Legendary French singer Edith Piaf was a firecracker of emotion. Gutsy and seductive, while underneath -- an intense fragility. That’s the legend. But what’s it like to play a legend, show after show, year after year? Cabaret singer Nathalie Lermitte has been inhabiting the icon Piaf for well over a decade.

Top Shelf with Josh Piterman. Josh Piterman is an Australian musical theatre star who’s used to donning all kinds of masks, especially as the Phantom of the Opera on London's West End. He’s also a certified meditation teacher and he’s just written a self-help book, about dropping the mask and being authentic. He takes us through the music and thinkers who've changed his life.

Plus — more masks!

Gail Evans and Nicky Fearn are Darwin local theatre legends. Now they’re presenting something completely different from their usual humorous, physical-theatre plays — Fair Punishment, a story based on a chilling, gothic Canadian novel that’s  told through masked performance. We hear a reading performed by Merlynn Tong.

When Cree-Salteaux theatre-maker Margo Kane started trying out for theatre gigs in Canada in the 1970s, there were so few roles for Indigenous actors, she ended up auditioning for the same part more than once. That all changed when she wrote her own one woman show, Moonlodge that became a classic of Canadian theatre. She's in Australia to show her new one-woman show, and reflect on her career.

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown was a big international hit for the Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar in the 1980s. Now it's a crazy, funny, kitschy musical coming to Sydney's Hayes Theatre. We talk about the impact of the film and how director and performer Alex Berlage and Grace Driscoll are bringing it to life in 2025.

New play Thirst, by Barbara Hostalek, is set in a lonely run-down country pub called The Glass Slipper  somewhere in Western Australia. The place is on its last legs. But maybe the new owners can turn it around with a high stakes karaoke night! Actors Leah Pigram, Jarrad Inman and Maitland Schnaars from Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company perform a scene.

For our series Back Stage, we meet international set designer Anna Cordingley, who hand draws her designs among many other talents.

Playwright Andrea James has researched a story from the 1840s, in which colonial newspapers suggested that a 'white woman' – maybe the survivor of a shipwreck – had been taken captive by Gunaikurnai people in what is now eastern Victoria.  Andrea interrogates the legend in a riveting new play called The Black Woman of Gippsland.

In 1895 Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two gruelling years in Reading Gaol, for being homosexual. The experience broke his health and spirit, and towards the end of his ordeal he wrote an impassioned 80-page letter called De Profundis ('from the depths'). Acclaimed actor and singer Paul Capsis is performing the letter on stage.

Athol Fugard wrote influential plays about the injustices of South Africa’s racist Apartheid system on everyday people, for decades. Fugard died last month and fellow playwright and scholar Anthony Akerman tells Michael about his work and impact. 

S. Shakthidharan's last play Counting and Cracking was a massive hit, an epic tale of one Sri Lankan Tamil family and their involvement in world-change events. Now he returns with The Wrong Gods, a story about a mother and daughter in India whose lives are about to be ripped apart by industrial agriculture. Should economic growth come at the cost of a sustainable and ancient way of life? Shakthi is joined by actor Radhika Mudaliyar. 

In the 40 years since their history-making perfect score that earned them a gold medal at the 1984 Winter Olympic Games, figure skaters Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean have toured the globe presenting ice dancing spectaculars. Now, the pair plan to hang up their skates for good, following a farewell tour they are calling Torvill & Dean: Our Last Dance. First broadcast November 2024.

We mark the 100th Birthday of Australia's oldest continuously run theatre — Brisbane's iconic La Boite. A little theatre that's had a huge influence on the theatre and politics of Brisbane and on building a theatre culture which is distinctively Australian. La Boite's Artistic Director Courtney Stewart and former AD David Berthold (current director-in-residence at NIDA) take us through the eras, the challenges and the triumphs.

Back Stage: the lighting designer. In the theatre world, what does a lighting designer do? Richard Vabre creates night, day, inside, outside and inner psychological states, all through the use of light. Just don't give him a white wall! Richard's work can be seen in ENDGAMES, directed by Laurence Strangio.

How would you create a play that a four year old could understand? How about a four month old? Sally Chance and Stephen Noonan do just that, carefully creating works of theatre for the very early years. Stephen's the Boy & the Ball is on as part of the Dream Big children's festival in South Australia. Composer of The Thing That Matters: Heather Frahn.

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival has taken over the city. Comedians from across Australia and around the world are here including the UK's Nicola And Rosie Dempsey, as dead-pan singing sisters Flo and Joan. This year they're also presenting One Man Musical – a musical take-down of Andrew Lloyd Webber!

