Things to do in Sydney today

Keep Friday, April 4 and Saturday 5 free in your diary, as Stickybeak Festival – a two-day food, booze and music shindig spearheaded by the legends behind Archie Rose and P&V Wine – is once again returning for its fourth year of delicious fun. This year, the fest will be coming to life at The Goods Line in Ultimo, a five-minute walk from Central, from 5-10pm each night. Bring your pocket money and comfy pants, ’cos the line-up is bloody beaut, with food stalls by Firepop, Bessie’s, Flora, Kiln, Lankan Filling Station, Attenzione Food & Wine, TBC by Grape Garden, Takam, Gelato Messina and more. Drinks-wise, expect fun, fruity and refreshing tipples from Archie Rose, as well as PS40, Baptist Street Rec Club, The Waratah, Double Deuce Lounge, Little Cooler, Maybe Sammy and more, plus vino from P&V Wine + Liquor Merchants and cold beers from Grifter Brewing Co. Time Out Sydney’s lifestyle writer Winnie Stubbs popped her Stickybeak Festival cherry last year – and loved it, saying: “If your dream Sydney dinner features a Martini from an Inner City cocktail bar, starters from a wine den in Newtown, mains from a Redfern pasta palace and dessert from a Darlinghurst bakehouse, Stickybeak is a dream come true. It would be a logistical impossibility to hop between 20 venues in one night, but this glorious fest brings them together all in one place,” she added. Ain’t that the truth. Throughout the event, there’ll be DJs and live performances curated by FBi Radio for you to bop along...

After a sold-out debut season, the Blue Mountains’ incredible immersive exhibition – titled Nocturnal – is back, bringing otherworldly visuals to life under the star-studded mountain skies. Running for an extended season, the luminous interactive experience is popping up from Thursday, April 3 until Saturday, May 11 – taking over Scenic World with a sparkly new program of light displays, holograms and magnificent dynamic light structures. On select nights throughout April and early May, visitors will have access to this surreal luminous universe – with Scenic World’s Scenic Railway offering enchanting night-rides through the forest, and the Skyway offering sky-high views of the sparkling setting. Highlights (literally) of this year’s program include a huge holographic lyrebird basking in the moonlight, a forest walk illuminating the secret language of trees and magnificent light projections inspired by the local landscape and history.  Expect moving holograms of native creatures, and spellbinding projections mapping ancient rock formations.Tickets to Nocturnal will score you access to all Scenic World rides after dark – including the world’s steepest railway – and hours of immersion in the magical luminous setting. The experience is free for children under three, and general admission for kids starts at $40.90, with adult tickets starting from $54.90. A child’s ticket will also include a special Nocturnal quest to help little explorers uncover hidden clues to the...

Arguably, Ensemble Theatre’s production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie deserves a better audience than it got on opening night.  At a key point in the play, well-meaning faded golden boy Jim O’Connor (Tom Rodgers) accidentally breaks a tiny glass unicorn, part of the titular collection of knick-knacks that shy, anxious Laura Wingfield (Bridie McKim) is obsessed with.  It’s a moment laden with meaning and pathos. Laura – who was left with a limp by a childhood illness, and is so shy and awkward that she dropped out of secretary school rather than face day after day of simply sitting in class with other people – is finally, tentatively, making a connection with Jim, her high school crush. Unbeknownst to her, the future of her family depends on this connection. The meeting has been engineered by her younger brother, Tom (Danny Ball), and mother, Amanda (Blazey Best). Marrying off Laura will free Tom, who works in a shoe warehouse to support the family, to run off and find the adventure he craves in the merchant marines. It will also elevate Amanda from the crushing poverty she’s endured since her estranged husband, whose faded photo dominates the stark set, ran off years ago.  But Laura is far too fragile for such a burden – she’s as delicate as the glass unicorn that Jim so carelessly crushes. And the quiet, crystal moment in the aftermath of that tiny, terrible accident was itself shattered when some halfwit in the first few rows stage-whispered, clear as a bell...

These days, it seems the best thing that a musical can be is non-traditional. Countless new productions have landed on our stages in recent years, proclaiming that their show is “like nothing we’ve ever seen before”. And while it is exciting to see new works that push the form into genre-defying territory (the brilliant Hadestown is testament to this) as well as productions that put a new twist on well-trodden territory (like The Hayes’ reinvention of The Pirates of Penzance), it’s a refreshing change to see the complete opposite: a proper classic musical theatre spectacle, that remains authentic to the source material. Opera Australia’s fresh production of Guys & Dolls – the latest outdoor spectacle in the Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour series – gives us just that, with the picturesque backdrop of the Sydney skyline, to boot.  Recommended: get ready with our guide to going to Guys & Dolls on Sydney Harbour The New York imagined by Damon Runyon, whose short stories served as inspiration for Guys & Dolls, is a place of heightened realism, populated by comical gangsters with absurd names like Harry the Horse and a thirst for illegal gambling. Director Shaun Rennie (Jesus Christ Superstar) stays true to this world, while also injecting some fresh touches. Brian Thomson’s heightened stage design perfectly compliments this – oversized set pieces, such as a giant yellow taxi, make the most of the unique outdoor setting and the enormous floating stage.  The production’s stars...

There’s always a lot going on at Sydney’s favourite house. So much so that it can be hard to keep track – with new headliners dropping every other week, and huge events taking over the various venues seemingly out of nowhere.  Keen to go to a show under the sails over the next few months? We’ve rounded up a few top picks in the Sydney Opera House autumn season:  The Opera House’s May cinema season Sydney’s outdoor cinema season wraps up in the cooler months, but if you’re keen to catch a movie in a unique location, the Opera House is here to help. From Thursday, May 1 until Sunday, May 4, the Playhouse will screen a series of new and classic films. The line-up includes a sing-along screening of Wicked, the latest release from Parasite director Bong Joon Ho Mickey 17, the late David Lynch’s iconic Mulholland Drive, Studio Ghibli's cherished Howl’s Moving Castle and a special screening of The Correspondent with a live Q&A.  Tickets start at $30. Generations and Dynasties, a celebration of First Nations talent Following its debut last year, this powerful series showcases creative First Nations families through conversation, storytelling, and performance. The 2025 program will take over the Utzon Room on Tuesday, April 29, Wednesday, May 14, Thursday, August 7 and Thursday, August 14, showcasing the musical talent, creativity and resilience of four First Nations families. Tickets start at $25. You Are Here, a creative play designed to encourage storytelling between children...