Talking Heads

6:30pm – Monday, November 29 on ABC1

Monday, 29 November 2010 On Talking Heads tonight, the final episode for the year, Peter Thompson interviews a man who is worried about the possible extinction of the human species.

David Suzuki has been called both an environmental superman and Dr Doom. An elder among eco-warriors, he’s a Canadian geneticist turned activist and leading broadcaster.

Suzuki says we are elevating corporations and financial markets ahead of the things that keep us alive. He makes the point that the atmosphere blanketing the Earth is only of a similar thickness to cling-wrap around a basketball.

“I’m often accused of being a pessimist, but I don’t think I am.” As a broadcaster, Suzuki has helped popularise many environmental ideas. On Talking Heads he shares his thoughts after a lifetime of thinking about life on Earth.

And we find out how a Japanese-Canadian, interned during the Second World War, has become a leader in his own country, and the world.

“Pearl Harbour was the single most important event shaping my life.” For six years, working out how people tick has been fertile ground for Talking Heads. David Suzuki is no exception…

On TALKING HEADS tonight, the final episode, Peter Thompson interviews a man who is worried about the possible extinction of the human species and has spent a life-time of thinking about life on Earth.

David Suzuki has been called both an environmental superman and Dr Doom. An elder among eco-warriors, he’s a Canadian geneticist turned activist and leading broadcaster.

He’s also the only TALKING HEADS guest to claim that looking for insects in a swamp is almost as good as sex.

“I was walking around horny all the time…and there was a world of wondrous things that would almost substitute for a girl.”

As a broadcaster, Suzuki has helped popularise many environmental ideas. Suzuki says that as humans we tend to forget we’re animals that need clean food, water and air. He believes we must completely change the economic model of our society.

“I’m often accused of being a pessimist, but I don’t think I am.”

Suzuki also reveals how he as a Japanese-Canadian, interned during the Second World War, has become a leader in his own country, and the world.

“Pearl Harbor was the single most important event shaping my life.”

Working out how people tick has been fertile ground for TALKING HEADS. David Suzuki is no exception…

And so Peter Thompson signs off, “After six years that’s the final Talking Heads. For me it’s been a pleasure bringing to you the stories of nearly 250 amazing people. Thank you for watching.”

ABC1 Monday, November 29, 2010 @ 6.30pm

6:30pm – Monday, November 22 on ABC1

Monday, 22 November 2010 This week on Talking Heads Peter Thompson is joined by one of musical theatre’s biggest stars, Caroline O’Connor.

Whether it’s playing Judy Garland, Edith Piaf, Velma Kelly in Chicago or Nini-Legs in the Air in Moulin Rouge, O’Connor has been wowing audiences worldwide for years with her stage and screen performances.

But success came neither easily nor quickly for O’Connor, the daughter of Irish immigrants who arrived in Adelaide from Lancashire in the mid-sixties.

As a child she was a champion Irish dancer and, with dreams of becoming a prima ballerina, she went on to study at the prestigious Royal School of Ballet.

At 19, she was back in London with the Australian Opera Ballet, when an up-and-coming musical theatre star, Anthony Warlow, told her she had too much personality for her ballet slippers and suggested she audition for the musical Oklahoma.

And so began 14 long years touring as a bit-part performer and understudy. She was 33 before getting her big break in London.

These days she is considered ‘a singing, dancing, acting, hand grenade’, a formidable performer with a bundle of top awards.

6:30pm – Monday, November 15 on ABC1

This week’s guest on Talking Heads is Kerry Armstrong.

In this enlightening interview Armstrong reveals to Peter Thompson that after a career ranging from The Sullivans, Dynasty, films such as Lantana, two AFI awards and a Logie, she is rethinking the future of her acting career.

“It feels like I’m almost all done!” Armstrong started out as a Channel 9 weather girl while still in Year 11. She cut her acting teeth at the famous Hagen-Berghoff Studio in New York and was heavily influenced by its philosophy.

“There are actors who are really good liars and what they can do is…they can pretend to be someone else and then there are actors who…literally do a biography of the person, which is what I do.” Heather Jelly in Seachange, still one of Armstrong’s best known roles, is a case in point.

Armstrong’s view of the character’s psychology was different than that of the director and scriptwriter. She won. She admits that finding the ‘truth’ in her roles has led to a reputation for being difficult.

Although she’s happy to plug her current project, the third series of Bed of Roses, it’s clear that celebrity in itself holds no appeal.

“Whoever invented the word should be shot. It’s a bit like the casinos, you put the money into those machines and how much across the board do people get back?”

6:30pm – Monday, November 8 on ABC1

Monday, 8 November 2010 This week onTalking Heads Peter Thompson is joined by Lambis Englezos, the amateur historian responsible for solving one of the great mysteries of the First World War.

Englezos found the mass grave at Pheasant Wood near Fromelles in northern France, an unmarked burial ground of 250 Australian and British soldiers. They had been among the thousands of soldiers who died on one single horrific night during the Battle of Fromelles in 1916.

Along with a few supporters, Englezos spent years gathering evidence about the grave site and then had to persuade reluctant military authorities that it was worth investigating.

His research proved to be spot on. And finally this year the ‘missing’ soldiers were reburied in a new military cemetery in France dedicated in their honour, in front of families and dignitaries.

Why did Lambis – who arrived here from Greece as a boy – become so passionately interested in Australian military history. And what next after Fromelles?

