[image]
[title]It is a truth universally acknowledged that Benjamin Law is a priceless Sydney treasure. The writer, author, journalist and all-round legend is the creator behind the recent hit Netflix show Wellmania, has published multiple books, has a saucy weekly ‘Dicey Topics’ column in the Good Weekend on love, sex and death – and has even had his bum in the Archibald.
Basically, he’s pretty cool.
Law is set to take the main stage at the upcoming Sydney Writers’ Festival 2023. Whether it's chatting with Booker Prize winner Bernadine Evaristo, talking dark secrets with Chloé Hayden and Don Watson in a real-life edition of Dicey Topics, putting on a free show of his ABC RN program ‘Stop Everything!’, or chatting with Sydney-raised, Brooklyn-based reporter Tracey Lien about her debut murder mystery, Law is in for a busy time – and frankly, we’re here for all of it.
Time Out sat down with the writerly force to chat about what made him want to be a writer (spoiler: a free stereo), the Sydney Writers' Festival – and how Celeste Barber is his ride or die.
Ben, you're a guest curator and a key speaker in many of the Sydney Writers' Festival events this year. Can you tell us a little about what the Festival means to you?
Coming into Sydney as a Brisbane person originally, the Sydney Writers' Festival was such a big deal in my mind, and still is. It was the festival to go to, like glittering, shiny, big – where all the big conversations happened, where all the big scandals happened. I remember in my first year at the Sydney Writers Festival, I think The Family Law might have just come out, and one of the volunteers asked me if I was having a good time, and I'm like, “Yes, it’s my first Sydney Writers Festival, I'm really enjoying it, I can't even believe I'm here”. And she said; ”Enjoy it while it lasts, it doesn't last forever” (laughs). I was like, OK, cool. Thanks for that! I think it reminds me of the fact that what we have in Sydney is actually really rare. There are writers’ festivals around the world, but international authors come and visit Sydney and they say, “We don't have anything like this back home”. You assume there are bigger cooler writers festivals in, like, New York, or something. But it's not on this scale.
Can you pinpoint a single point in your own secret history that sparked your decision to pursue a life as a writer?
I was a big reader before I wanted to be a writer.
If I wanted to be anything growing up, it was to be an actor on Home and Away – that didn't work out
But I always loved reading. When I was growing up, it was books, when I was a teenager, it was magazines. But, growing up in like, dial-up era internet, in coastal Queensland away from the big cities, reading magazines and reading books, they were my gateway to the rest of the world. If I wasn't at home, I was hanging at the newsagent or the library, or at the bookshop. When it came to deciding what I wanted to do, I didn't really quite know. But I was like, I'd like to write for magazines for a living. And I remember I wrote the ‘letter of the month’ for Rolling Stone magazine, it was a very earnest political, self-righteous letter to the editor, so not my brand at all. And it was the letter of the month, and I won a stereo. And I'm one of five kids, so I've never had anything like that of my own before. And I was like, wow, writing pays really well. Better pursue that [laughs].
This year’s SWF is focused on ‘Stories for the Future’. In your opinion, how do you reckon people can best come to terms with the past in a way that lets them move forward freely?
I don't think those two things can be disentangled. And I don't think it's about rejecting the past, or erasing the past. I think we live in a country where erasing the past actually is the story of this continent. We erase the stories of the oldest continuing civilization on this planet.
We erase the stories of migrants, women, queer people and disabled people, like, basically anyone who isn’t in the majority. There is this national history of forgetting
And I think the only way you can step into the future is by acknowledging the past. We're having this conversation in the year of a referendum – that doesn't happen every year in this country. And that referendum is about the future of the country. But the only reason we're having it is because of the injustices of the past. I don't think you can be a grown-up, mature nation until you can understand what Australia is. It's a history of defensiveness, erasure and stubbornness. But as time goes on, I do sense this growing maturity about Australia and this growing curiosity. I think we're growing up and we're understanding that we are going to be a better country in the future by wrestling with and understanding our past better.
You’ve recently had your own Netflix show (Wellmania) come out. What's been the most mental ‘what is happening’ moment for you during the whole process?
I think just being able to work with Celeste Barber. She’s someone I've admired for such a long time. Are we colleagues and friends now? Like that is absolutely wild.
And she's one of those people in my life who's a total 'ride or die' nowadays. So, getting to work with her has just been wonderfully surreal and gorgeous
But also trying to make a show during a pretty bad phase of a pandemic, and while the ecology was collapsing around us was really wild. It's like, “Hey, let's shoot in beautiful, beautiful Sydney! The weather is so bad today.” It was just during a really gnarly time in the natural environment. And the fact that we made this beautiful, life-affirming (I hope) hug of a show during some pretty gnarly times, environmentally, medically, socially – I think we're really proud of that.
SWF aside, what are you most looking forward to next?
After the Sydney Writers' Festival, I'll be hosting a conversation with Jennifer Coolidge and Mike White from White Lotus. So I'm doing that for Vivid Festival, and that's going to be hilarious and insane. I'm definitely looking forward to that. And, just before the Writers' Festival, I'm walking in my friend (Jordan Gogos's) fashion show for Fashion Week. So that's very Sydney.
If time, space and money were no object, what would your dream day in Sydney look like?
The best day in Sydney would be family, friends, partner – any, or all of those combinations. It would start with sleeping in [laughs]. It would be brunch at either Boon Cafe in Haymarket, which is beautiful Thai food that is like no other Thai restaurant in Sydney, or the world. Or yum cha somewhere like the Eight in Chinatown, which is bustling and fantastic. Yum cha is always great for brunch.
I reckon Sydney has the best yum cha in the world actually
And then, lunchtime, go for a swim. Bondi Icebergs, a sauna at Bondi Icebergs, cocktails at Bondi Icebergs. Go to an art gallery in the afternoon, maybe catch a ferry out for a walk in nature. And then spend the evening watching a show either at the Griffin, Belvoir or the Sydney Theatre Company. I'm a real big theatre nerd, and the theatre companies in Sydney are just some of the best theatre makers in the world. And then, crashing into bed and not having to do a thing the next day except just go to a beach and be hungover, and wretched, and rot.