Things to do in Sydney this week

For people of Islamic faith, Ramadan is the most sacred month of the year. During this time, Muslims fast from dawn to dusk. But once the sun sets, iftar begins – a fast-breaking feast that runs late into the night, bringing family and friends together to enjoy an array of rich treats and moreish morsels. To coincide with this time of year, Sydney’s popular month-long celebration Lakemba Nights is back. This year’s event will be a little different, and instead of daily markets, Lakemba Nights will be running every Thursday to Sunday from now to March 30, 2025. RELATED READ: The 5 must-try dishes at Sydney's Lakemba Nights Ramadan markets. What time does Lakemba Nights during Ramadan open and close? From 6pm until 2am, Thursday through to Sunday, more than 60 local businesses will transform Lakemba’s Haldon Street into a vibrant, global food bazaar with traditional cuisine from Indonesia, Burma, Pakistan, Lebanon, the Cocos Islands, Syria and more. It’s not only Sydney’s Muslim communities that comes together during Lakemba Nights – people of all backgrounds are welcome to flock to sample the fare of pop-up kitchens and food trucks lining Haldon Street. What started as a single street barbeque back in 2012 has grown into what many consider one of Australia's best places to celebrate the ancient tradition, with last year's event drawing in more than one million people across the month. RELATED READ: Where to break fast this Ramadan, from iftar buffets to banquets....

Calling all Inner City art fans. For three inspiring weeks this autumn, Neon Playground – Sydney’s largest Asian-Australian cultural arts festival – will transform Haymarket into a luminous wonderland of neon light installations, comedy shows, art exhibitions, incredible live performances and excellent food.  After a hugely popular first year, Neon Playground is back for round two, kicking off this Saturday (Saturday, March 15) with the epic Chinatown Block Party (taking over Dixon Street in the centre of Haymarket). The opening-night event will be headlined by Korean-Australian rap group 1300, with a super-strong line-up (featuring Hong Kong-Australian rapper Tommy Gunn, Taiwanese-Australian pop artist tiffi, CRIMSON dance crew and more) soundtracking the streets from 5pm until 10pm.  Throughout the duration of the festival, a carefully curated program of Asian-Australian artists will perform at a range of free-to-attend and ticketed shows, and the streets will be buzzing with vibrant art exhibitions and light installations. Showcasing a rotating roster of established and emerging Asian-Australian artists including Chris Yee, Kentaro Yoshida, Pei Kwang, Andrew Yee, and Samuel Kim, a magnificent sculpture formed of 14 luminous towers will act as Neon Playground's visual centerpiece. The 4-5 metre towers of light will feature 80 lightbox illustrations; use 1km of neon; and integrate more than 100,000 individual LEDs. Produced in collaboration with world-renowned creative...

The genre-defying, multi-award-winning, smash-hit Broadway sensation, Hadestown has finally made its way down to Sydneytown – and it’s unlike any musical you’ve ever seen or heard. With industrial steampunk aesthetics, a soulful jazz-folk fusion, and even a comment on our dying world, this is a brave new world for musical theatre. The Down Under debut of Hadestown opened at the Theatre Royal Sydney to a ready-made fanbase. There’s a lot of hype surrounding this show – the Broadway production picked up eight Tony Awards (including Best Musical for 2019) and still plays to packed houses today, and there’s also the highly successful West End production and the North American tour.  An incisive adaptation of the age-old myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, Hadestown is the brainchild of indie-folk musician Anaïs Mitchell (with very clear influences from Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, who appeared on the 2010 studio album). It started its life as a song cycle, and then a studio album, and now it’s a fully-formed stage musical with a dedicated international following. Hadestown is a spectacular challenge to what we think a musical is and can be Like many fans, I discovered Hadestown via the studio album and the Broadway recording. With such a strong, atmospheric tone, the music doesn’t even need visuals to shine – featuring everything from chugging vocal sounds, deep growling singing, floating falsettos, muted trombones, a train whistle, and heavy acoustic guitars. Hadestown is the...

