The Drawing Room

Foy Vance is known for his gravelly voice and eclectic musical style that blends elements of folk, soul, and blues. His emotive music is regularly used to tug at heart your heartstrings in television and films and you’ll get to hear why when he plays his hits Guiding Light and She Burns live in the studio.  Guest: Foy Vance, musician 

If you know even the slightest thing about Iranian cinema, it’s consumed by love and subtlety … love because, well all cinema is about love, but subtlety out of necessity. Iranian state censors won’t permit anything overt so directors like Behrooz Karamizade need to get creative. He talks about how he got around censorship in his new film Empty Nets .Guest:Behrooz Karamizade, Director

It's a story based on Norse mythology involving dragons and maidens, Gods and gold. The struggle of choosing between power and love … two human but ultimately incompatible pursuits.  It could only be Wagner's The Ring Cycle .Often described using words like epic the roughly 15-hour performance spread over four operas may seem daunting to some, but Opera singer Daniel Sumegi who’s playing the prota...

Alfred Hitchcock more than any other auteur in the 20th century understood the combination of sound when paired with emotion and suspense. Added to that was his uncanny understanding of branding and marketing for example he once locked the doors of the cinema during the premiere of Psycho. If you don't love Hitchcock, you're about to, as the new documentary My Name is Alfred Hitchcock explores the...

Right now, a secretive war is being waged, pitting hackers against their hunters, in a game in which no one fully knows the true cost, but it's likely in the tens of billions of dollars. The world's most sought-after ransomware hunter gets more requests than the FBI each day, and it turns out he lives in relative poverty in the town of Normal, Illinois, with 8 cats, two dogs and a bunny rabbit. We...

Rinaldo by Handel tells the story of love, war and redemption, set at the time of the First Crusade. It was the first Italian language opera written for the London stage and enjoyed great popularity until it was forgotten for two hundred years.  It is the latest offering from Pinchgut Opera .  Guests:Alexandra Oomens, SopranoErin Helyard, Artistic Director

Do you sometimes wish you could be more persuasive in the workplace ... or the family home? The art of persuasion is often painted as Machiavellian but author Michael McQueen's new book Mindstuck: Mastering the Art of Changing Minds argues that in our ideology-driven and polarised age, certainty has taken the place of curiosity and open-mindedness has given way to stubbornness.  Guest: Michael McQ...

There's one industry that has been portrayed in film and books more than any other and yet very few people ever have first-hand contact with it. Jana Monroe is a trailblazing female agent and criminal profiler of serial killers in the famous behavioural science unit at the FBI. She is also the one who trained Jodie Foster in her role for The Silence of the Lambs to understand what it's like to dea...

There’s a certain mystery that parents have. Who were they before you? What did they do? How did they think? Journalist Rachelle Unreich thought she knew her mother Mira’s life well - her upbringing in Czechoslovakia, her time in concentration camps during World War 2 and the life she created after migrating to Australia. She ended up finding out much more through interviews with her shortly befor...

What does democracy mean to you?  It's a simple enough question but the answer is often a lot more difficult.  Astra Taylor realised that looking at insecurity within the American democratic system could be a way of uniting people and co-founded  The Debt Collective . Her new book The Age of Insecurity explores that idea in detail. Guest:Astra Taylor, Author and Organiser

You carry around a camera in your pocket every day. Documenting both the important and mundane moments - from weddings to a receipt you might need later. It’s your story but also our story. Now, these collections are digital, but over the last decades, people have donated their photos from shoe boxes, mantel pieces, photo albums and negatives to the New South Wales State Library. The library’s new...

Studies show that we really do like the sound of our own voice, with people rating the sound of their own accents highly on a list of ‘social attractiveness’, but it also helps us project our sense of identity and relate to others. Rob Drummond’s own accent has been described as ‘vanilla’ - an admission he makes in his new book You’re All Talk: Why We Are What We Speak . Guest:Rob Drummond, author...

In 2009 comedian Dara Ó Briain was described as “television broadcaster Sir Terry Wogan's heir apparent as Britain's favourite Irishman…” Conversely, and as a testament to his own modesty, he once described himself as looking like "one of Tony Soprano's henchmen, on a bad day"... I don’t know which one comes with more pressure. He is in Australia on tour at the moment and he’s picking up where he...

David McBride was a lawyer in the Australian army who leaked classified information to the ABC that revealed allegations of war crimes by special forces in Afghanistan. But who was he before that? and what makes a man willing to risk everything, to tell the truth. His autobiography   ‘The Nature of Honour’ is out now. Guest:David McBride, Author

Cottagecore is an aesthetic that celebrates simple living … an escapist movement that developed a following during the pandemic. Anastasia Vanderbyl and her sister Julia have tapped into this movement by documenting their life living on a rural property in Northern NSW with a new book Mother the Mountain . Guest:Anastasia Vanderbyl

Were you watching when Steven Bradbury came from the back of the pack to win gold at the 2002 Winter Olympics?  I remember the story absolutely gripped Australia and we've seen countless retelling of that moment both in musical and documentary forms. Still, I haven't even seen it as a combination of both…  Chris Taylor and Andrew Hansen decided it was long overdue and have written a new musical-co...

What would you be willing to do to raise money for charity? Share a post on Facebook? Door knock? A fun run?  How about a solo bike ride of thousands of kilometres across Australia … twice. Andrew Kerec has done exactly that to raise money for charities supporting people with spinal cord injuries after his father Ludvig became a quadriplegic. Andrew has just completed his second solo trip The Spin...

What does retirement look like to you? Is it putting your feet up, and enjoying the fruits of your labour by travelling or spending time with your grandkids? What about buying and restoring a French Chateau that has fallen into disrepair and will probably cost millions and never be quite finished? Well, former Victorian labour water and tourism minister Tim Holding has done precisely that and writ...

Grammy award-winning band WILCO's music is characterised by lead singer Jeff Tweedy's introspective, poetic and heartfelt vocals. Again a signature on their new record “Cousin” as they prepare to tour Australia early next year. Guest:Jeff Tweedy, Musician WILCO

The colour and movement of Bollywood seem almost the antithesis of Australia's smaller, perhaps more serious film industry. Anupam Sharma's new documentary  Brand Bollywood Downunder explores the links between the two nations' film industries. Guest:Anupam Sharma, Filmmaker 

You might be familiar with Rossini’s charming opera The Barber of Saville or the dramatic overture in William Tell but listen a little closer and you might notice the wit and humour of the characters he paints in his opera and his expert use of crescendo to build tension and excitement... Everywhere you look there’s more to be found in Rossini… Peruvian Tenor Juan Diego Flórez is a fan and will be...