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News and Updates on actor and writer William McInnes
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REMEMBER the fuss in 2007 when Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe stripped off to play the psychotic and violent Alan Strang in Equus?
Well, now the controversial and seminal piece of British theatre is coming to Perth. In a coup, Perth Theatre Company has secured the exclusive southern hemisphere rights to the thought-provoking play.
The PTC production cast is headed by charismatic star of TV, film and theatre William McInnes and rising star and WAAPA graduate Khan Chittenden.
Centring on a bizarre act in which 17-year-old stableboy Strang, played by Chittenden, gouges the eyes out of six horses, Equusexplores humanity, truth and the fragility of life.
As child psychologist Dr Martin Dysart, played by McInnes, unlocks Strang’s obsession and sexual fantasies involving horses, he struggles with his own sense of purpose.
“He begins to question what is normality, what is it that I’m actually doing to these people (his patients), what is returning to an everyday functioning life – and is that normal, is that real?” McInnes says.
Revelling in the challenge of playing Dysart, McInnes says he’s looking forward to treading the boards again.
“That’s why you do a play like this. You get up and you want to blow the cobwebs out and have a go at a role that not many people get the chance to do,” he says.
But he’s is quick to dismiss any sort of controversy surrounding nudity in the play.
“If there’s a bit of nakedness in it, it’s not the point. The point of it is it’s all in context,” he says. “I mean you can see a streaker at the footy.”
When Equus debuted in London in 1973 it rocked the conservative majority and caused outrage and awe in equal measure. McInnes believes the play still has the ability to shock and confront audiences.
“I think the message of Equus is something that can still be confronting, that can still be an important piece of theatre,” he says.
“In the end it’s about compromising what you want life to be with the knowledge that life is incredibly brief and fragile.
“It sounds like a pretty heavy night at the theatre, but it’s entertaining and if people want to go and see something that’s going to make them think a bit then Equus is a show they should go and see.”
And how does theatre compare with film and TV for McInnes?
“You’ve got nowhere to hide in theatre. You can’t run away and fudge things,” he says. “It’s the difference between climbing a mountain and taking the chairlift.”
Equus
Sept 12-26.
His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth.
Tickets $55-$80, conc. $45-65, from BOCS.
Author William McInnes will star in Equus. Photo: Lorrie Graham
He's jokey, he's Aussie blokey and about to step back onto the stage to play one of the most challenging parts in modern theatre.
William McInnes, Australian Film Institute award winning actor, loves to share a laugh and tell a tale.
Like the time he needed to ride a horse for a job and flailed about atop the animal brandishing a stockman's whip after the horse's backside was pinched and it raced off. There was no useable footage captured.
Or when he took part in a dodgy Perth play back in the day and a peacock "went off its trolley" after a coffin was dropped on its babies.
Or being scoffed at by a "wanker" bartender at The Queens years ago when he asked for a Stella Artois but failed to pronounce the second word in a suitably stuffy manner.
The actor was trained at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts and has fond memories of the State.
"One of the funniest nights I've had in Perth, was when I lived in Bennett Street and there was a little Macedonian club in North Perth," he said.
"There was a Swiss night and they were all dressed up in lederhosen and yelling Woo Hoo! They did something with milk barrels. It was surreal, I had a great night."
Mc Innes will return to Perth this September to play the lead in one of the most well-known provocative plays of modern times, Equus.
The contemporary classic by Sir Peter Shaffer will be brought to town by the Perth Theatre Company and His Majesty's Theatre - the first time the work has been performed outside Broadway and London's West End for about 30 years.
The story, recently performed to critical acclaim by Richard Griffiths and Daniel Radcliffe on Broadway, is a provocative and challenging piece of drama.
McInnes will play psychiatrist Martin Dyrst, who works with a younger man who has an unhealthy fixation with horses following a horrific attack by the boy on a number of the animals.
"It's always good to test yourself out with a role this size, give yourself a bit of fright and get back in the saddle," McInnes said during a short trip to Perth.
"Not that I want to use the horse metaphor too much."
