Afshar’s experiences as a young woman in Iran have shaped her artistic career in Australia, focusing her eye on the humanity within inhumane systems

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When Hoda Afshar was a teenager, coming of age in theocratic and authoritarian Iran in the 1990s, she and her friends were repeatedly arrested and physically punished by the “morality police”, for wearing their hijabs incorrectly in public and for attending underground parties. “They used to put a few of us in small solitary confinement cells together for a night or two, it was very common for my generation to experience that,” she says.

“We are part of the nasl-e sukhteh, or ‘burned generation’; the generation born after the 1979 revolution, who had to pay the price for many of the transformations and changes that happened.”

The writer and musician on returning to music, finding herself, and why right now is a terrifying time to be an artist

Holly Throsby does not enjoy having her photo taken. There’s even a song on her new album about it. But you wouldn’t know it to see her gamely bush-bashing off the beaten track to pose in a cluster of supersized lomandra for the perfect portrait. After all, this is her happy place.

Walking along various bush tracks is a daily ritual for Throsby. A sense of nature gently pervades her seventh album, Normal Magic. It is in the imagery of sparkling water and swims; gardens and birds; bushfires and wind and rain on the roof. The album itself feels like the breaking of a drought: her first solo record in nine years. In the intervening time, she moved to the New South Wales south coast, had her second child, wrote her third novel, and recorded and toured a second album with Seeker Lover Keeper, her collaborative project with Sarah Blasko and Sally Seltmann. She has hardly been idle.

The comedian and actor on her love for White Chicks, getting a bad Yelp review as a dog walker and doing stand-up during an earthquake

You went to film school, what movie do you rewatch or return to most?

This would not be an answer that my film school would respect, or expect: White Chicks by the Wayans brothers. It’s about two brothers who are pretending to be rich white girls from the Hamptons. I love when something’s super stupid and silly, and there’s a scene where this group of [white] girls is in the car singing, and the two brothers have to pretend to know Vanessa Carlton’s A Thousand Miles, and I was like, “Oh my god, I’ve been there!”

Starring Philippa Northeast and an extremely buff Christopher Chung, Miles Franklin’s 1901 novel has been adapted into a spirited series ‘unashamedly intended for women’

Within the first 10 minutes of My Brilliant Career, Netflix’s new adaptation of the classic Australian novel by Miles Franklin, there’s smutty performance poetry and a Divinyls needle drop that suggests it’s not going to be your standard turn-of-the-century period drama. By the end of the first episode – in which our teen heroine, Sybylla Melvin, pops a squat for a bush wee and flashes her knickers at a drawing room full of toffs while dancing to a Rod Stewart cover – you sense that anything could happen. And yet somehow, the alfresco fingerbang later in the series still surprises.

“It’s bonkers,” admits the show’s star Philippa Northeast, who plays Sybylla. “You really see this world through a teenage lens – which is true to Sybylla’s spirit and Miles’ age at the time she wrote the book … it reads like a teenager’s diary entry, pretty much.”

The writer and newly installed University of Sydney professor on the lure of Berlin, authors versus AI, and writing ‘from a place of admiration’

Anna Funder is mere days into her new role at the University of Sydney when we meet there on an overcast Friday afternoon; she waves vaguely in the direction of her new office and says she hasn’t yet unpacked. So, with her encouragement, I gamely agree to play tour guide around my alma mater and continue to until, about halfway through the interview, she starts telling me about the architecture – at which point it becomes clear how her easy and self-effacing manner can function as a smokescreen for the sharpness of her mind.

As we set off past the beds of majestic fig trees and the manicured lawns surrounding the university’s sandstone quadrangle, passing backpacked students and fresh graduates posing for photos, I ask the newly installed professor of practice in creative writing what her own experience of studying creative writing was like. She looks stricken: “We’re starting with a confession.

In the lead-up to his Australian tour, the producer and DJ reveals his obsession with Chucky, his favourite time signature and which Kanye West record is the ‘most overrated album of all time’

What album or film or book do you always return to, and why?

I always return to Blade Runner, because it has everything that I love – beautiful music, beautiful visuals, beautiful story. And it helps me sleep. Everything’s got this crazy reverb on it and long, drawn-out sounds – it makes you drift off. It’s like a warm blanket. It also inspires me. It’s everything I need.

