radio features

Noel Coward: His talks in Australia

a radio feature produced by Lyn Gallacher

 

Noel Coward at mic

It is 1940 and wherever he goes in Australia, Noel Coward receives rapturous applause. His tour of the great Southern land is tightly packed with luncheons, concerts and fundraisers. 1,500 people attend three different functions on the one day in Adelaide and as he is leaving Sydney 900 business girls (as news reports refer to them) mob him in Market Street. Nurses ask him to sign their uniforms. Solders lift him up on their shoulders. Mayors present him with keys to the city. He is even introduced to a Koala.

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Counihan’s Cage

a radio feature produced by Lyn Gallacher

 

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e scene is Sydney Road, Brunswick, Victoria. It’s 19th May 1933 and Friday night shopping is in full swing. But an angry crowd is gathering. These are not shoppers. These are protestors. The depression has hit this area hard. Police are on high alert, and when they hear a young man, called Noel Counihan, speaking from inside a cage, chained to the verandah post, of what is now the Duke of Edinburgh Hotel, tempers fly. The police attempt to break the cage open and finally resort to using a battering ram as the crowd cheers for Noel. (more…)

Archive Fever

Library with books

Australia is leading the world in a new approach to archives. It is challenging traditional archivists to embrace a more multilateral approach, one which suggests many versions of the past. But what does this mean archives are about become? Do they describe our past or our future? If we are to believe in Archive Fever then we might find our archives produce our history as much as they record it. Continue Reading

Faust’s Ghost


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In 1888 Federici, the singer in Gounod’s Faust playing the part of Mephistopheles died on stage while descending into hell. And his ghost has haunted Melbourne’s Princess Theatre ever since.

So, is it foolhardy to make a bargain with the devil, or should Faust go to heaven in the end? Would that relieve the ghost of its anxious haunting?

This is story about the golden age of Australian opera, and a lost soul from the 16th century whom Goethe made famous. Continue Reading