image of it so far...

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" These two, simple lines by W.B. Yeats are among some of the best-known and oft-quoted fragments of poetry in the world, I suspect. I say this without any particular authority; it's a claimed based on suspicion and possibility, nothing more; and yet somehow I rather suspect it to be true. So, why am I quoting from Yeats' ' The Second Coming '? Fear not; I haven't become a Theosophist , nor a prophet of doom hoping to immanentize t he eschato n; nor for that matter am I presently overwhelmed with existential dread despite the perilous state of the modern world (my ennui has been temporarily abated by Rudd's championing of Kyoto , Australian literature and intimations of a move against Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean, although I'm sure this unusually cheerful state can't possibly last). Quite simply, the title of this latest, overdue blogpost was i...

I'm speaking on a panel about GLBT media tonight at Collingwood's Glasshouse Hotel at 7pm if you feel like coming along. It's a free event, and is being recorded for broadcast later this week on JOY 94.9 FM. Bring your friends!

Dance, as I've said several times in the last 24 hours, is the artform I'm least au fait with. I don't speak its language - certainly not to the degree with which I'm fluent in the narrative and vernacular of cinema, theatre and other artforms, at any rate. That said, on Wednesday night I saw what is without doubt the most engaging, stunning and vivid dance work of the year; the latest production by Melbourne's avant-garde dance company, BalletLab, Brindabella . I hoped to like it. I didn't expect to find it as fascinating as I did. In this 70 minute work, choreographer Phillip Adams leaps effortlessly from the camararderie of the gang to the violence of the pack, from humour to sensuality, from the freedom of self-realisation to the trap that is the way others see us. Part homage to queer culture; part reinvention of Beauty and the Beast ; and part memorial to a boyfriend Adams lost to AIDS, and whose hand he held as he died: Brindabella is a complex, challeng...

DEEP IN THE WOODS Richard Watts investigates the latest production by Melbourne dance company, Balletlab. Brindabella image by Jeff Busby Inspired by French poet, film-maker and designer Jean Cocteau's La Belle et le Bête , the latest production by avant-garde Melbourne dance company Balletlab is a baroque, sensual fantasia: Beauty and the Beast given a queer, post-modern bent. In Brindabella , New York ’s Miguel Gutierrez and Balletlab Artistic Director Phillip Adams have combined their choreographic sensibilities to craft a work that draws upon and engages with a variety of contemporary artforms, ensuring that the resulting work is more than just a new dance work. “The thing that drew me to Phillip is this common language,” says composer David Chisholm, who worked previously with Adams on Balletlab’s previous production, Origami , and is again contributing to Brindabella , this time with a soundtrack that will be performed live. “I think it was a queer aesthetic initi...

For your viewing pleasure (assuming that, like me, your a fan of both the new series of Dr Who and the so-called 'classic' series, as the old epsiodes are now known) I present, for your viewing pleasure, the latest Dr Who delight: Time Crash . This eight minute micro-episode was produced for a BBC TV special, Children In Need , broadcast on November 18, and bridges the end of the last episode of Season Three, and the forthcoming Christmas special, Voyage of the Damned (which will guest-star Kylie Minogue). Enjoy!

Billed as being "lovingly ripped off" from the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail , the award-winning Broadway musical Spamalot , which opened in Melbourne last night, is both a satire of Broadway musicals, and a homage to the iconic English comedy on which it's based. The original film was created by the well-known troupe of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. It was a low-budget exercise in which the quest for the Holy Grail undertaken by King Arthur (Chapman, now deceased) and his knights was presented both seriously (period costumes and settings, complete with extremely mucky peasants and plague, instead of the clean and sanitised version of the past usually depicted in cinema at that point) and satirically ( a historian strides about between scenes discussing Arthur's battles and their significance; the peasants are members of an anarcho-socialist collective) . Many of the film's best jokes and key sce...

I was, I must confess, really hoping to enjoy the debut novel by US author Austin Grossman, Soon I Will Be Invincible . Unfortunately however, while occasionally entertaining, it was rarely inspired; relying too heavily on over-familiar archetypes and failing to delve deeply enough into the sometimes-twisted psyches of its main characters. In other words it was a bit of a let-down, although not without its charms. Grossman, a game designer, has written a novel about superheroes and supervillains in which he attempts to get behind the mask and explore the psychology of individuals who are driven to wear capes and masks, and obsessed with either taking over the world, or stopping others doing the same. It's a nice idea, and done well, it could have been captivating. Unfortunately, due in part to the novel's pacing, and also to the author's inability to convincingly differentiate the two, alternate first-person narratives of the book, he fails to pull things off. The first of ...