The Adelaide Show

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A weekly podcast recorded in Adelaide that puts South Australian passion on centre stage with a featured guest who joins us each week as a co-presenter to share how they're pursuing their passions. We venture across topics as diverse as history, wine, food, art, music, relationships, critical thinking, health, news, interviews, chat and quizzes. Every single interview, every single show, unlocks insights into what drives people to be doing what they're doing and what keeps them striving. The Adelaide Show is produced by Steve Davis and Nigel Dobson-Keeffe. Please subscribe to our In Crowd list; you get an email each Friday (when we have published a new episode) with an overview of that week's show. Plus, consider joining our Inner Circle; a small group of passionate South Aussies who allow us to pick their brains and gain interviewee suggestions. This podcast began life as Another Boring Thursday Night In Adelaide from episodes 1-79.

  1. 432 - All Singing All Reading South Australian History Festival

    1 DAY AGO

    432 - All Singing All Reading South Australian History Festival

    South Australia’s History Festival gets a fitting soundtrack in episode 432, and it arrives in three distinct voices: a geneticist-historian overturning stones in founding-era South Australia, Mr South Australia himself bringing context and colour to every corner of the conversation, and an original paddle steamer shanty that had Keith Conlon attempting to haul imaginary ropes. Dr Samantha Battams is back for her fourth visit to the Adelaide Show, this time with a book that drops her own family tree right into the founding moments of this state. There is no SA Drink of the Week in this episode. The interview was recorded at the State Library with a room booking that had a firm end time, so Steve, Keith, and Samantha made the most of every minute with stories instead. The Musical Pilgrimage this episode is Steve Davis and the Virtualosos performing Away Away: The Canally Crew Song, an original river shanty written in tribute to the paddle steamer PS Canally, which is being restored at Morgan and set to relaunch in late May 2026, and the song features in Keith and Steve’s show, History Hit Parade show at the Mercury Cinema. You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We’re here to serve! The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for Best Interview Podcast in Australia at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards. And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It’s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we’ll add you to the list: podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store – The Adelaide Show Shop. We’d greatly appreciate it. And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here’s our index of all episode in one concisepage. Running Sheet: All Singing All Reading South Australian History Festival 00:00:00 Intro Introduction 00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week. 00:02:09 Dr Samantha Battams on Paving the Way May is South Australian History Festival month, and if you want to know why that matters, consider this: the western suburb we now call Grange was once known as Reedbeds, where Captain Charles Sturt made his first home while the colony was being developed. One of our guest’s ancestors was the gardener there. Dr Samantha Battams has written a book that puts her own family tree right in the founding moments of this state, and she’s launching it at the History Festival on 15th May. Samantha, has previously been on The Adelaide Show in 249 – Captain Harry Butler and his Red Devil, 279 – The Secret Art Of Poisoning, and 344 – True Crime SA style. The western suburb we now know as Grange was once called Reedbeds. Captain Charles Sturt made his home there in the colony’s earliest days, and one of Dr Samantha Battams’ ancestors was his gardener. That’s the kind of connection Paving the Way is full of. Battams’ three-times great-grandfather, Johann Gramp, arrived at Kangaroo Island in 1837 as an eighteen-year-old orphan aboard a vessel that wrecked shortly after. He had lost both parents by age seven, worked for a baker in Bavaria, and made his way to Hamburg where the South Australia Company was recruiting German labourers. He would go on to establish what Keith Conlon describes as the first commercial vineyard near Jacobs Creek. Keith also notes