Producer Rosa Ellen hits the streets and meets three comedians debuting shows at MICF: the word-of-mouth hit Jin Hao Li (Swimming in a Submarine), Tik Tok pop songstress Charlene Kaye and Brisbane's queen of crowd work, Anisa Nandaula (You Can't Say That)

Kayah Guenther is 31 and he has been dancing since he was a kid. Now with his sister Maitreyah Guenther he is performing in a skilful, intimate show called The Glass Child. Kayah has Down Syndrome and the performance is an exploration of their journey together and their growth to adulthood. They're joined by choreographer Kate Harman from The Farm. Music by Anna Whitaker.

John Harding, a founder of Ilbijerri Theatre Company and veteran playwright, recorded 20 hours of Taungurung elder Uncle Larry Walsh recounting his life story. The result is Lazarus, a sold-out theatre show telling a life of tragic beginnings as a stolen child, survival in institutions and fearless activism. We also hear Billy McPherson, playing Larry. Lazarus is on as part of Melbourne /Naarm's Yirramboi festival.

Jason Arrow is known to many as the titular character in Hamilton where he had an extraordinary run both in Australia and internationally. Now he has put his breeches and coat tails away and has donned a 1950s dapper suit for the character of Nicely-Nicely Johnson in Opera Australia’s Guys and Dolls on Sydney Harbour. He sings for us the showstopper Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat!

The Player Kings is a show which takes the audience on an 8-hour journey through plays by Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe that chart the rise and fall of five kings. Liam Gamble is making his professional theatre debut, alongside Emma Palmer who plays the evil Queen Margaret. Liam has cerebral palsy, and talks about playing the villainous Richard III, a character who is disabled and endures cruel treatment.

Comedian and writer Ruby Wax tells Michael about how she recently found herself in a mental health clinic, after searching for transformative experiences (like swimming with whales). So what drives her to go public about her experiences, and stay funny?

Two thousand years ago and the Roman poet Ovid has been banished to live out his days among uncivilised people on the Black Sea ... The plot of An Imaginary Life by Australian writer David Malouf. Humphrey Bower is performing it as a one man play about how to live with others, and with nature. Musician Pavan Khumar Hari performs alongside. It's on as part of Ten Days on the Island festival.

We chat with Australian actor Eliza Scanlen (Sharp Objects, Little Women), who is Cecily in a joyfully Queer production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, which can be seen in cinemas as part of the UK's National Theatre Live, co-starring Ncuti Gatwa (Dr Who) and Hugh Skinner (Fleabag).

This episode of The Stage Show is about love that doesn't end well!

The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is retold in a hit folk musical called Hadestown. It's won Tonys, Grammys and is now in Australia. We speak to the singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell, who wrote Hadestown as a concept album, before touring it around in an old bus and then turning it into a remarkable stage show with the Broadway director Rachael Chavkin.

Soprano Anna Dowsley sings the gorgeous aria Ah Belinda! In  Dido and Aeneas,  the opera by Henry Purcell about another ill-fated couple from classical times. Anna reflects on her character's fate and on working with acrobats in this production between Opera Australia and Circa, the Queensland based circus company.

Anton Chekhov’s play Three Sisters  follows the lives of  a 19th C. family who feel trapped and are hankering for something more. It continues our theme for the day of tragic love-stories. We hear from Theatre Works' new production with director Greg Carroll,  and actors Stella Carroll and Chris Connely. 

And globe trotting theatre critic from UK's The Stage newspaper, Richard Jordan, joins us for his highlights of the Adelaide Fringe .

Actor, director and writer Leah Purcell has been telling us her own stories and the stories of people close to her since the 1990s. Now Leah’s back – as the adaptor and director of the true tale of Aunty Ruth Hegarty, which take us into the heart of Australia’s post-colonial history, a powerful two-person play called Is that you, Ruthie?

The life of a performer on the road can be tough, but think about the partner who’s left back at home. Add a new baby to the mix and it can be challenging indeed. This was the experience of Kyle Falconer, the lead singer of Scottish band The View and his partner Laura Wilde. They tell their story in an indi musical No Love Songs. We're joined by the Australian cast Keegan Joyce and Lucy Maunder.

Damien Warren-Smith is the comedian behind Garry Starr, the (increasingly nude) clown who has toured highly successful shows like Garry Starr Performs Everything, Greece Lightning and now, Classic Penguins, which won rave reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe and is now coming to Australia. Garry may be a buffoon, but Damien takes clowning very seriously.