Things to do in Melbourne this weekend (Dec 6-Dec 8)

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas here in Melbourne, and to help us ring in the festive season, the City of Melbourne has announced the return of its epic, month-long Christmas Festival. From November 29 to December 25, our city will come alive with family-friendly (and mostly free!) events that are sure to turn any Grinch into a believer.  This year, you can look forward to exciting attractions like a magical recreation of the North Pole at Marvel Stadium; a special Christmas themed bubble show; sound and light shows nightly at Christmas Square; and a festive line-up of flicks showing at the Capitol Theatre. You won't want to miss the return of the Crown Christmas River Show, which will illuminate Southbank every night, dazzling onlookers with water fountains, lasers, lights and projections set to a soundtrack of festive tunes. Christmas Carnival will return to the banks of the Yarra River with treats, rides and arcade-style games. Plus, Santa will be making special visits at all the festive spots as he roams around the city.  And it wouldn't be the Christmas Festival without the return of the iconic 17.5 metre Christmas tree at Fed Square, so rest assured that it'll be lit up and on display, with the official lighting ceremony on the first day of the festival.  Oh, and the best part? Most of the attractions are free, aside from ticketed rides at the Christmas Carnival, the bubble show and Christmas Cinema. Find out more here.  Looking for more festive activities?

It's officially that time of year again when the Moonlight Cinema returns to Melbourne for the summer. There's just something special about snuggling into a bean bag and catching a film under the stars in the Royal Botanic Gardens – with an ice cream or wine in hand, of course.  Australia's favourite outdoor cinema has just dropped its first glimpse of the screening schedule, with blockbusters, nostalgic favourites and plenty of romcoms on the program. Highlights include Gladiator II, The Substance, It Ends With Us and Wicked. And the December line-up wouldn't be complete without a festive flick or two, so lovers of a Christmas film will be thrilled to see classics like The Holiday, Love Actually, Elf and Home Alone featured. Those looking to splurge can opt for either the Platinum Experience, which includes a deluxe double bean bed (including a blanket you can take home!) for two with waiter service or the Singapore Airlines Gold Grass, with a prime position in front of the screen and an exclusive menu of delicious treats. The Official Aperol Spritz Bar is also returning, so you can sip on that iconic orange cocktail all summer long. Screenings kick off at sundown and even your pooch is welcome. Tickets are now available via the website. Want more fun in the sun? Here are the best things to do in Melbourne this December.

Mark your calendars because the countdown for Meredith Music Festival is officially on. Set to make a glorious return to the Supernatural Amphitheatre for its 32nd birthday; the festival has announced its line-up for 2024, with Jamie xx, Genesis Owusu and Waxahatchee as the main headliners. We’re also particularly excited for Princess Superstar (Saltburn singalong, anyone?) and The Dare (if Charli XCX thinks he’s with it, so do we).  Running between December 6-8 2024, Meredith Music festival is held near the town of Meredith in the shire of Golden Plains, Victoria. The line-up includes: Jamie xx, Waxahatchee, Genesis Owusu, Mk.gee, Zapp, Angie McMahon, The Dare, Glass Beams, Fat White Family, Mannequin Pussy, Princess Superstar, Barkaa, Frenzee, Leo Sayer, Olof Dreijer, Good Morning, Mike, Party Dozen, Mainline Magic Orchestra, DJ PGZ, Essendon Airport, Ayebatonye, Yara, Precious Bloom, The Central Australian Aboriginal Women’s Choir, In2stellar, Keanu Nelson, Billiam and The Split Bills and the City Of Ballarat Municipal Brass Band. Meredith Thirty Two tickets are $488 (including booking fee), and the price includes all camping and parking, as well as access to the full three days and two nights of Meredith. We’re pleased to note that the ticket price hasn’t increased from last year, despite the cozzie livs.  As usual, most tickets to Meredith Thirty Two are available via the Subscriber Ticket Ballot before they go on public sale. To secure tickets through the ballot, become