For more than two decades, Pardington has been photographing taonga (Māori cultural treasures) and natural history specimens in museums around the world. In the South Canterbury museum, she was struck by a collection of stuffed native birds which had been subject to taxidermy – many of them now extinct or endangered. They inspired a new human-scale portrait series of these manu (birds), revered within Māori culture as intermediaries between human and divine worlds. The resulting works will be exhibited at the 2026 Venice Biennale.

Pardington invites viewers to reconsider how they think of birds, and how we might better protect them

• Fiona Pardington: Taharaki Skyside will be exhibited at the Aotearoa New Zealand pavilion at the Venice Biennale from 9 May – 22 November 2026

The Canadian author on good writing advice from Martin Amis, his love for digging and getting rid of billionaires

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Your novels Life of Pi, Beatrice and Virgil, and The High Mountains of Portugal all feature animals in starring roles. If you could be any animal, which would it be, and why?

A sloth, because it has a peaceful, long life. Or maybe a koala. They both look like stoners. A sloth just hangs there in its tree, it sleeps 22 hours a day – or maybe it’s meditating. Most creatures take the strategies of overt camouflage or speed to stay alive, whereas the sloth’s like, “I’ll be so slow that no one will notice me.” It grows a kind of algae on its fur, which makes it hard to see in the South American jungles. So it’s kind of hiding and being at one with the universe.

Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney
Pamela Rabe is brilliant in this adaptation of the Nobel laureate’s novel, but its deeply felt sense of horror and grief is gone

When Olga Tokarczuk published Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead in 2009 in her native Poland, she was accused of inciting eco-terrorism – remarkable for any novel, let alone the tale of a 60-something English teacher recounting a string of murders in her village. All the victims are hunters, and Mrs Duszejko insists the local animals are enacting summary justice; unsurprisingly, most of the village thinks she’s mad.

But Tokarczuk’s book is radical. It proposes a way of thinking about animals that, when taken to its logical conclusion, explodes the world as we know it. It’s transgressive in more subtle ways, too. Mrs Duszejko is the kind of protagonist we rarely see: a 60-something woman who is smart, rebellious, eccentric, angry – and effective.

The Whole New World composer who soundtracked millennial childhoods and won eight Oscars looks back on a stellar career

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In early 1991, the composer Alan Menken took a keyboard to St Vincent’s hospital in New York to visit his friend and creative partner, the lyricist Howard Ashman. Ashman was in the final stages of Aids-related illness, but was determined to finish his work on Disney’s Aladdin. Together, they knocked out the music and lyrics for Prince Ali – one of the movie’s most joyous numbers – as Ashman lay in bed.

Menken and Ashman had already collaborated on Disney’s hit 1989 animated musical The Little Mermaid; in the winter of 1991, they were putting the finishing touches on Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast simultaneously. Ashman was “fighting for his life” while they were working on all three, Menken recalls from his home studio in upstate New York. At first, he had no idea his friend was sick, let alone battling HIV; Ashman only revealed his diagnosis after they won the Oscar for best original song for Under the Sea in 1990.

In an attempt to find new audiences and save money, opera companies are ‘throwing spaghetti at the wall’ to see what sticks. It often works

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It’s Sunday and I’m in a suburban Ikea on the verge of tears. Perhaps this is not so surprising – who among us hasn’t approached emotional breakdown navigating the labyrinthine homewares store? But these are tears of joy. And no, it’s not because I’ve nabbed one of the cult-status Djungelskog plushies; it’s because of the five people singing at me from two metres away.

I’m in the outdoor plants and furniture section, watching The Marriage of Figaro – or a version of it, in which Figaro and his bride-to-be, Susanna, work in floor sales and their philandering boss is the store manager. It’s probably the last place I’d expect to discover the sublime beauty of Mozart’s opera. Half an hour earlier, my fellow audience members and I – who were emailed the secret location 24 hours earlier – were eating meatballs and mash in the canteen.

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Recognised with an honorary Academy Award in 2016, Wiseman directed and produced almost 50 films with a lifelong commitment to curiosity and naturalism

Frederick Wiseman, the prolific film-maker whose documentaries primarily explored US public institutions and communities, has died aged 96.

