A look back at Michael Cathcart's 25 years on air

For 25 years Michael Cathcart has been presenting arts and culture shows on Radio National, bringing listeners stories and conversations with writers, performers, musicians, poets and playwrights, from across Australia and the world. On our second-final ever Stage Show, Michael revisits some of his most memorable interviews. From authors Salman Rushdie and Esther Freud, to playing the organ at the Melbourne Town Hall, Philip Glass, Genevive Lacey, Audra McDonald, a special performance of Macbeth in Noongar language. And an encounter with horse riding mother-and-daughter Gladys and Quitta Docking, on the road for Bush Telegraph.

Cabaret star Meow Meow interprets Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales in inimitable style. Returning with her brilliant show The Red Shoes, about a girl possessed by a pair of vivid red shoes that won't stop dancing. Meow Meow explains why the story resonated with Andersen and discusses some of her favourite female performers from the era of the Weimar republic.The Glass Menagerie is perhaps one of the most visceral and intimate plays from Tennessee Williams and is about to open in Adelaide at State Theatre Company of South Australia. Prepare for the full intense pantheon of emotions; failed aspirations, family dysfunction and unreliable memories all set in a claustrophobic, dingy St Louis apartment during the 1930’s depression. Ksenja Logos and Laurence Boxhall join us.West End star Alfie Boe is the voice that for many years has been synonymous --for international audiences-- with the character Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. An operatic tenor who is a true crossover artist, finding massive popularity for his interpretations of musical theatre standards and pop music. He is touring Australia next year.

On this episode it’s all about Shakespeare. A comedy. A tragedy. And a tale of utter savagery. The many moods of William Shakespeare – starting in a happy place with actors Alison Bell and Faysal Bazzi, and Shakespeare specialist Mark Wilson, who directs them in a tale of love and mischief – Much Ado About Nothing at the Melbourne Theatre Company. Original music excerpted is by composer and sound Designer Joe Paradise Lui.Then the Prague Shakespeare Company teams up with local company Th' Unguarded Duncan to offer a Japanese-horror influenced Titus Andronicus at Melbourne's Theatre Works. Original music excerpted is by Max Hopkins.And we finish with a new production of King Lear with villainous sisters Goneril and Reagan, played by Charlotte Friels and Jana Zvedeniuk — who assure us that they're really not so bad. The True History of the Life and Death of King Lear & His Three Daughters is on at Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney.Want more of the Bard? Don't miss Wherefore, Shakespeare? The Stage Show's special podcast series.

Danielle de Niese started life in suburban Melbourne, appearing on Young Talent Time at the age of nine before pursuing singing in the US. She is now a star soprano, performing many of opera's most famous roles and married into a famous opera-loving family — with  their own opera house! She's back in Australia to perform the character Opera Australia are billing as “the most dangerous women in opera” — Carmen. In the musical play Cowbois, a sleepy wild west town populated by women whose husbands have left for the gold rush, is interrupted by a ​charming bandit who sparks a ‘gender revolution’. Written for actors across the gender spectrum, Cowbois' Australian production has added a whole new set of songs, and we're joined by Clay Crighton, Jules Billington, Zachary Alexander and Nelson Fannon to perform one of them.Athol Fugard wrote influential plays about the injustices of South Africa’s racist Apartheid system on everyday people, for decades. Fugard died this year and fellow playwright and scholar Anthony Akerman tells Michael about his work and impact. First broadcast April 2025.

Why would two actors,  who are married in real life, pretend to eviscerate each other night after night in the emotionally brutal play Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? Kat Stewart and David Whitely first performed this Edward Albee classic on the small, indy stage of Melbourne's Red Stitch Theatre and it was a hit. Now it's being remounted by Sydney Theatre Company.Composer, musician and director Lamine  Sonko is a guewel, a traditional custodian of cultural knowledge in West Africa. Over seven years, Lamine has travelled to remote and sacred places in Senegal to better understand how ancient cosmology and metaphysical knowledge influence guewel traditions. The result is a show called Guewel, at Melbourne's Arts House and made in collaboration with the National Theatre of Senegal.Smallpox was eradicated from the planet in 1980 -- the only human disease which has been totally wiped out! But for centuries before this, an inoculation against smallpox was already in existence in different parts of the world and it was practised mostly by women. Playwright Melanie Tait has used this medical history for the basis of her latest play The Royal Experiment, performed on stage by third year NIDA students.