McInnes will star with young Austalian actor Khan Chittenden, who has most recently been seen in Packed to the Rafters, Dangerous and Clubland.
He said it was exciting to get back on stage after spending more of his time writing books and doing less challenging jobs in film and television.
"This is a play that puts big ideas out there for people to think about," he said.
"It's about what life is and how you live it, how you should live a life. What is important. It's a really fascinating play, some of it's pretty macabre and out there.
Equus will be the first time he has stepped onto the stage since performing in My Fair Lady a few years back. He makes no apologies for the confrontational themes, saying theatre was not all about songs, smiles and fart jokes. Though it was important to not get caught up in believing the work was so important it wasn't necessary to be entertaining.
"It's a big play, and it deals with big themes. It's a really good workout for an actor. A real wrestle," he said.
"It's an entertaining play but it's a drama. And it's not happening anywhere else in Australia."
Equus comes to His Majesty's Theatre on September 12. Tickets are available through BOCS.
Labels: article, Equus, interview, theatre, Western Australia
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The Perth Theatre Company has won exclusive rights to bringEquus - the controversial play in which Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe appeared naked on stage - to Australia.
The company scored exclusive southern hemisphere rights to the play. The September season of Sir Peter Shaffer's work will be the first time Equus has been professionally performed outside of Broadway and London's West End for nearly 30 years.
Actor William McInnes, who won the best actor Australian Film Institute award last year, will star as psychiatrist Martin Dysart in the confronting play about the professional's treatment of a stable boy who commits a horrific act of violence against some horses.
Equus is the story of the 17-year-old boy, to be played by Khan Chittenden from Packed to the Rafters, and the sexual and religious mystery behind his actions. It delves deep into the psyche of the young man.
During its recent Broadway season the show received rave reviews, with Radcliffe starring alongside fellow Harry Potteractor Richard Griffiths. The part of the psychiatrist has also been played over the years by actors including Anthony Hopkins and Richard Burton.
The initiative to bring the play to Perth was a joint one by the PTC and His Majesty's Theatre.
His Majesty's Theatre general manager Rodney Phillips said their collaboration on Shaffer's Amadeus in 2006 had led to the two organisations working together again on Equus.
The Perth Theatre Company's general manager, Tony Bonney, said Equus was one of the greatest plays of the twentieth century.
"Equus will be the most notable event in the Australian theatre calendar this year," he said.
"The fact that we have this opportunity over far larger companies across the country is testament to the company's commitment to text-based theatre."
Labels: article, Equus, Perth, theatre, Western Australia
Walking around through the new Museum of Australian Democracy in Old Parliament House makes me think that democracy can be hard work. It makes me remember standing outside an election booth on a hot day trying to hand out how-to-vote cards, when nobody was interested in taking them and the candidate had a snowflake's chance in hell of winning.
They were standard issue: party name and a bad photo of an uncomfortable candidate, an awkwardly smiling plumber friend of my father's. He wore his suit and good shirt and tie for the photo, and kept his Stubbies and work boots on. The photo had been taken during his lunch break in the billiards room of the RSL.
His motto was emblazoned across his humble face: "Put me to the test and I will do my best." Not much of a battle cry, we thought.
We had looked at his photo, my friend and I, for most of the morning and a good part of the afternoon. After a while we got bored, and started handing out handfuls to unsuspecting voters. We would stuff wads into handbags and shopping baskets. Fold them and roll them and tear them. Poke out the humble plumber's eyes. Flick them at each other like ninja stars we had seen in the lame martial arts movies at the old Bay Cinema in Scarborough.
We would treat the exercise with the lack of interest we thought the whole thing deserved. My father turned up. He'd been doing the rounds of the booths. He must have been watching us for a bit and seen what we had been up to.
"Give me those," he said when he appeared. He spoke without rancour or anger, he just said it. "Go on, bugger off to the beach, I'll hand them out."
I tried to protest. "There's no point, he won't win. Nobody wants them." My father just looked at me. "That's not the point, you droob. People have died so we could vote today you know, and this fella has put his hand up. They deserve better than a pair of gooses like you. Go on bugger off, I'll hand them out."
