The Drawing Room

A big, ungainly baby waddles down the road, hands outstretched holding a cigarette. A huge roving eyeball looks out over a hotel balcony. A giant brain lumbers slowly down the stairs, bumping off the handrail. A gigantic disembodied foot treads on a too-slow picnicker, and a severed hand appears out of nowhere to push it off, all the while a nose bounces around behind them.

Such is the surreal spectacle of a Snuff Puppets public performance. You might encounter an oversized body part or animal the size of a bus and the beauty of these beasts is their ability to surprise, delight and sometimes even disgust.

David Cossini calls himself an immersive photographer. He prefers to meet his subjects on their level... even going so far as to inhabit a squat with his subjects for his collection on punks in London. 

David's work in Uganda has just won the Art Handlers' Award in the National Photographic Portrait Prize. His latest collection 'Business in the Front, Party in the Back!' is a study of the mullet and those who don them.  

Once you reach 7000 meters above sea level, your body is never warm. No matter how suitable your clothes are, your body isn't burning enough oxygen to trap and heat and you still have 1000 meters to go. 

This is the astonishing private life of Bee Miles. One of Australia’s most iconic eccentrics known in the 50s and 60s for her Shakespeare recitals and her dangerous obsession with jumping onto moving trains, trams and vehicles. A firebrand even as her decline neared.

Rose Ellis has completed a biography of the Sydney personality - Bee Miles: Australia’s famous bohemian rebel, and the untold story behind the legend

Do you remember those magic eye picture books? 

Hungarian visual artist László Bordos also plays with image and visual tricks creating a kind of trompe l'oeil- projecting onto some of the the most beautiful architecture in the world, plunging them in and out of darkness, so that you’d almost swear that parts of the building disappear.

His next canvas is Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance, part of the Now or Never Festival.

As Australia’s first Human Rights Commissioner, Brian Burdekin has spent a lifetime advocating for the needs of these children, those with disabilities and mental illness.

What do you picture when you imagine a poker game?

A dimly lit, smokey room with a green felt table? Stacks of chips? decks of cards? I’m willing to bet, you were imagining a group of men playing poker. 

It’s a game often depicted as masculine - where risk, strategy, assertiveness and financial savvy are key.

Options trader and businesswoman Jenny Just says she noticed a lack of these traits in her daughter and female employees, so she took a gamble and began teaching women to play poker with her company PokerPower.

Using a wealth of archive material and interviews with those who worked with her 'MERKEL' the documentary takes a look at the personal and political life of the previous Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel.

Director Eva Weber joins the show to discuss what she found out about the leader and her legacy.

Guest: 

Eva Weber, Director

The 9-stringed romantic guitar has a particular kind of sound to it... the extra strings provide a balanced blend of the treble and bass giving it a kind of depth… a richness to it. 

Guitarist Petra Poláĉková is one of the very few female 9-string classical guitar players. She discusses her influence and listens as she graces our ears with a romantic piece by Johann Kaspar Mertz.

Petra is currently touring Australia performing and running workshops.