Tina Turner was the bread and butter of our household TV screen. She belted alongside Mick Jagger at Live Aid, leather-clad and big hair, raced her supercharged engine across Coober Pedy in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and assured the world that everything would be alright as David Bowie slipped out of the shadows during her Private Dancer Tour. She was one of music’s indomitable icons, a powerhouse; she was the Queen of Rock‘n’Roll. When Tina – The Tina Turner Musical finally rolled into Melbourne’s Princess Theatre after its West End debut and national run, it arrived with sky-high expectations. Having stacked up Tony and Olivier nominations as well as praise from Rolling Stone for its ability to simultaneously “entertain and enlighten”, I’m relieved to say that this Melbourne production did not disappoint. Leather, shoulder pads and sequins that would make Tina herself proud, danced across the red carpet on opening night with hundreds, including local Australian stars, paying homage. For someone like me, who never experienced Tina live beyond the glow of a television screen, the energy certainly made it feel like the real deal.  The musical, written by Katori Hall alongside Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins, and directed by Phyllida Lloyd, stays true to Tina’s journey – thanks, in part, to Tina herself. From her early days in Nutbush, Tennessee, with gospel choirs and dusty churches, to the St. Louis blues scene where she met Ike Turner, across the globe to the soggy streets of

Dickens' A Christmas Carol is returning to the Melbourne stage. Set for a pre-Christmas season from November 22 to December 29, the smash hit staging of the timeless holiday story will be playing at the Comedy Theatre.  A Christmas Carol was the most-awarded play of 2021, sweeping the Tonys with five award wins. Two Tony Award winners themselves created the magical rendition: director Matthew Warchus (Matilda the Musical) and playwright Jack Thorne (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child). The production delivers striking staging, moving storytelling and 12 traditional Christmas carols, including ‘Joy to the World’ and ‘Silent Night’. The cast announced for 2024 stars Erik Thomson as Ebenezer Scrooge, alongside an exceptional cast of sixteen performers including Tim Wright and Alison Whyte. 'A Christmas Carol' is showing at the Comedy Theatre until December 29, 2024. For more information and to book your tickets, head to the website. Read our four-star review of the 2023 production here: One of the defining aspects of Christmas that delights and frustrates, depending on your inclination, is its inexorability; it comes around again and again, like the white horse on a carousal. Maybe this will also be the case with the Old Vic production of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which proved a great success last year and is back to spread its Yuletide cheer around the Comedy Theatre once more. The central change – in fact, the only significant change – is the casting of the villain who bec

From the story’s origins hundreds of years ago, to its transformation into the classic 1991 Disney film, Beauty and the Beast really is a tale as old as time. In its musical form, the production hasn’t been seen in Melbourne since the ’90s, when Hugh Jackman famously performed as Gaston in his first professional role. Fast forward three decades and we’re once again seeing a Melbourne stage transformed into the provincial town and Baroque castle we know so well. Only this time round, the lavish set design is augmented with cleverly integrated digital screens. It’s just one of several updates that ensure this reimagined production of the beloved fairytale keeps up with the times. From the moment the curtain rises, it’s clear this is a large-scale musical with all the belles, whistles and big bucks. Visual splendour is the MO here – think kaleidoscopic costumes, gasp-inducing illusions and spectacular lighting – and it’s easy to see why this show broke box office records at Brisbane’s QPAC.  However, all that Disney investment would be useless without the gifted cast. Shubshri Kandiah exudes whimsy-with-a-backbone as bookworm Belle, charming us with her sweet songs and sassy moments – though the folks in her provincial town just don’t get it.  Brendan Xavier’s beast is alternately ferocious and boyish. His startled squeals and hair-twirling moments help make Belle’s dramatic change in feelings a touch more believable. Both leads shine in their solo numbers, with Xavier’s ‘If I C

It takes a lot to keep a gloriously body-positive, anarchically queer feminist cabaret queen down. Tragically, a lot, in this instance, is a particularly heinous blast of pneumonia that ripped through the entire cast of outré creative company Fat Fruit. With the illness hitting Sarah Ward hardest, she’s had to temporarily pull out of F Christmas, the dashingly irreverent and indecently undressed seasonal hullaballoo she penned and planned to perform in. Powerhouse director Susie Dee (Runt) – who co-created the work with musical director Bec Matthews, Ward’s partner in life and stagecraft – announces the bin-able news next to a skip at the edge of the Malthouse’s Merlyn Theatre. Designer Romanie Harper has transformed the space into a slightly skew-whiff Santa’s grotto set ablaze by Monique Aucher’s blood-red lighting. Torn wrapping paper ribbons adorn a gigantic, stage-spanning garland that utterly dwarfs Dee. It takes her a couple of coughs – hopefully not lurgy-related – to grab everyone’s attention, announcing that the magnificent Milo Hartill will step in. The show must go on, and unfortunate theatrical mishaps have a funny way of working out way more than okay. Despite having less than a week to rehearse, Harthill, the glorious mind behind button-pushing solo show Black, Fat and F**gy, is glitter dust personified in a gold-sequinned dress. She brings an extra spicy tickle to her role as Geraldine, playing on the trope that any generic woman will do to host a dazzlingly w