So we buggered off to the beach and he stood handing out cards for a man few would vote for. We laughed at the beach, for we couldn't really see the point.
Sometimes, it is hard to get anywhere near seeing it.
There are bound to be times in this country when a community is saddled with a dud government. At any level, federal, state or local, when the group of people elected to govern is simply not up to the task.
Sometimes they are hopeless, sometimes they get swallowed by events beyond their control, sometimes they are riddled with corruption, and most of the time it's because they are at the fag end of long incumbency and are tired and spin passes for policy and self-preservation passes for service.
That's when people tend to fall back on old cliches and pretend cynicism.
All politicians are self-serving and self-important. All major political parties are moribund and the system by which we Australians allow ourselves to be governed - or misgoverned - is flawed and favours a few.
It's easy to pretend to be cynical. It's also easy to believe that calamity is around every corner: if our economy is tanking one week, a pandemic is spreading the next.
Yet it is this feigned cynicism - shrugging the shoulders, saying believing in something is too hard and so nothing matters - that is the great pandemic.
The Museum of Australian Democracy shows us democracy isn't just about politics and that politics isn't just about politicians. Amazingly, it shows the visitor that politicians are, above all, people.
It shows people struggling to build a better life. It shows hopes and dreams. It shows centuries of revolutions and compassion and courage. Democracy is the most human of all forms of governance. Sometimes, it's too weak, too open to manipulation, and too likely to lose its way. But the democratic bottom line is simple and the most generous of things, it's hope.
Modern Australia is a young nation. Along the way we have acquired some baggage and some great achievements that we should take pride in, both of which tell us what has made this country, us, and our brand of democracy what we are.
When I walk around the halls of Old Parliament House, I begin to see my father's point. Not that he would always win, not that his party would win, but that he and people like him would have a go.
It was being put to the test and giving your best, even if that meant wearing Stubbies and work boots below your suit, good shirt and tie.
William McInnes is the chairman of the advisory council of the Museum of Australian Democracy, which opened on Saturday.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
Labels: articles, memoir, Museum of Australian Democracy, politics, writing
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Democracy museum breathes new life into the Old House
Rosemary Sorensen | May 08, 2009
Old Parliament House has undergone major refurbishments in preparation for its rebirth as the Museum of Australian Democracy.
Granted $31.5million over four years in the 2006 federal budget, Old Parliament House has now been given a "new lease of life", according to actor William McInnes, who has accepted the position of chairman of the museum's advisory council.
"So often, we disparage the things that have happened here in Canberra, but we should be proud of our democratic history, not in a chest-beating way, but in a way that invites us in and engages us," McInnes said.
"You go past the partisan politics and get a great handle on what happened in our past, as well as challenging people to think about what democracy means in their everyday lives."
McInnes takes over as chairman from former Country Party leader Doug Anthony, who oversaw the building's metamorphosis into the new MoAD. McInnes said he was surprised to be asked to take on the role, but saw it as a "real treat".
"I'm not Mother Teresa, but I am trying to give something back," McInnes said. "I'm aware that I've been in an industry well supported by the public purse, and I'm very happy to be associated with such an inspiring museum. This will be another jewel in the crown of Canberra."
Part of the makeover was made possible by the relocation of the National Portrait Gallery from its temporary home in Old Parliament House to a purpose-built venue nearby.
The original parliamentary library at the rear of the building, which housed the national portrait collection from 1994 until last year, will reopen tomorrow with a permanent exhibition called Australian Democracy -- more than 2000 years in the making. The exhibition will include objects on long-term loan by the Daughters of the American Revolution, including a writing set used by George Washington, the first US president, and a first edition of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, published in 1791 in support of the French Revolution.
McInnes, who played Australia's wartime prime minister John Curtin in a 2007 telemovie, said election nights in his family were second only in importance to Christmas and New Year.
The museum will be officially opened tomorrow by Bob Hawke, who was the last prime minister to preside over parliament in the 82-year-old heritage-listed building.