6:30pm – Monday, November 1 on ABC1

Monday, 1 November 2010 This week on Talking Heads Peter Thompson’s guest is singer, songwriter Leo Sayer.

A shy, dyslexic child, Sayer had always dreamed of becoming a painter and even went to art school in Britain where he was taught briefly by David Hockney.

But by the time he was 22, he had thrown it all away to pursue a career in music. And things happened fast. Suddenly the boy from Shoreham-by-Sea in County Sussex was an international pop phenomenon.

Sayer’s distinctive and versatile voice was capturing audiences globally. By the time the album Just a Boy went platinum, one in six Australians possessed a copy.

Over four decades he’s sold millions of albums, had 20 worldwide top 10 hits (many of them self-penned), won a Grammy and had his own BBC series.

Having been to Australia around 30 times, in 2005, Sayer moved to Sydney and in 2009 became an Australian citizen.

Sayer’s ridden a roller coaster of highs and lows but says he still loves performing. He loves to be the troubadour and every time he sings a song it’s different.

6:30pm – Monday, October 18 on ABC1

From the horror of Black Saturday something extraordinary has been forged. Firefoxes Australia is an energetic alliance of women rebuilding their community. Put simply, they’re Aussie sheilas who get things done! By focusing on women in particular – nurturing the nurturers – Firefoxes rebuilds families by mending hearts and minds.

Firefoxes founders Jemima Richards and Kate Riddell and their remarkable work are profiled in a special episode of Talking Heads filmed in the community of Kinglake where they live.

Immediately after the bushfires, Richards set up a large disaster relief centre on her property which served hundreds of people daily. A few months later, Richards and Riddell founded the Firefoxes to feed the soul by organising social events that connect women and build supportive communities. Firefoxes also supports the community in many other ways, both great and small, from lobbying insurance companies through to organising light-hearted ‘chocolate therapy’ for mums and their traumatised kids. And they work with big businesses and government agencies to deliver services, arrange counselling and facilitate food and shelter.

“Our members come along because it’s fun, and because it’s a grass roots organisation led by women that have been through the same experience – and so we get it,” says Riddell. “The women are often the ones who are doing a lot of the running around, and they’re holding the family together, but their needs are often put last. Firefoxes gives them a space for them to come and have some fun … and go home feeling recharged.” Richards and Riddell recently received the ‘Pride of Australia’ medal for their extraordinary work which Talking Heads host Peter Thompson sums up as “DIY disaster relief”.

6:30pm – Monday, October 11 on ABC1

Monday, 11 October 2010 This week on Talking Heads Peter Thompson’s guest is a politician who’s actually too embarrassed to take up his entitlement to fly business class.

Nick Xenophon, the Independent Senator from Adelaide, routinely swaps his seat with another passenger and sits at the back of the plane.

He’s a shy man with a powerful urge to help people – victims, the disadvantaged and those without a voice.

In the 1990s, working as a personal injury lawyer, Xenophon became increasingly angry about the spread of poker machines in his home town. A client of his, who had brain damage, had lost thousands of dollars at the hands of seemingly unscrupulous hoteliers who actively encouraged the man’s addiction.

So Xenophon set up the ‘No Pokies Campaign’ and ran for State Parliament hoping to focus attention on the issue. What he didn’t expect was what happened …he got elected.

Three years ago he was lured to the national stage and to have a tilt at the Senate by Kevin Rudd’s stated determination to take action on poker machines.

Suddenly this maverick crusader found himself in the Upper House holding the balance of power.

Now, with independents and pokies firmly back in the spotlight, Talking Heads shines a little of that light on one of Australia’s most unusual pollies.

6:30pm – Monday, October 4 on ABC1

Monday, 4 October 2010 This week on Talking Heads Peter Thompson is joined by Anh Do, a refugee from Vietnam whose extraordinary drive and talent has taken him to the top as a comedian.

Do was just two years old when his family set out on an overcrowded fishing boat heading for what they hoped would be a better life. On the way they were attacked by pirates and suffered from dehydration. One person had died by the time they were rescued by a German merchant ship.

Life in Australia was a succession of new challenges. His parents were working up to 15-hours a day to try to make a go of it, and initially everything was make-do. Things became even tougher when Do was 13 and his father left home.

Do graduated from university with business and law degrees but says when he compared a corporate job of 60 hours a week to the four-hour week of a stand-up comic, it was a no- brainer! And at 30 Ahn Do was voted Australia’s Comedian of the Year.

6:30pm – Monday, September 27 on ABC1

Monday, 27 September 2010 This week on Talking Heads, Peter Thompson’s guest is an Adelaide surgeon whose life story has captured the attention of Hollywood.

Craig Jurisevic was 33 years old when he answered a UN call for volunteer doctors to go to the Balkans to treat victims of the Kosovo conflict.

Once there, he was appalled to find the local mafia and corrupt officials refusing to treat refugees who couldn’t pay, and selling off medical supplies on the black market. Jurisevic attempted to get the UN leader, Kofi Annan, to intervene but when that didn’t happen, in desperation, he blew the whistle in a US military newspaper.

Warned that he was now on a mafia hit-list and with no safe route out of Kosovo, he joined the surgical team of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and effectively crossed the line as a medico. Soon he was not only treating KLA victims of war but was also training them in combat techniques.

Jurisevic talks to Thompson about his struggle to maintain his moral bearings, his perspective on life ten years on, and what he thinks about his story being made into a movie.