When Tony, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Oscar-winning star of stage and screen Maggie Smith departed this mortal coil on September 27, the wave of social media adulation celebrating her life’s remarkable work was tear-jerking, rabble-rousing and chuckle-inducing in equal measure. In the mix was, of course, her withering wonder as Mother Superior, trained on Whoopi Goldberg’s lounge singer on the run and in disguise as a nun in 1992’s cinematic Sister Act.     Joseph Maher’s Bishop O’Hara reminds her of her duty, “You took a vow of hospitality for all in need,” as she tartly replies, with only the most meagre hint of regret, “I lied.”   One of the wittiest lines in the film, directed by Dirty Dancing helmer Emile Ardolino, receives a show-stealing twist in the goofily splendid musical. Helpmann Award-winning actor Genevieve Lemon scored one of the biggest laughs of the night when she stepped into Mother Superior’s habit on opening night of the Melbourne staging, held within the hallowed hall of the Regent Theatre, opposite Australian Idol alum Casey Donovan as irrepressible singer Deloris van Cartier.   They’re a mighty double act playing off each other with abundant charm in this musical version that’s been transplanted from Reno/San Francisco in the ‘90s to Philadelphia in the ‘70s, replacing the original soundtrack with a funkier soul train thanks to mellifluous music from EGOT-winner – Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony – Alan Menken, cheeky lyrics by Glenn Slater and a sassy book by Ch

We’re struggling to think of a nicer way to spend a summer evening than relaxing in the Rose Garden within St Kilda Botanical Gardens, taking in a classic Shakespearean romcom updated for the 21st century. Add in a glass of rosé and a light sea breeze and you’d be forgiven for dropping your other pre-Christmas plans to get over there. If that situation sounds as good to you as it does to us, you’ll be happy to know that Melbourne Shakespeare Company is staging Twelfth Night in the aforementioned Rose Garden from December 6-22.  Fans of the Bard will already be well across the mistaken identity moments, pranks and general tomfoolery of the much-loved romcom, but we’ve got the perfect way to bring you up to speed if you’ve got no idea. You know how the early 2000s cinematic masterpiece She’s the Man is based on Shakespeare? Twelfth Night is that play.   Now, if your tastes run a little more towards spectacular songs than sad sonnets, don’t worry. This version of Twelfth Night is a brand new musical adaptation. It’s also an abridged 90-minute version with no intermission.  Expect fast-paced shenanigans, a love triangle and tunes from the likes of Backstreet Boys and Bruno Mars. This is one to make you laugh and remind you that sometimes love does conquer all… eventually.  Take a moment to stop and literally smell the roses (or, you know, enjoy some theatre) this December by grabbing a ticket to Twelfth Night. They’re on sale now over here and at just $20-35, we reckon they’re a

Pardon a moment’s naval-gazing here, but beyond the sparkly Instagram pics from glittering opening nights, the freelance writing gig can be tough. Despite powering through with optimism and encouraging others to follow their passions, I almost gave it all up this week. Or at least I thought about it. But I won’t. I can’t.  This life chose me. Writing’s inextricably bound up in my identity. I don’t know what else I could do. Even as the stress of making ends meet drives me to distraction, I know this is the calling I’ll die (perhaps in penury) on the hill for.  All of which brings me to Sybylla Melvyn, listlessly ranging round the parched-yellow grass of her family’s failing dairy farm, Possum Gully. It’s 1899, and she is a headstrong young woman with grand ambitions of becoming a writer at a time when society has no other expectations of her than being married off to a wealthier man.  The hero of Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin’s beloved debut novel, My Brilliant Career, published in 1901, the 15-year-old is a remarkable figure, a frustrated feminist who hasn’t quite figured it all out yet, but is innately unlike most other girls she knows, including her younger sister Gertie and her harried mother. In truth, Sybylla most closely resembles her author, sharing obvious similarities with the woman whose name would one day lend itself to our most prestigious literary prize, the Miles Franklin Award, plus the Stella Prize for best writing by an Australian woman. Together, they d