Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

The Australian production of Heathers the Musical delivers colourful stage design, a bombastic pop-rock score and strong performances, especially from Emma Caporaso, Calista Nelmes and Abigail Sharp. However, its softened characterisation, explicit moralising and revised treatment of contentious material remove much of the ambiguity and menace that made the 1989 film compelling. The result is energetic, camp and enjoyable, but more bark than bite, with its serious themes and violence repeatedly undercut by comic presentation.

Golden Plains 2026 is portrayed as a welcoming, community-oriented festival that turns a regional Victorian farm into an immersive musical world. Standout performances include Cut Copy, Water From Your Eyes, Obongjayar, Marlon Williams, Upchuck, Bleak Squad and Jalen Ngonda, while Basement Jaxx close the event with a visually extravagant, high-energy set that makes the amphitheatre feel like a heaving club. The festival’s no-corporate-sponsorship policy and communal atmosphere are presented as increasingly distinctive in Australia’s shrinking festival landscape.

Australian comedian Geraldine Hickey discusses how breast removal surgery in 2025 improved her ability to run after a lifetime of discomfort, while distinguishing her experience from transgender gender-affirming top surgery. She also describes how COVID lockdowns led her to running and birdwatching, her openness about ADHD and Raynaud’s syndrome, and the role of personal experiences in her comedy. Hickey praises her wife Cath Bateman’s work providing free abortions in Morwell and plans to address safe, accessible abortion care in her new show.

A Melbourne fundraiser combining music, protest and short activist speeches drew nearly 5,000 people and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for organizations supporting Palestinians and providing humanitarian aid. Performers including Genesis Owusu, Julia Jacklin, Angie McMahon, Miss Kaninna and Tarab Ensemble framed art as a means of resistance, survival and community solidarity. Speakers highlighted Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, the denial of medical-aid registration to Médecins Sans Frontières Australia and stories of educational hope, while artists and attendees reinforced the event’s pro-Palestinian activism.

The Guardian’s critics select 16 standout Australian albums released in 2025, spanning folk, electronic, pop, rap, punk, glam rock and experimental music. The list highlights acclaimed debuts from Folk Bitch Trio, Ninajirachi and Shady Nasty; confident follow-ups from Stella Donnelly, Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers, and Belair Lip Bombs; and notable releases from established artists including Tame Impala, Baker Boy and Mallrat. Several albums address grief, alienation, identity, Indigenous rights and the pressures of contemporary digital life, while the accompanying playlist offers a representative track from each selection.

Guardian Australia critics and staff select 25 notable Australian books published in 2025 across fiction, poetry, memoir, nonfiction, short stories, fantasy and cookbooks. The roundup highlights Helen Garner’s collected diaries, Geraldine Brooks’ memoir of grief, a collaborative examination of Erin Patterson’s murder trial, and works by Dominic Amerena, Evelyn Araluen, Omar Musa, Rosheen Kaul and others. The recommendations address themes including colonisation, climate catastrophe, migration, sexuality, gender, family, grief and social inequality, while also offering holiday reading and cooking suggestions.

Filipino-Australian R&B singer Cap Carter discusses rebuilding his career after leaving a major label and manager, staging farewell shows and confronting addiction and mental-health struggles. Independent DIY performances and a successful TikTok outreach to Teddy Swims led to sold-out international tours and a substantial online following. His debut album, Streetlights, marks a shift from the trauma of his earlier EP Notes toward healing, hope and recovery, while still acknowledging that recovery remains ongoing. Carter is also launching Holding Space, a program connecting solo concertgoers, before touring Australia and focusing increasingly on the US market.

Lee Lai’s graphic novel Cannon follows Cannon, a queer Chinese woman in Montreal, as she struggles to express her emotions and establish boundaries with her family, romantic interest Charlotte, friend Trish and colleagues. The review praises Lai’s monochrome brush-and-ink artwork, recurring magpies and red-tinted Australian horror-film sequences, which externalize Cannon’s suppressed anger and trauma. It also highlights the book’s critique of diaspora artists’ pressure to turn cultural and personal suffering into marketable narratives, ultimately presenting Cannon as a thoughtful, emotionally powerful work that balances horror, anger and humour.

Guardian Australia editors and critics recommend eleven Australian books released in September across fiction, memoir, biography, graphic novels, nonfiction and cookbooks. Highlights include Kathleen Folbigg and Tracy Chapman’s memoir Inside Out, which recounts Folbigg’s imprisonment and eventual exoneration; Omar Musa’s novel Fierceland, set partly in Malaysian Borneo; Randa Abdel-Fattah’s Discipline, which examines censorship and prejudice surrounding discussion of Palestine; and Natalie Kyriacou’s environmental nonfiction Nature’s Last Dance. The selection also features books by Mandy Sayer, Hossein Asgari, Toni Jordan, Lee Lai, Rosheen Kaul, Jessica Mansour-Nahra and Hetty Lui McKinnon, with the reviews emphasizing themes of grief, family, identity, social injustice, environmental decline and creative resilience.

Australian band Parcels discuss their formation in Byron Bay, move to Berlin, and formative collaboration with Daft Punk on the 2017 single “Overnight.” The band’s blend of disco, funk, pop and vocal harmonies has generated more than one billion streams, while major festival appearances and sold-out performances have established them as a prominent live act. After taking a six-month break from touring, the members recorded their third album, Loved, across Australia, Europe and Mexico. The album builds on their signature grooves while drawing on diverse influences and explores love, pain and emotional vulnerability, with the band aiming to make listeners “cry on the dancefloor.”

Singer Emma Louise Lobb discusses receiving an ADHD diagnosis in her twenties and discovering her autism only in recent years. She describes grief over not understanding herself earlier, including the impact on her self-worth and relationships, while also finding greater self-acceptance through an emerging understanding of neurodiversity. Those experiences inform Dumb, her collaborative album with producer Harley Streten, known as Flume. The album combines Lobb’s gentle vocals with Streten’s abrasive, experimental electronics, using the pair’s shared neurodivergent perspective and a deliberately unfiltered creative process. Lobb also explains her decision to reclaim the potentially ableist title after consulting other neurodivergent people.