The new musical Tivoli Lovely is Eddie Perfect’s return to the grand days of what was known across Australia as the Tivoli Theatre circuit. He's written it especially for second and third year music theatre students at WAAPA, his alma mater. He joins Michael along with director Dean Bryant, who's made a string of entertaining shows as a director and writer, including writing the lyrics for  the 2024 hit musical My Brilliant Career.This Halloween, academics and dancers are gathering in Melbourne/Naarm for a national ballet symposium on the theme of haunted. Dance researcher Yvette Grant is an organiser and has delved into the largely forgotten story of the dancer and choreographer Valrene Tweedie, whose unconventional career saw her study with the greats of the USA and Cuba.Dylan Van Den Berg's acclaimed play Whitefella Yella Tree is a tender love story between two young men and set in the early days of an invasion that will transform their worlds forever. It's being re-mounted by Brisbane's La Boite and has elements of a theatre genre that Dylan is also writing a PhD on, Aboriginal gothic.

Bernadette Peters is the Tony award winning actress who has reigned on Broadway for decades. She is famous for originating roles in Stephen Sondheim musicals -- like the witch in Into The Woods and she's coming to Brisbane for the Melt Festival of Queer arts and culture.The Shiralee is the story of the tough, itinerant labourer Macauley and his equally tough young daughter Buster, who loves him fiercely.  Together they endure drought and flood and often sleep on the ground.  Kate Mulvany  has adapted this Australian classic for the stage with Sydney Theatre Company — is it still an inspiring tale of love and survival, or a story which has passed its use-by date? Two Blood is a new dance work about the meeting of a Tagalaka woman from North Queensland and a Cantonese man headed for the goldfields, and inspired by the family history of choreographer Jasmin Sheppard. Australian Dance Theatre's Daniel Riley explains why this overlooked history is told through a combination dance and the spoken word. It's part of Adelaide's OzAsia festival.

Rebecca is a 1938 gothic suspense story by Daphne Du Maurier that's never been out of print. It's also a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock. Now it's a play starring Nikki Shiels as the unnamed Young Woman and Pamela Rabe, in the iconic role of Mrs Danvers. How does this story of dark infatuation translate to the stage, and how does Melbourne Theatre Company treat its complicated romance?Phar Lap is a new electro-swing musical with no puppetry or SFX, just talented people hoofing it on stage. Joel Granger (Phar Lap) who may or may not wear hoof gloves on his hands, sings us a duet with Justin Smith (trainer Harry Telford). Lyricist and composer Steven Kramer explains why the world's greatest racehorse is ideal fodder for a comedy musical.Audiobook narrators reach audiences of millions, bring bestsellers to life and perform multiple character changes, but does AI threaten their craft? Audible has already announced plans for its AI technology to narrate audiobooks. Actors Caroline Lee and Humphrey Bower are two popular narrators, and Justine Sloane-Lees is senior audio book director at Square Sound. Audiobook at the start of the interview is Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty, narrated by Caroline Lee and produced by Bolinda Audio.

In 1986, Filipinos launched a peaceful revolution to overthrow their president, Ferdinand Marcos. In the new play Malacañang Made Us, these events live on in the memories of two brothers who were in the crowd that flooded the palace. Jordan Shea is the playwright behind this show, which won the Qld Premier’s Drama Award – and which is about to open at Queensland Theatre.The Village Square is an enchanting place where eccentric souls meet to tell their stories and make music. Richard Piper is the narrator, alongside musicians Zoe Knighton and Robbie Melville. They join us in the studio to weave tales, ahead of their Melbourne Fringe show.Baalbek is the ancient city in Lebanon where Greek and Roman ruins stand alongside a temple to Baal, the Phoenician goddess of fertility. This is the rich setting for a new play called Ruins, by Emily Ayoub, drawing from her own family’s story of migration. Read about the Palmyra Hotel.

The Stage Show is back from sabbatical! On this episode, star playwright Suzie Miller speaks to Michael about Inter Alia, her gripping new play that takes you into the mind of a feminist judge, who’s also a mother, forced to confront a terrible reality. It’s just wound up a big season at London’s National Theatre, starring Rosamund Pike.Lisa Pellegrino is part of a family that migrated from Italy and Scotland to Australia and recorded everything. From having funerals professionally photographed, to recording each other singing, reminiscing and celebrating. So how has she turned that archive of memories and migration into a story for the stage? Her one-woman show We Keep Everything is on at Darwin's Browns Mart Theatre.Karen and Natasha Vickery are mother-and-daughter performing in a gender-reversed Taming of The Shrew. How does this transform Shakespeare's problematic comedy -- and what does their own dynamic bring to the play? It's a production by the Playwrought Project.