Labels: articles, Canberra, Museum of Australian Democracy, Old Parliament House Advisory Council
Labels: Auckland, My Fair Lady, New Zealand, photos, stage productions, theatre
For the third time this morning, William McInnes' laugh has metamorphosed into a snort. "I always do that when I giggle too much, it's terrible." He grins.
The salt-of-the-earth Aussie actor is in the thick of Sydneyside rehearsals for the Auckland season of My Fair Lady, which opens at The Civic on Wednesday.
My Fair Lady - the adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's epic play Pygmalion - has been one of the world's favourite musicals for more than 50 years, since its first Broadway season in 1956 broke all box-office records.
Transporting audiences to the heart of Edwardian London, it follows the fortunes of Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle, who takes speech lessons from phonetics professor Henry Higgins so she can pass as a refined lady. Transforming the feisty street urchin to honour a bet, pompous Henry takes credit for Eliza's makeover. But does she need him, or does he need her?
My Fair Lady is a satirical, urbane comedy with plenty of verbal jousting and some thought-provoking themes: about belief in yourself, how (not) to judge people, and friction between the sexes. The wealth of witticisms lend it the air of a theatrepiece and the show-stopping songs (Wouldn't It Be Loverly, With a Little Bit of Luck, The Rain in Spain, I Could Have Danced All Night, On the Street Where You Live, Get Me To The Church on Time and I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face) blend in seamlessly, enriching rather than jarring the story.
Although this incarnation ofMy Fair Lady brings lavish sets and a fashion parade of costumes from last year's sell-out Australian tour, there's been no resting on laurels here. Opera Australia star soprano Taryn Fiebig stays on as Eliza, but there's new blood in the form of New Zealand's grande dame of acting, Ilona Rodgers (as Henry's acerbic mother Mrs Higgins), globe-touring actor/singer/cabaret artist Hayden Tee (as impoverished aristocrat Freddy), and McInnes as the irascible professor Henry Higgins. It's the accomplished actor's first musical after many roles in theatre, film and TV (Blue Heelers, Seachange).
A new protagonist keeps the production interesting for Stuart Maunder, a veteran director of opera, musicals and concerts. Henry's are hard boots to fill, Maunder says, given the self-absorbed misogynist has been played by some of the world's acting greats; most recently in Sydney by Richard E. Grant. "William brings a very different feel. I think he's a bit more of a mimic than the other boys were. There's a wickedness about him, a delight in playing with Eliza. Which, in turn, makes her more feisty."
Maunder is speaking from the bowels of historic Australia Hall, with its faded grandeur of embellished ceilings and friezes. Giant black drapes block all natural light, props are minimal, and lines drawn on the floor mark the boundaries of The Civic's space, so the actors will know if they "fall" off the stage into the orchestra pit.
When I'm there, "onstage" rehearsals are restricted to just the two protagonists and assistant director/choreographer Elizabeth Hill, who is reading lines for the other parts and prompting or correcting McInnes. Once McInnes is sure enough of his footing and his lines, other cast members will be added, building up to full-cast rehearsals. "I'm the slow new boy," McInnes says after fluffing a line. It's a little startling to hear the highfalutin Btritish toff accent suddenly revert to an Australian drawl.
Yet the quintessential laidback Aussie bloke looks anything but stressed. When he slips up, he more often than not cracks a joke or tells a "there-was-this-one-time" story. The laughter breaks the creative tension.
But the jokes don't mean he's slacking. "You can take your work seriously but you can't take yourself seriously, otherwise you disappear up your own arse," he says.
Whenever there's a short pause, McInnes bends over his script: making notes in the margins; reading his lines; practising different facial expressions, stances, tones of voice, movements and speeds. He's in his own little bubble until it's time to go again. Yes, the same scene. "That's it," comes a voice booming from the director's chair.
As Maunder looks on, his internal monologue sometimes spills over into speech, with asides such as "Oh, the grandeur of human language" tossed over his shoulder.
