Polite Society’s Social Diary - June

This might be the season for cuddling on the sofa under a luxurious woollen blanket, but resist the urge – particularly if you live in Melbourne. Rising Festival is back for its fourth year and the programme is a feast of cultural delights and oddities. Big-ticket shows include Divinyls’ tribute Amplified and Swingers, a mini-golf installation at Flinders St Station, with contributions from acclaimed US author Miranda July and indigenous artist and Archibald finalist Kaylene Whiskey, among others. This being Rising, though, we’re also looking forward to Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare, in which six performers retell one of the Bard’s classic plays around a kitchen table using everyday objects. Juliet could be a jar of mayo; Hamlet a pepper pot (suitably fiery). June 4-15, various venues

Pity the curators given the task of coming up with Melbourne’s Winter Masterpieces series each year. Each one is better than the last – such pressure! At least they can rest easy this year, with what promises to be one of the NGV’s most spectacular winter exhibitions yet. French Impressionism From The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, originally scheduled during the pandemic, features more than 100 paintings by Money, Pissarro, Renoir Degas; all of the big names of this once avant-garde and still incredibly beautiful movement. NGV International, until October 5.

A must-see on our list this month is Cerith Wyn Evans .... in light of the visible, a vast yet delicate new exhibition at Sydney’s MCA this month. A Welsh conceptual artist and sculptor, Wyn Evans creates huge neon light sculptures, some two storeys high, which often seem suspended in space. Composition for 37 Flutes (2018) is a sculpture in which 37 glass pipes 'inhale' and breathe sound into the gallery, eerie on a gloomy winter’s afternoon. MCA, until October 19

For something lighter, scarier, more romantic or comedic, there’s the Sydney Film Festival, serving up more than 200 films from all over the world. Highlights in this year’s programme include Journey Home: David Gulpilil, a moving documentary, narrated by Hugh Jackman, about the promise made by the trailblazing Yolnu actor’s family to lay him to rest at a sacred waterhole known as Marawuyu. Also worth a watch is It Was Just An Accident, a French-Iranian revenge thriller – which won the Palme D’Or at Cannes – about a former political prisoner who kidnaps the man he believes to have been his torturer in prison. But has he got the right guy? Various venues, until June 15

Because we’re all about Impressionism this month, Ravel & Debussy at the Sydney Opera House is definitely worth booking. Yes, these composers are the Gilbert and George of classical music (generally inoffensive and you rarely see one without the other), but their music is undoubtedly gorgeous. This programme also includes Spanish composer (and fellow Impressionist) Joaquín Turina, with all pieces featuring the harp. Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House, June 20 & 21

When Helen’s old friend Nicola comes to stay for an alternative cancer treatment, she makes a promise to herself to be the best, most supportive friend possible – no matter what. That’s the premise of Helen Garner’s acclaimed novel, The Spare Room, which has now been adapted for the stage by director Eamon Flack, who says he was captivated by the honesty, frustration and rage that Garner’s story provokes. Judy Davis plays Helen and Elizabeth Alexander stars as Nicola – two of our most acclaimed actors in what promises to be a moving piece of theatre. Belvoir St, Upstairs Theatre, until July 13

Few of us want to revisit heartbreak, but if you’re willing to take a trip down memory lane (hopefully not a recent destination), we recommend Heartbreak Hotel. Billed as a ‘cathartic comedy’, it stars New Zealanbd actor Karin McCracken as our guide: dressed in lavender tassels, she discusses famous novels and scientific research into heartbreak, all while learning the synth and confronting her exes. Part play, part discourse, this production was a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe, where it received four stars and a “funny and wistful” description…  June 10-22, The Show Room, Arts Centre Melbourne