that he gets there by a roundabout route, and Samantha fills in the Bavarian versus Prussian distinctions that get flattened when viewed from Australian distance. The animosity ran deep enough that during the First World War, Bavarians were reportedly directing Allied forces toward Prussian positions. The Prussian Lutheran refugees who arrived sponsored by George Fife Angus get their own thread. Their pastor Kavel had travelled to London and secured passage for a group who had been holding secret chapel meetings in barns rather than accept the king’s new prayer book. One Schulz ancestor was accused by the pastor of leaving for earthly reasons rather than faith. Steve’s response: “I think had it been the time of the prosperity gospel, he would’ve been welcomed with open arms. “From Germany to Ireland, and the Fahy family from County Clare. Edmund Fahy arrived with two younger sisters, one of them just ten years old, and the family was almost immediately separated. Edmund headed to the Kapunda mines while the girls went south with an aunt. Samantha spent years untangling the network of Irish immigrants who came out together, sponsored one another, and intermarried across the colony. One thread leads to Dave Graney. “I’ve always loved Dave Graney,” Battams says. “I didn’t know I was related to him.” The Rumbleow family at Encounter Bay ran the first tourist operations in the area. Caroline Rumbleow, who married a man named John Cakebread (“What a name,” says Steve), was said to be the inspiration for a character in the novel Paving the Way by Simpson Newland, which also gives Battams’ book its title. Family accounts suggest Newland followed Caroline to the Ballarat goldfields and asked her to leave her husband. It did not eventuate. Samantha undertook a cultural consultation before writing sections involving Aboriginal people. Old newspaper language was either replaced with more appropriate terminology in square brackets or, in one case involving a funeral pyre, stripped of its sensationalist framing while the story itself was kept. She also describes firsthand colonial accounts of a corroboree of 500 people on the banks of the Torrens near what is now the Paradise Bridge. The interview closes on a revelation hidden since 1890. Battams had her DNA tested to find her adopted father’s biological family, and dismissed a recurring surname, Hazelhurst, as irrelevant to her mother’s side. A later ancestry update showed 25 per cent of her DNA tracing to northwest England and Wales. Following the Hazelhurst name led to Christchurch, New Zealand, and to the conclusion that her great-grandmother Edith Thompson was already pregnant when she married, with a father other than the man recorded. The cover of Paving the Way is a photograph of Edith and Battams’ grandfather. “The true story had been kept from 1890 to 2025,” Battams says. Paving the Way is being launched at the 2026 History Festival on 15 May. Dr Lanie Anderson, a previous Adelaide Show guest (107 – Lainie Anderson: View from the hills), will launch the book. 00:27:59 Musical Pilgrimage In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature Steve Davis & The Virtualosos‘ “river shanty” song, Away Away (The Canally Crew Song). Steve Davis wrote this original river shanty after time spent aboard the PS Marion, sister vessel to the PS Canally, a paddle steamer launched in 1907 that is now being restored at Morgan ahead of a relaunch in late May 2026. Keith Conlon puts the song in context: Morgan once had queues of paddle steamers and six freight trains a day departing with river cargo. He also produces a story about a paddle steamer loaded with materials to build a pub at Bourke that ran aground in a drought and only floated free two years later, by which point the pub had been built by other means. Away Away is one of ten original songs Steve has written about South Australia for History Hit Parade, the show he and Keith Conlon are performing at Mercury Cinema during the 2026 South Australian History Festival. Keith is confident audiences will want to sing along. A stage jig from Keith is, in his own assessment, highly in doubt. Booking details are in this link: History Hit Parade tickets and information. It’s on Monday, May 11, 11am, and Sunday, May 17, at 4pm and it will simply be an enjoyable show of historical anecdotes, fun, and music. Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    38 min
  2. 431 - Gather Round To Learn About Major Events

