When your resume of theatrical smash hits includes Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera, Cats and Oliver, it might seem safe to assume you have the Midas touch for staging musicals. But the industry’s global doyen, Cameron Mackintosh, takes nothing for granted.

Mackintosh is in Melbourne right now for the opening of one of his other shows –Mary Poppins. Recording from within Her Majesty’s Theatre, he chats with Good Weekend senior writer Konrad Marshall, about singing and stagecraft – and sales within a creative yet cutthroat field. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sir Cameron Mackintosh on staging the world’s most successful musicals

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In this episode we speak to Max Chandler-Mather, the 32 year old Greens MP who's shaking up Canberra with his uncompromising take on the housing crisis.
Chandler-Mather talks with Good Weekend senior writer Jane Cadzow about his own experience as a renter and how it feeds into his policies and politics, his success with door-knocking at the 2022 federal election, and what he thinks of the hecklers in federal parliament. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Max Chandler-Mather on housing, heckling and the perfect door knock

In this episode, we speak with retired Australian netball champion and TV presenter Liz Ellis, who was recently appointed chair of Netball Australia, following a series of crises. Netball was riven with issues last year, including a team departing the national league, a pay dispute with players, and the loss of critical national funding.
Hosting the conversation - about the many problems facing an otherwise popular sport that's played by millions of women and girls (and, increasingly, men and boys) around the country - is The Age sports reporter Carla Jaeger. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Liz Ellis on healing the wounds within netball

In this episode we speak with the chief executive of the Australian Academy of Science, Anna-Maria Arabia, who leads a growing band of people expressing concern about the evidence used to convict Robert Farquharson of the murder of his three sons.
The Victorian father drove his car, with the three boys inside, into a dam on Father’s Day, 2005, for which he is serving a 33 year sentence. Arabia unpicks the evidence used in his case and calls for better science to be presented in the legal system in general.
Hosting the episode is a journalist who’s spent months combing through the Farquharson evidence, Michael Bachelard, a senior writer with The Age. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Did Robert Farquharson kill his three sons? A science-led reappraisal

From The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, Trial by Water is a new investigative podcast series about Robert Farquharson, who has been locked up for decades for an unthinkable crime: murdering his three sons in a dam on Father’s Day, 2005.
Now scientists and lawyers are asking the question: did we get it wrong? And is this man in prison for a crime he didn’t commit?
Episode 1 will arrive on Saturday, June 1. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Introducing: Trial by Water

In this episode we speak with documentary maker Ian Darling, whose latest movie - The Pool - is premiering at the Sydney Film Festival in June before a national cinema release. The film is a paean to Bondi Icebergs, a picturesque pool on the edge of Australia’s most famous beach.
Hosting this episode, which explores Darling's shift from stockbroking to filmmaking, the meditative nature of swimming, the eclectic 'Bergs community, and the trials and tribulations of a 12-month outdoor shoot, is Good Weekend editor, Katrina Strickland. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sir Cameron Mackintosh on staging the world’s most successful musicals

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