Sunday, 07 September 2008
05:00pm

This week on Sunday Arts Virginia Trioli speaks with British actor, playwright and director Steven Berkoff; Michael Veitch meets Andrew Davies, the writer who brought Bridget Jones and Pride and Prejudice to the screen; and we look at an Indigenous play a decade in the making.

Steven Berkoff
British actor, playwright and director Steven Berkoff has performed in more than 80 film and television roles including appearances in A Clockwork Orange, Rambo, and Octopussy. Berkoff has also published a number of books about theatre, and more recently a travel book entitled My Life in Food (2007). At 72 years of age, he claims he is semi-retired, but he is currently performing in One Man which consists of two one-act plays. The first play is Tell-Tale Heart, Berkoff's adaptation of an Edgar Allen Poe short story. The second play Dog is a Berkoff original. This week on Sunday Arts Virginia Trioli speaks to him about One Man which will be touring Australia until October 18.

Andrew Davies
Andrew Davies has been writing for over 40 years. He has written plays and books for children and adults, but it is his screen adaptations for which he is best known. Davies has had enormous success with the work of Dickens, Shakespeare, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell and Jane Austen. He has also adapted contemporary works including both Bridget Jones novels for the big screen. He has won an Emmy Award for House of Cards and a BAFTA for Bleak House. Davies is in Australia as a guest of the Melbourne Writers’ Festival which runs from August 22-31.

Ngapartji Ngapartji
Actor Trevor Jamieson and BighART's Artistic Director Scott Rankin have spent almost a decade creating and shaping a theatre performance that deals with the atomic testing at Maralinga and its devastating effects on the Indigenous people of the Spinifex country, Trevor's family. The stage performance also seeks to highlight the importance of Indigenous languages. The audience is encouraged to learn some of the Pitjantjatjara language online in a world first. Ngapartji Ngapartji sold out shows earlier this year at the Sydney Festival and can be seen in Ernabella on September 24 and 25, and in Alice Springs on October 2-4.