    11 APR

    431 - Gather Round To Learn About Major Events

    When 80,000 people descend on an event, somebody has made it look effortless. Wayne Taylor has spent three decades being that somebody, from the Sydney 2000 Olympics to Wimbledon, Formula One on three continents, and right here in Adelaide at the Clipsal 500. His company, First Facilities Group, now brings that same discipline to commercial and residential properties (and events) across Adelaide. There is no SA Drink of the Week this episode, but Wayne does weigh in on the relative merits of beer events versus wine events versus spirit events, and the answer is exactly what you would expect from a man who has cleaned up after all three. The Musical Pilgrimage features Steve Davis and the Virtualosos performing “Cellar Door Shuffle,” a celebration of the great South Australian wine country ritual, which also gets a preview mention for the upcoming History Hit Parade show at the Mercury Cinema. You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We’re here to serve! The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for Best Interview Podcast in Australia at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards. And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It’s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we’ll add you to the list: podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store – The Adelaide Show Shop. We’d greatly appreciate it. And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here’s our index of all episode in one concisepage. Running Sheet: Gather Round To Learn About Major Events 00:00:00 Intro Introduction 00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week. 00:02:17 Wayne Taylor, First Facilities Group Right now, as Gather Round unfolds across South Australia, tens of thousands of people are doing what they always do at a footy match: finding a seat, grabbing a pie, visiting the loo, and not once thinking about any of it. That invisibility is because someone’s doing their job brilliantly. Wayne Taylor has spent the better part of three decades making sure that when 80,000 people descend on an event, the wheels don’t fall off. He’s done it at the Sydney Olympics. At Wimbledon. At Formula One races on three continents. At Clipsal 500 when 200 staff, 15 supervisors and a $300,000 budget had to deliver a spotless result across four days. And he’s done it right here in Adelaide, quietly, at events you almost certainly attended. He now runs First Facilities Group, bringing that same discipline to commercial and residential properties across Adelaide. Wayne Taylor has a habit most of us would find exhausting. Every time he walks into a building, he is quietly checking the mirrors, the bins, the general state of things. It is not fussiness. It is decades of conditioning that started when his parents cleaned Memorial Drive as a boy from Broken Hill, and he mostly just got in the way by raiding the office stationery drawers. That origin story matters because the values Wayne brings to First Facilities Group now, respect, honesty, and an obsessive eye for what others walk past, were baked in early. As he puts it, “If you can’t get your housekeeping correct, how can you then operate your business?” It is a lens that applies equally to a gleaming corporate lobby and to the pit lane at Albert Park. The stories from his career read like an event passport. At the Sydney Olympics he managed 1,100 staff, set an 80% minimum recycling target, and navigated vehicle bomb checks just to get to work each morning. At Wimbledon, he learned that a single cigarette butt on the ground was enough to earn a conversation with the CEO, and that some corporate boxes were quietly serving spirits in coffee cups because you cannot legally drink alcohol watching football in England. At Formula One, a certain unnamed driver, “Mansell,” parked his car next to the waste compactor despite clear signage, and paid for it when a bin tipped onto the vehicle. Wayne watched from the level above and, eventually, laughed. The Clipsal 500 holds a particular place in his story. He worked it for twelve years and is clear-eyed about what it meant to Adelaide after the Grand Prix left in 1995: “The place went dead.” The Clipsal helped rebuild that. His team delivered the best margin in the company that year not through corner-cutting but through relentless post-event debriefs, 4am starts, and crews walking the entire circuit in a line with headlamps, because the lighting was never quite good enough. One of the sharper insights in this conversation is about the people who do this work. Wayne keeps what he calls a little Bible, a list of standout workers from each event. The good ones get taken to lunch, thanked properly, and connected to the next opportunity, whether that is the Grand Prix in Melbourne or something interstate. It is empathetic at a human level, and it also happens to be smart: one well-led supervisor with 20 people will outperform a rabble of 50. His principles for First Facilities Group are unchanged: respect, honesty, punctuality, and a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. He once disciplined his own teenage son for repeated lateness in front of the whole crew, because anything less would have been unfair to everyone else. That is the standard he holds himself to and expects from others. 01:08:34 Musical Pilgrimage In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature Steve Davis & The Virtualosos‘ new song, Cellar Door Shuffle. This song is a love letter to the ritual of winery visits across South Australia, from the Hills to Barossa, McLaren Vale to the Clare. Wayne is still in the room for this one, and Steve uses it to draw a neat contrast from the week’s main themes: beer events are loud, spirit events are rough, wine events are, as Wayne says, “a little more sophisticated.” The song will also feature in the History Hit Parade show with Keith Conlon at the Mercury Cinema. It’s on Monday, May 11, 11am, and Sunday, May 17, at 4pm and it will simply be an enjoyable show of historical anecdotes, fun, and music. Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1hr 16min
  3. 430 - Small Winemaker, Big Wines, Zero Power Bill