Henry V (stylized as Henry 5 in this production) is inarguably one of William Shakespeare’s most martial works. First performed somewhere between 1599 and 1605, there’s debate over whether the play is a deliberate act of nationalistic propaganda – certainly, its initial staging came at a time of English military adventurism, particularly in Ireland and against the Spanish. And Shakespeare, who benefited from royal approval from both Elizabeth I and James I, knew which side of the bread his butter was on. It’s always been popular in times of war – Sir Laurence Olivier’s 1944 film adaptation came mere months after the Allied invasion of Normandy, and leans into the stirring patriotism, the blood and the thunder. The text itself is deliciously ambiguous – occasionally frustratingly so in a time when, culturally, audiences demand straight lines and clear demarcations of morality. Kicking off Bell Shakespeare’s 2025 season, this latest production bucks that trend. Former Associate Artistic Director Marion Potts returns to the company after a 15-year absence to direct this carefully concentrated version. It excises many characters and subplots (farewell, Pistol and the lads from the Boar’s Head) and, of course, keeps the sinew-stiffening and blood-summoning speeches, but leans into the cost of war, taking pains to underscore the horrors. It's 1415 or thereabouts, and newly crowned King Henry (newcomer JK Kazzi), having been convinced in a very funny scene of his claim to certain...

Set in Madrid, the narrative action of Song Of First Desire occupies two distinct time frames. In the present day, acerbic twins Luis (Jorge Muriel) and Julia (Kerry Fox) are dealing with the mental decline of their ageing mother, Camelia (Sarah Peirse).  Meanwhile, in 1968, where Spain is under the fascist Franco regime, police commander Carlos (Muriel again) and his wife Carmen (Fox again) find their preparations for their daughter’s wedding disrupted when the latter encounters Margarita (Peirse, and you can see the pattern by now, surely), a woman who seems to know them from the past. “The past” in this case is the play’s third temporal setting: the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 and the White Terror that followed, in which Franco’s Nationalists enacted bloody purges and reprisals on the Spanish people, replete with mass extrajudicial executions and the torture of suspected dissidents. None of the on-stage action takes place in that period, but everything we see is rooted there – the sins of the past cast a heavy pall over the characters and the substance of the play itself, which deals with generational trauma, family secrets, incest, perversity, colonialism, and the rhyming nature of history, both personal and political. These are familiar themes for acclaimed Australian playwright Andrew Bovell. His 2008 play When the Rain Stopped Falling covers similar territory, and employs a comparably twisty approach to chronology. Song Of First Desire sees Bovell reteaming with...

The year is 1886, the very first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is being compiled, and four-year-old Esme Nicoll has a front row seat. (Well, she’s hiding under the sorting table.) As her father and his male colleagues decide which words stay and which go, Esme collects the discarded scraps to compile her own, far more magical dictionary. Following a celebrated national tour, which won the hearts of theatre and literature lovers alike, The Dictionary of Lost Words returns to the Sydney stage for a limited season at the Roslyn Packer Theatre. Based on Pip Williams’ award-winning New York Times bestseller, this popular stage adaptation written by Verity Laughton and expertly directed by Jessica Arthur (Grand Horizons, Wonnangatta) has been described in Time Out Sydney's four-star review by critic Jasmine Joyan as “a poetic experience… an astounding performance set during the seismic events of the late 19th and early 20th century, at the height of the women’s suffrage movement and the dawn of World War I”. Arkia Ashraf and Ksenja Logos return to the production from the original 2023 staging, alongside six new performers including rising star Shannen Alyce Quan (Flat Earthers: The Musical) as Esme along with Kathryn Adams, Brian Meegan, Johnny Nasser, James Smith, and Angela Nica Sullen. The story unfolds on Jonathon Oxlade’s “artistic masterpiece” of set design, with a stage-wide bookshelf serving as a marker for changes in setting in place. As Joyan describes it:...

Riding into town this March on his white horse is country music star Chris Stapleton. Not only will Sydneysiders delight in his sold-out shows at Qudos Bank Arena, but can also look forward to what may be Australia’s biggest whiskey shout. From Thursday, February 27, Sydney bar Jolene’s – in the CBD's YCK precinct – is shouting nips of liquid gold every day for a month at 8pm. And it's not just any shout. Chris Stapleton’s new Traveller Whiskey has been distilled by the renowned Buffalo Trace Distillery, so you know you’re in for something good.  Catch a free daily tasting while you can, and while you’re at it, sample one of the Traveller cocktails, like the Parachute, Traveller Old Fashioned, and East Kentucky Sweet Tea. If you need something to line the stomach, the pop-up will also be dishing out Traveller tater tots (that's mini hash browns, for us Aussies) with smoky brisket, liquid cheese and whiskey-infused barbecue sauce. How’s that for southern comfort?  There aren’t any promises that Chris will make an appearance, but a little birdie told us to never say never. Find out more about the deal here.