His death on Monday was announced in a joint statement from the Wiseman family and his production company, Zipporah Films.

The Dawson’s Creek star, who died on Tuesday aged 48, had been open about struggling to meet the high expenses of his cancer treatment

A GoFundMe set up to support the widow and children of actor James Van Der Beek has passed its initial goal of $500,000 within hours of being created – and has now been updated to a goal of $1m.

Van Der Beek, best known for his role as sensitive teen Dawson Leery on the TV series Dawson’s Creek, died on Tuesday aged 48 after a battle with bowel cancer.

Sacha Baron Cohen pays tribute to teacher who ran school outside Paris and was a formative influence on countless comedians and actors

Master clown Philippe Gaulier, the influential founder of France’s École Philippe Gaulier, has died aged 82. Gaulier taught the art of clowning for decades and his students included Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Thompson, Rachel Weisz and Geoffrey Rush.

Gaulier died on Monday due to complications from a lung infection. He had a stroke in 2023 and, since then, had “received warm words of encouragement from all over the world”, according to a statement made by his family. “He seemed especially happy to receive letters and messages from his former students. Teaching was his passion and purpose in life.”

Australian children’s cartoon series about a family of blue heelers has yet to announce a new season

Australian-made animated series Bluey was the most streamed show in the US for the second year in a row, topping Nielsen’s annual year-end streaming charts for 2025.

US viewers watched 45.2bn minutes of the show on Disney+ according to Nielsen, down from 55.62bn in 2024, but still impressive given the show comprises 154 episodes – most of them less than 10 minutes’ long.

Former Men at Work frontman, who was born in Scotland and emigrated to Australia, tells anti-immigration protestors, ‘Go write your own song, leave mine alone’

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Former Men at Work frontman Colin Hay has disavowed the use of the band’s 80s anthem Down Under by Australian anti-immigration protesters, saying the song “does not belong to those who attempt to sow xenophobia”.

In a post to his Facebook and Instagram accounts, the singer-songwriter singled out anti-immigration group March for Australia, who have organised marches around the country on 26 January under the slogan “Our national identity will not be erased”.

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The stage and screen actor on turning gaffes into gifts, the impact of Eowyn, and the Lord of the Rings stew scene fans won’t stop asking about

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Your latest role is Queen of the Cuttlefish, in The Pout-Pout Fish; if you could be a fish for a day, which one would it be and why?

The blue groper at Clovelly beach – because it’s like an institution, and people go there to see it. I just think it’s cool that there’s a local fish that people actually go and see and talk about – it’s a special fish.

The beloved Australian actor died on 7 December after a battle with chronic illness

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McLeod’s Daughters and Home and Away actor Rachael Carpani has died, aged 45, her family has announced.

A statement from her parents, shared by her sister on Instagram on Monday, said that the actor had “unexpectedly but peacefully passed away after a long battle with chronic illness in the early hours of Sunday 7th December”. Her exact cause of death was not made public.

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The American British author on pet peeves, the perils of fantasy dinner parties, and revisiting The Short History of Everything two decades later

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You did a whole book on Australia, and have travelled here a bit since – what’s the number one tip or recommendation you’d give someone coming for the first time?

Get out and walk! I mean, maybe not through the outback, but if you’re in any of the cities, walk. I do that wherever I go. And I love to just go off and explore without knowing where I’m going, without a map or any preconceived ideas. I think it’s the best way to discover a place, and it has the great virtue that if you turn a corner – say in Sydney – and there’s suddenly the Harbour Bridge, you feel as if you’ve discovered it. There’s a real feeling of exhilaration, I think, in that. But also, you discover little cafes and hidden corners and odds and ends.

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A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0 by Bill Bryson is out now through Penguin. The author is touring Australia and New Zealand in February 2026 with the live show The Best of Bill Bryson

The violin-playing sonic experimentalist on gadgets, guilty pleasures, and her most controversial pop culture opinion

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What’s your number one guilty pleasure?

I love Papa John’s pizza so much. Whenever I’m on my period, I need Papa John’s. After a photoshoot, everyone knows we’re getting Papa John’s. In LA you have access to so much bougie pizza. No, I want Papa John’s pizza.