    29 MAR

    430 - Small Winemaker, Big Wines, Zero Power Bill

    Joe Evans was last on the show in 2018, picking grapes and talking about his craft. A lot has changed at Ballycroft Vineyard & Cellars since then. Joe has turned a $6,000-a-year electricity bill into a source of profit, using 33 kilowatts of solar, a bidirectional V2G converter, and two Nissan Leafs to run his house, his winery, and his cellar door without drawing from the grid. He believes Ballycroft is the world’s first winery to make and mature wine entirely on solar and car battery power. Photos of Joe for the show notes and the podcast player, were taken by Thomas Wielecki. There is no SA Drink of the Week this episode, though Joe does give a tantalising description of his 100% Mataro and a very limited release Small Berry Shiraz Pressings 2022 that had already sold half its 400-bottle run within a month of release. For the Musical Pilgrimage, Steve shares an original composition recorded with his virtual session band, The Virtuosos. Another Bloody Year was written just a fortnight before recording, prompted by rising fuel costs, global instability and a CS Lewis speech from 1939 that turns out to be as timely as ever. You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We’re here to serve! The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for Best Interview Podcast in Australia at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards. And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It’s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we’ll add you to the list: podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store – The Adelaide Show Shop. We’d greatly appreciate it. And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here’s our index of all episode in one concisepage. Running Sheet: Small Winemaker, Big Wines, Zero Power Bills 00:00:00 Intro Introduction 00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week, but we encourage you to browse the Ballycroft Vineyard & Cellar online store. 00:04:19 Joe Evans, Ballycroft Vineyard & Cellars If you have ever stared at a power bill and felt a quiet fury, Joe Evans is the person you need to hear. Back in the late 2010s, South Australian electricity was already the most expensive in the country at around 28 cents per kilowatt hour. It is now around 58 cents, which Joe says makes South Australia second most expensive in the Western world. His response was not to complain but to act. The journey started in 2019 when Joe purchased a 40-kilowatt Nissan Leaf from a rural dealership, becoming what he believes was the first person in Australia to buy an EV from such a dealer. The car he specifically chose because it had bidirectional capability: charge it during the day, discharge it at night to power the house and winery. The catch was that the V2G converter needed to make that work took three and a half years to get Australian standards approval. Joe was the first residential and small business owner in the country to install one. Walk through a 24-hour cycle at Ballycroft Vineyard & Cellars and you begin to see how elegantly the system operates. From around 6am, the car battery powers the morning rush: kettles, hair dryers, the household waking up. Once the sun rises and the 33-kilowatt solar array kicks in, the car recharges within an hour or two while simultaneously running the house and winery. During vintage, when the fermentation chillers are working hard around the clock, Joe uses one car’s full 60-kilowatt battery per night. His figure from last year: 42 kilowatts used across 42 days of fermentation. That is one kilowatt a day, or about 58 cents. Without the system, it would have been closer to $30 a day. He is now running two Nissan Leafs, a “his and hers” arrangement after his wife fell in love with the original car. The second, a secondhand 2021 60-kilowatt model purchased for $36,000, he describes as a generator on wheels. He bought it primarily for the battery. A 50% government rebate later led him to add a home battery as well, though the cars still do the heavy lifting. For listeners weighing up an EV, Joe offers practical advice grounded in four years of real-world use: keep the battery between 20% and 80%, never leave it at 100%, and prioritise V2G capability when choosing a car. He notes that Tesla has explicitly ruled out V2G to protect its wall battery sales, while many newer European and Chinese models are building it in. A new Wallbox Quasar 2 with CCS2 compatibility is expected to arrive at around $5,000, down from the $10,000 Joe paid. The conversation also covers range anxiety (real but shrinking as infrastructure grows), tyre and brake wear (largely a non-issue in his experience), battery degradation (his six-year-old car has less degradation than comparable models that only drove, because running the house draws power far more gently than driving does), and what to do when the power goes out. Joe’s answer to that last one: nothing, because the system keeps running regardless. “Have control of your own energy. It’s a good feeling.” – Joe Evans 00:59:58 Musical Pilgrimage In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature Steve Davis & The Virtualosos’ new song, Another Bloody Year. Steve frames this segment with a reference to John Schumann being told to stay in his lane after posting about Australian involvement in potential conflict, and responds with CS Lewis’s 1939 speech to Oxford students on the eve of the Second World War: “Life has never been normal.” Against that backdrop, Steve shares an original song written a fortnight before recording, reflecting on the cost ordinary people pay when leaders make reckless decisions. The final verse lands with quiet force, borrowing a line from Schumacher: “All of us should live more simply so that others might simply live.” If there is a singer looking for material with genuine weight, Steve has flagged this one as available. Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1hr 12min
  4. 429 - Kadina Lawyers And The Real World Of Rural Law

