Culture

For their 15th album, Nonetheless, British synth duo Pet Shop Boys return to the epic glamour of their early hits – and they sound as relevant as ever.

The brutal vision of Patricia Highsmith’s prose is given expressive texture in Ripley, Steven Zaillian’s elegant black-and-white adaptation for Netflix.

In A World Undone at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Nicholas Mangan explores the complicated histories of the materials he uses to show how the world is being destroyed.

Rising American literary star Bryan Washington – appearing at the Melbourne Writers Festival this month – is lauded for his nuanced portrayals of complex characters.

During the pandemic, the author gathered lyrics from some of Australia’s greatest living poets to create contemporary hymns – which will finally have an audience at the Canberra International Music Festival.

A body suffering in sleep
or sleepless, dreams that do not wake you
but remain in daytime, steel feathers
stippling your skin, the prick of vinegar
or roses, a cloud that blurs the rooftops
and meets you with dread or the edge
of beauty or something less
definable, a future you can’t process
that is your own no matter

Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet was the first experience of intoxication for French dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied, who makes his Australian debut at the Sydney Opera House next month.

Thomas Bernhard’s play The President, now on at Sydney Theatre Company, fails to hit home – perhaps because what seemed shocking in 1975 is now part of our everyday reality.

The highlights of this year’s Cinema Reborn film festival include the 1939 screwball comedy Midnight, Chantal Akerman’s take on Proust and Tewfik Saleh’s The Dupes.