Author: Walter Marsh
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Review: Cirque Du Soleil’s Corteo
“I dreamt of my funeral,” intones the clown protagonist, and so begins Corteo: a Cirque du Soleil favourite that has entertained over 12 million people since its premiere in 2005. On stage, a motley cortege of former circus colleagues have gathered to celebrate Mauro the Dreamer Clown (Stéphane Gentilini), mysteriously able to join his own…
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Deep blues: When the artists are also champion surfers, the ocean is everywhere
Two prominent South Australian artists – the abstract painter Christian Lock and ceramicist Gerry Wedd – are currently exhibiting some seriously good art at The Little Machine. Over the past couple of years this small, almost incognito gallery in the Regent Arcade has built a following amongst contemporary artists and art lovers. The gallery was…
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‘You can’t hide yourself in a poem’: Mike Ladd reflects on four decades of connection
When Adelaide poet, writer and broadcaster Mike Ladd sat down to select poems for Now-Then: New and Selected Poems, a book spanning his debut in 1984 to new work shaped by grief and climate emergency, he was struck not only by the variety of styles and influences, but also by the threads of sound, place,…
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Adelaide Guitar Festival review: Troy Cassar-Daley and Nancy Bates
Adelaide Guitar Festival, which began in 2007, highlights how this one instrument, adored by many, can express all that we feel, spanning genres, generations and cultures. On this evening, saltwater and freshwater man Jamie Goldsmith welcomes the audience to Kaurna Yarta in language and the vibration of the Yidaki – an instrument not from Kaurna…
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Monet, Matisse and van Gogh ‘masterworks’ bound for Adelaide in multimillion-dollar Winter Art series
The Art Gallery of South Australia has revealed its 2026 winter centrepiece, a new exhibition bringing together works by some of the most celebrated names in 19th and 20th century art with Monet to Matisse: Defying Tradition. Slated to open in July 2026, the exhibition will feature key showpieces from the collection of the Toledo…
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Musical review: Cats
The lights dim at Her Majesty’s Theatre, the stage cluttered with enormous pieces of rubbish – battered tin cans, old newspapers, car tyres and bike wheels – a world resized to the scale of a cat. Glowing eyes blink in the shadows, and from the stage’s nooks and crannies, cats slink onto the stage. As…
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Book review: The Bolthole
This deep dive into Kangaroo Island uncovers a hotbed of envy, wealth and hubris, environmental wars and post-colonial tensions, with a murder thrown in. Quite the insider piece of crime fiction from an author born in Greece who was adopted into an Australian family and has a law degree, a PhD in biomedical science and…
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Toxic Surf: Nature Festival artists speak to a community in crisis
The relationship between people and nature has been deeply influential to artists across cultures, continents and centuries. Now in its sixth year, South Australia’s Nature Festival has expanded to feature over 300 nature-inspired events across the state, with a range of visual arts projects that highlight the importance of this connection. Amber Cronin, one of…
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‘There is a lot to be grieving’: The Bowerbird Collective embrace Emily Dickinson and nature
When Anthony Albrecht and I connect over Zoom, it doesn’t take long before the cellist and Bowerbird Collective co-founder starts reciting poetry. There’s a good reason: his group’s upcoming Nature Festival performance draws its title from the opening line of American poet Emily Dickinson’s breathtaking 1861 poem: ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers That perches…