Although McInnes has done plenty of theatre, he says his first musical is a real challenge, especially since it is "a classic piece of musical theatre. It certainly clears out some cobwebs, that's for sure. "But I reckon you've just got to jump in and have a crack. It's good to give yourself a bit of a fright."
Although the waltz moves are fresh fodder ("I dance like an oil rig in heavy seas"), it's the singing, particularly the solos, which are the most daunting. "But you can't think too much about it or you trip over yourself."
Practising his solo I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face, McInnes shows off a strong voice, even if he seems slightly uncomfortable on the high notes. Still, when Fiebig breaks into song, it's obvious who is the singer who acts and who is the actor who sings. Had he sung before?
"Oh yeah, I've sung in the shower and in bars. I sang at my mother's birthday the other day with my sister and I sounded like a dying mule," he says. Maunder differs, saying McInnes' hitherto underused singing voice is very strong in its quality, range and pitch. "He can scream certain notes so they're very poignant. I wouldn't mind betting it won't be too long before this one ends up doing a real (more musical) musical."
So how did McInnes end up so far from his usual stamping ground?
It's all down to Maunder reading a magazine article mentioning that McInnes had always wanted to do a musical but couldn't sing.
"I'd liked him as an actor, but the feel of him has always been so Australian," says Maunder, who decided to ring McInnes anyway to see if he was at all interested in playing Henry for the Auckland season.
"He just said 'Yeah, all right mate', and I thought:' Oh my God, we're talking about the part of the quintessential English gent here."
But his nerves were soothed after a one-on-one fortnight in McInnes' hometown of Melbourne. "He is a chameleon and a master of acting," Maunder says.
Despite the patent pressure on him, McInnes who jokes he wants to "Australianise" the musical into My Fair Matey, isn't worried. "Yeah, she'll be right".
* My Fair Lady opens at Auckland's Civic Theatre, The Edge, on Wednesday for a limited season only.
Labels: My Fair Lady, New Zealand, stage productions, theatre
Professor Henry Higgins is on the line from Melbourne. In his lifelong dedication to the study of correct phonetics, he has never been more offended than by the strident screech of Cockney flowergirl Eliza Doolittle. In the words of the song Why Can't the English Learn to Speak? he thinks Eliza is "a prisoner of the gutter ... she should be taken out and hung, for the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue".
Then the good prof starts gargling to the tune of I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face ...
It's a little known fact that Australian actor William McInnes, who heads the cast of the musical My Fair Lady at the Civic from March 25, is a seasoned gargler. He may have won multiple Logie Awards for most outstanding actor in TV series such as SeaChange andBlue Heelers and best actor at the Australian Film Institute Awards for moviesLook Both Ways and Unfinished Sky, but he also has what he thought (until now) was a secret skill. At university, many years ago, he was in a group called the Musical Garglers.
"Oh man, where did you get that from?" he groans. "Unfortunately, that's true. You can see how I spent my university years - we spent too much time in the students' bar. We played anything you could gargle to. We actually got asked to perform at a wedding. We gargled with beer and stuff like that. I am a class act. I am going to be Henry Higgins in stubbies and thongs. Don't put that in!"
This is not McInnes' first musical. In Year 10 of school, he claims, he was in the chorus of The Pirates of Penzance, but got kicked out with "all the rugby boys because we were too rowdy". Surely he's had more adult musical experience since then? "Yeah, I think so," he drawls, "but I can't remember what it was called. But My Fair Ladyis a terrific piece," attending briefly to his publicity duties. "Anyone who knows it thinks fondly of it. There's every tune you can hum or gargle to. What do you want to hear?"
Thus I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face comes gurgling down the phone, McInnes style. The point of Henry Higgins, though, is that he speaks in a frightfully posh upper-class English accent. McInnes, who was born and bred in the coastal town of Redcliffe, east of Brisbane, does not.
"I'm doing it as a Queenslander and I'm gonna wear my old mouth guard, come on stage in an old rugby uniform and electrical tape around my ears and be the broken-down old fullback. They're gonna kill me if you put this in. Don't put it in!"
