The Drawing Room

It was the pain in Billie Holiday's voice that first drew Mary Coughlan to her songs.

That shared pain has been an inspiration over the years, as Coughlan took her own experience of addiction and childhood abuse and became one of the most revered jazz and blues singers in her home of Ireland, covering Holiday's songbook along the way.

In the Drawing Room, Coughlan looks back at the moments of joy, sorrow, and forgiveness that have made up her life so far.

The photographs of Nan Goldin bear witness to the communities that she's been a part of, providing a loving tribute to those around her and scandalising those who would rather ignore the truths that she presents.

It's work that has been collected by many of the world's great museums.

But more recently, Nan has turned her gaze on those museums, campaigning to have the Sackler name removed from their walls and their collections, because of the family's involvement with Oxycontin and the opioid crisis.

Documentary maker Laura Poitras takes audiences into Nan's campaign, her life and her career in the new film All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.

Large parts of the world's most populous countries could become uninhabitable.

That's the stark warning behind Gaia Vince's new book, Nomad Century, which looks at what could happen if temperatures rise to four degrees above pre-industrial levels, a possibility that she says is far more likely than we want to believe.

That would mean billions of people affected, and many of them on the move — an era of climate refugees.

But Vince believes that migration can be a solution instead of a problem, and that beginning to plan now will prevent much worse upheaval in the long term.

Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn are two of the world's greatest banjo players.

Both Grammy Award winners, who have worked across many different styles and collaborations.

In the Drawing Room they talk about the history of the banjo, their different styles, and how working together has impacted their relationship.

Macquarie Bank is one of Australia's great success stories, with thousands of employees around the globe and a position at the top of the field when it comes to infrastructure asset management.

And it's a company known for rewarding its employees.

In their new book, The Millionaires' Factory, Joyce Moullakis and Chris Wright, talked to more than a hundred people to bring together an examination of the company's past and its future.

Christopher Makos first made his name capturing New York's music scene in the 1970s, as glam rock and punk brought a visual kick to the city.

That scene led him to a long friendship and collaboration with Andy Warhol, and to a body of work that's been exhibited everywhere from the Guggenheim to the Whitney.

Makos' work is part the Art Gallery of South Australia's exhibition, Andy Warhol and Photography: A Social Media, and in the Drawing Room he talks about Warhol, candlelit blackouts with Debbie Harry, and how he creates a sense of intimacy in his images.

In the town of Salem, a madness has swept the village and allegations of witchcraft, born of greed and vengeance, see the townsfolk brought before the court and hanged.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a classic of the stage, both a telling of history and a parable for Miller's time, and perhaps our own.

In the recent production of The Crucible by the London's National Theatre, Brendan Cowell takes on the role of John Proctor, and, in the Drawing Room, Cowell shares his own feelings on authority and the madness of the mob.

For more than a decade, the people of Roeburn, a small town in the Pilbara, have been coming together to create songs, stories and theatre.

That work has led to a new album, Songs For Freedom, which is also a call to end the disproportionate levels of incarceration of Indigenous children.

In the Drawing Room, Fred Ryan and Lucky Oceans talk about the lead single, prisons as a part of the community, and how they became part of the project.

Behind the imposing walls of Colditz Castle, during the second world war, hundreds of foreign officers were kept under lock and key.

But despite the impressive facade, it wasn't the most successful prison: dozens of successful escapes were made by the prisoners there, and many more were attempted.

The myth around the camp is of British derring-do, but the people in the camp were far more diverse than the legends suggest.

In his new book, Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle, Ben Macintyre sets out to widen the narrative.

Michael Franti's music operates as a place of hope. His songs choose optimism over pessimism and reminds us that the world can be good, even when he's pointing out the big problems.

His latest album, Follow Your Heart, comes in the wake of the challenges we all faced during Covid, but also the personal loss Michael experienced when his father passed.

So how does a musician find hope in the dark moments and use it to uplift us all?