    6 MAR

    429 - Kadina Lawyers And The Real World Of Rural Law

    In Kadina, the commercial heart of South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula, farming families have been trusting the same lawyers with their most important moments for generations. This episode brings two of those lawyers to the table: Doug Reed, who has practised in Kadina for 50 years and is preparing to retire, and Kylie Mildwaters, who grew up on a nearby farm, left for Adelaide to study law, and came back to build her own thriving practice. Between them, they offer an unusually honest portrait of what country law actually looks like: the trust earned slowly, the gossip that spreads fast, and the quiet privilege of knowing the grandchildren of your very first clients. There is no SA Drink of the Week this episode The Musical Pilgrimage this week is perfectly timed: Adelaide artist My Chérie releases her new single Stuck Inside My Head today, the same day she performs at WOMADelaide. It is an indie folk-rock meditation on neurodivergence and the challenge of quieting a restless mind, and it could not be a more fitting soundtrack for a week when this city is buzzing with live music and big ideas. You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We’re here to serve! The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for Best Interview Podcast in Australia at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards. And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It’s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we’ll add you to the list: podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store – The Adelaide Show Shop. We’d greatly appreciate it. And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here’s our index of all episode in one concisepage. Running Sheet: Kadina Lawyers And The Real World Of Rural Law 00:00:00 Intro Introduction 00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week. 00:03:01 Doug Reed and Kylie Mildwaters Kadina in the 1970s, as Doug Reed (Germein Reed) remembers it, was a proper provincial town: half its current size, built around farming, animated by fierce rivalry between Kadina, Moonta, and Wallaroo, and populated on Fridays by farmers’ wives dressed to the nines for their weekly shopping. Small Woolworths. No McDonald’s. Three pubs per town, and a pub meal was a night out. The frictions, factions, and fictions of small-town life, as Steve puts it, drawing on a line from The Carpathians, were very much in evidence, including, as Doug notes with some amusement, two rival Methodist churches in Kadina alone. Kylie Mildwaters (Mildwaters Byrth Lawyers & Conveyancers) grew up on the other side of that rivalry, as a Moonta girl who had nothing to do with Kadina. The inter-town competition, she and Doug agree, has mellowed considerably since council amalgamation, though not, they hasten to add, on the sporting field. The footy rivalry remains entirely intact. It is when the conversation turns to trust that the episode finds its real heart. Doug is direct: you cannot advertise trust. You earn it through your work, your community involvement, and your reputation, and when you make a misstep in a town this size, it spreads like wildfire. Kylie’s version of the same lesson is more pragmatic: word of mouth on the Yorke Peninsula is the best advertising you could possibly have, which means looking after every client, every time, without exception. Her additional piece of hard-won wisdom for any country lawyer? Do your Woolworths shopping online. Doug reflects on one of the quieter privileges of rural legal practice: the moment you realise you are sitting across the desk from the grandchild of a client you first helped decades ago. He calls it a privilege, and it is hard to disagree. That kind of continuity is particularly characteristic of rural practice. The corporate memory you carry about a family, built across generations, is something a city firm simply cannot replicate. It is also a responsibility, and one reason why Doug’s decision to transition the bulk of his client base to Kylie’s firm, Mildwaters Birth Lawyers, has clearly not been taken lightly. The conversation takes a sharper turn when farm succession enters the picture. The number of farming families on the Yorke Peninsula, one of Australia’s premier cropping regions, is now a fraction of what it was when Doug first arrived. Farms have grown dramatically, consuming neighbouring holdings, and with that growth has come a corresponding rise in what is at stake when a family asks who gets what. Kylie, who practises in estate and family law as well as holding membership of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), paints a vivid picture of the legal tensions this creates: promises made about farm transfers, falling-outs between parents and children, and the litigation that follows. The old assumption that the farming son gets the farm and off-farm assets go to everyone else is, she notes, increasingly being questioned.Doug raises another pressure on modern legal practice: the Google-armed client. He recalls a family arriving having looked up the rule against perpetuities the night before. A little knowledge, he observes drily, can be a dangerous thing. Kylie adds that this is precisely why careful, unhurried thinking remains essential, a lesson Doug drummed into her when she first started, back when her instinct was to get everything done as quickly as possible. The episode closes with one of its most enjoyable exchanges: Steve asks about fictional lawyers. Doug nominates Perry Mason and, with considerably more warmth, Dennis Denuto from The Castle, a man whose grasp of the law was limited but whose faith in the vibe of it was unshakeable. Kylie, more practically, notes that films have given clients thoroughly incorrect expectations about everything from courtroom procedure to the formal reading of the will (there is no such legal requirement) to the idea that marriage automatically entitles each party to half of everything. As for Steve’s elaborate video will, he has just learned it will never be shown. He is very sorry to hear it. Here are links to a few of Kylie’s blog posts about farm succession, referenced in the discussion: Kangaroo Island: What a Movie About Two Sisters Can Teach You About Estate Planning What Troy Cassar-Daley’s ‘Family Farm’ Teaches About Succession Planning On Yorke Peninsula Why the Most Well-Intentioned Promise About Your Will Might Not Help Your Children 00:38:09 Musical Pilgrimage In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature My Chérie‘s new song, released today, Stuck Inside My Head. Adelaide is buzzing this week. WOMADelaide is upon us, and right in the thick of it is local artist My Chérie, whose brand new single Stuck Inside My Head drops today. Written and performed entirely by My Chérie, with additional production, mixing, and mastering by Mario Spate, it is an indie folk-rock meditation on neurodivergence, spiritual longing, and the very human challenge of quieting a restless mind. My Chérie has described wanting the production to feel like summoning an inner power: a moment of connection with something bigger, almost like nature answering back. For fans of Soccer Mommy, Samia, and Wolf Alice, and for anyone who has ever lain awake with their thoughts looping at full volume, this one will feel like a hand on the shoulder. Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    44 min
  5. 428 - Adelaide Writers' Week In Absentia