McInnes, 44, first saw the film of My Fair Lady when he was 10 at the local drive-in with his mother. It was a double bill, with The Sound of Music, "and so long we had to pitch up a tent and camp overnight", he quips. "My Fair Ladywas a cracking piece back then and Audrey Hepburn was a cracker."
The Redcliffe drive-in was important to young William. He has written about it in his best-selling childhood memoir A Man's Got to Have a Hobby. "I went there with a friend who had a golden Torana to see Alien," he recalls. "Everyone was engrossed in Alien but he just wanted to listen on the radio to the last couple of overs of this one-day international of Australia playing the West Indies so we watched the last minutes of Alien with the Australian cricket
commentators going crazy. At the end, he turned round and said, 'That was a bloody good movie. Whoi can't they make more loike it?' It was ridiculous."
McInnes laughs and adds: "I've got an American friend who says, 'You Queenslanders, you speak like a ventriloquist, you don't move your lips when you speak'."
So he does take an interest in phonetics, like Higgins? "That's one of the great things about Australians, you know? 'Why can't the New Zealanders speak clearly?' And you go, 'Yeah, well, have you just looked in the mirror?' It's a very funny thing, the Australian accent. You get two speeds - you either speak v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y or," sounding like a cartoon chipmunk, "like you're a helium race caller."
I think it's safe to say McInnes is not going to model himself on the Henry Higgins archetype established by Rex Harrison. "I guess everyone relates him to Henry but it doesn't mean you turn into a Rex Harrison tribute artist," he says. "It's not like an Elvis tribute artist. Now there's a thought! Elvis as Henry Higgins. 'Thank you very much' and have him come out in a jump suit."
Let's get a bit more serious here. Has he learned the lyrics yet to MFL's classic songs like You Did It, I'm an Ordinary Man, The Rain in Spain? "Glarg glarg glarg," is the response.
He adds, slightly more soberly, "I am going around the house singing and my kids are over it. I dropped my son off at the station - not too many 15-year-olds have to deal with walking over to a crowded rail station in their school blazer while their father is yelling out to them Why Can't the English Learn to Speak?"
McInnes says he thinks Higgins is "a weird character. It's almost like he's one of those people who become so attuned to some particular part of human existence that the rest of it falls away. I know he's such a misogynist, misanthropic sort of character but the warmth of the musical is how that gets stripped away and he realises he's quite a lonely man, which is moving."
McInnes has to finish now and go to rehearsals. "Look, if I could just seriously leave you with one thought though on our two nations' relationship, best described in these words." He gargles away. "You see - I'm a serious artist. Luckily there are professionals in the rest of the cast."
He signs off with a word I haven't heard since the last time I was in Oz. "Hooray!" Indeed. Hooray for Henry "Gargler" Higgins.
LOWDOWN
What: My Fair Lady
History: Based on the 1913 play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner; music by Frederick Loewe. The plot involves Cockney flowergirl Eliza Doolittle who takes speech lessons from Professor Henry Higgins so she can pass herself off in London high society as a "lady". The pair reluctantly fall in love. First staged on Broadway in 1956, starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, followed by a hit London season, and a film in 1964 starring Harrison and Audrey Hepburn, whose singing voice was dubbed by Marni Nixon. A remake starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Keira Knightley is scheduled to be made this year.
The new show: The stage version opens at the Civic on March 25 and runs until April 12. It stars William McInnes as Henry Higgins, Taryn Fiebig as Eliza, Ilona Rodgers as Henry's mother, and Rhys McConnochie as Colonel Pickering accompanied by a large ensemble cast and 33 members of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra.
Bookings: Through the-edge.co.nz; tickets from $74.90
Labels: Henry Higgins, My Fair Lady, New Zealand, theatre
As both a broadband project and TV series, ABC is inviting individuals and families to log stories of life in Australia since 1945.
“The Making of Modern Australia allows everyone to be a part of history,” says series producer Ian Collie.
“They might be sad or funny stories, memories of big events, or just the quiet details of everyday life. We’re making a history of Australia told by the people who lived it,” Mr Collie said.