It’s summertime in the Harbour City, and you know you can't go wrong with some picnic blankets, antipasto snacks, and live music. Bonus points if there's a sunset and a harbour view involved.  Sunset Sessions – Cockatoo Island's family-friendly outdoor gig series – is back and running every Saturday evening from January 11 to April 5 (except February 8, when the island will be taken over by the Nowhere Festival). A carefully curated line-up of local and not-so-local acts (brought together by Sydney tastemakers The Music & Booze Co) will be playing on the lawn of the Biloela House every Saturday evening, where there will be grazing boxes and refreshments aplenty.  There's a broad range of talents to take in, with artists hailing from all over Australia – with a mix acoustic sets, folk, contemporary and feel-good sounds. Highlights from the line-up so far include First Nations traditional language storyteller Maanyung, sibling doo-wop duo Surely Shirley and etherial physch spaceman Misty Lanes, with more acts still to be announced.You can catch Sunset Sessions on Saturdays from 5.30pm, but get there early when the gates open at 5pm to soak in the atmosphere. Tickets are $35, and children under 12 can attend for free. If you find yourself wanting more of Cockatoo Island’s out-of-this-world views, you can turn your Sunset Session into a sunrise by booking a night at the island’s heritage listed lodgings or the waterfront campground. For the first few events (from January 11...

Perhaps it’s unpatriotic to suggest it, but I’d argue that Australia has produced strikingly few immortal works of art, particularly narrative art. But, we’ll always have Picnic at Hanging Rock – which can make a strong claim for being the most important Australian artistic work of the 20th century, and one that still casts a shadow over the 21st.  The novel by Joan Lindsay first saw the light of day in 1967, but it was Peter Weir’s 1975 film adaptation – a haunting and subtle work and the ne plus ultra of Australian Gothic – that really struck a chord with audiences. This year marks the film’s 50th anniversary, which seems to be the reason behind this haunting new production for Sydney Theatre Company’s 2025 season, the latest of numerous stage adaptations.  STC Resident Director Ian Michael (Constellations, Stolen) and playwright Tom Wright (whose adaptation was first staged by Malthouse Theatre and Black Swan Theatre in 2016) are certainly betting on Picnic at Hanging Rock’s cultural staying power. This Picnic is in no way naturalistic, but it certainly evokes a sense of the uncanny Both Lindsay’s novel and Weir’s film are elliptical and meditative, posing questions rather than offering answers. This production is perhaps more opaque than either, taking an experimental direction that ramps up the themes of horror and suspense. This works a treat in the early movements of the play, keeping the audience off kilter, forcing us to engage with a conceptual realm where time,...

Let’s just start by saying I’m not a D&D player. I’ve played a couple of times with my family, led by my teenage son as Dungeon Master, but that was just to show interest in something he loves. So I do understand the basics – that said, you don’t need any prior knowledge of D&D to get swept up in the magic that is Dungeons and Dragons The Twenty-Sided Tavern. If anything, this show is probably the best way I’ve found so far to get a better grasp on the complex game that is D&D. This is an interactive show that began in New York as an Off-Broadway production – the same director, Michael Fell, also rehearsed with the Australian cast. In what ways is it interactive? The story lies in the audience’s hands, as well as with the roll of the 20-sided dice.  As you enter The Studio at the Sydney Opera House, you pick a coloured sticker from a basket. Depending on what colour you choose, you get aligned with one of the three classes: Warrior, Mage (Wizard) or Assassin/Entertainer. Throughout the show, you make decisions for the character in your assigned class, mostly by choosing options via your mobile phone (after scanning a QR code) – and sometimes just by yelling out. (Top tip:Make sure you turn up with a fully-charged phone.) You answer polls and take part in little games to choose what character the actors play, then make decisions or see the outcomes of characters’ actions. Dice rolls are directed by the Dungeon Master, played by the charismatic Cody Simpson-lookalike William...