“The Making of Modern Australia provides a wonderful opportunity for families to get together and talk about their past and their family history. We’re hoping younger family members will record parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents, and then upload their films or audio files, as well as photos or written material,” he said.
People can upload their stories through photos, home movies, live webcams, sound recordings and text atwww.makingaustralia.com.au. William McInnes gives virtual guidance on the site.
Personal stories are being sought primarily in four broad categories:
* faith and religion
* parenting and childhood
* romance and relationships
* the Australian home/a sense of place
Stories will be showcased on the website as a lasting record for others to read and comment on. All material posted to the website will be considered for inclusion in the four-part landmark documentary series on ABC TV.
Your Story is History
AUSTRALIAN history has never been so popular. On Sunday night the ABC will screen part one of Rogue Nation, the colourful story of our early Colonial past.
But now the national broadcaster wants to tell a more recent story, the story of your lives.
A unique online and television project will see people posting their personal history through photos, home movies, live webcams, sound recordings and text to a dedicated website http://www.makingaustralia.com.au for possible inclusion in a television series.
Popular Australian actor William McInnes has written two memoirs about his life experiences and he has been recruited to walk the public through the process of story telling.
The ABC says The Making of Modern Australia (MOMA) will be an unofficial people’s history, with individuals and families sharing their stories of life in Australia since 1945.
“The Making of Modern Australia allows everyone to be a part of history,” says series producer Ian Collie.
“They might be sad or funny stories, memories of big events, or just the quiet details of everyday life. We’re making a history of Australia told by the people who lived it,” Collie says.
“The Making of Modern Australia provides a wonderful opportunity for families to get together and talk about their past and their family history. We’re hoping younger family members will record parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents, and then upload their films or audio files, as well as photos or written material,” he said.
People are being asked to frame their memories around four broad categories:
faith and religion
parenting and childhood
romance and relationships
the Australian home/a sense of place
WHAT was intended as an alabaster halfway house for parliament is set to become a permanent shrine to Australian democracy when Old Parliament House is reborn as a museum.
The Museum of Australian Democracy will open at the heritage-listed building in May.
Yesterday the actor William McInnes was appointed the board's chairman.
"It's going to give Old Parliament House a reboot," the star ofLook Both Ways and SeaChange said. "I'm enthusiastic about a place that takes a historical building and broadens its appeal."
Old Parliament House opened as a provisional home to parliament in 1927. Its myriad passageways and rooms housed 3000 cramped workers by the time the new Parliament House replaced it in 1988.
The museum is designed to make politics accessible to and to encourage people to take an active role in its running.
McInnes, who recently played the former prime minister John Curtin in an ABC telemovie, joked about reprising the role for matinee sessions in the reinvigorated house.
The building had changed from his first memory of it, he said. As a Queensland schoolboy he travelled 48 hours by bus to see the place, only to have his recollections obliterated by the sight of his school crush vomiting beef sandwiches on the lawn where Gough Whitlam spoke before his dismissal.
Yesterday McInnes reflected on the building's elegance and accessibility.
"It isn't as grand as what I thought it. In many ways that reflects the Australian idea of politics - the idea of getting above yourself, or building a magic castle for yourself in the clouds, isn't here."
A senior historian at the museum, Joy McCann, said visitors would encounter the same ambience that filled the building when it was alive with debate on conscription, land rights and anti-discrimination.
"They'll see the facade as it always has been. The chambers were where it all happened. It's where the first two women walked into parliament in 1942," she said.
More than that, the museum will chronicle the history of democracy across the world. It will acknowledge challenges to the system and exhibit a first edition of Mary Wollstonecraft's 1792 tome A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman, highlighting the difference between the ideals and the reality.
A hunk of the Berlin Wall will be on display as well as a yellow collection bucket used for the Farmers Fighting Fund, when 45,000 farmers protested on the lawns of parliament in 1985 while the Hawke government deliberated tax reform within.
Labels: Canberra, career, Museum, Old Parliament House Advisory Council