    28 FEB

    428 - Adelaide Writers' Week In Absentia

    The white marquees are not going up in the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden this year. Adelaide Writers’ Week, a festival that has graced this city since 1960, was cancelled following a sequence of events set in motion by a disinvitation that drew international condemnation, triggered the resignation of director Louise Adler and nearly the entire board, and ultimately prompted an unreserved apology from a newly constituted board. Community alternatives, including Constellations at the Adelaide Town Hall, have stepped forward to keep the spirit of the festival alive. The Adelaide Show is doing the same, in its own way. There is no SA Drink of the Week in this episode. The Musical Pilgrimage closes the episode with an original composition, “Uncomfortable Ideas,” written by Steve Davis and performed by Steve Davis & The Virtualosos. More than a few people have suggested it deserves to be the unofficial anthem of this year’s festival. You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We’re here to serve! The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for Best Interview Podcast in Australia at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards. And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It’s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we’ll add you to the list: podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store – The Adelaide Show Shop. We’d greatly appreciate it. And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here’s our index of all episode in one concisepage. Running Sheet: Adelaide Writers’ Week in Absentia 00:00:00 Intro Introduction 00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week. 00:06:25 Adelaide Writers’ Week In Absentia Steve Davis opens by acknowledging the cancellation of Adelaide Writers’ Week and the circumstances behind it, without dwelling on controversy for its own sake. The spirit of the festival, he argues, cannot be legislated out of existence, and The Adelaide Show is here to prove it. Before the archive episodes begin, Steve offers a handful of literary touchstones. Patrick White observed that writing a novel is like an illness from which one is trying to recover, and that the artist’s role is to make sense of a world becoming increasingly nonsensical. Clive James described great books as voices that speak across the centuries, telling you that you are not alone. Vonnegut reminded us that we must be careful about what we pretend to be, and that reading leads to a life more grand, more empathetic, more civilised. And Douglas Adams, who loved deadlines for the whooshing noise they make as they go by, gives us a fitting frame for a festival that simply did not happen. Two archive episodes follow, chosen for what they reveal about the real work of writing and the underappreciated world of genre fiction. Segment One: Writing, Publishing, and Resetting Expectations, Episode 308The pandemic was supposed to be the great gift to aspiring novelists. Time, solitude, and the vague sense that history was being made. What actually happened, for most people, was considerably less cinematic. In this 2020 recording, four people who know the industry from the inside cut through the life-coach optimism that surrounded the period. Authors Jane Ainslie and Michelle Prak bring the writing perspective. Publishers Michael Bollen of Wakefield Press and Rommie Corso of Hardshell Publishing bring the business view. Together they create an unusually candid picture of what it actually takes to turn a manuscript into a book that someone buys. The moment that sets the tone comes early. Jane Ainslie addresses the idea that everyone has a book inside them with the sort of directness that suggests she has been asked this at a lot of dinner parties: not every story the world has inside it is a story the world is waiting to read. Michelle Prak, who has put herself through five, six, sometimes seven drafts before a manuscript goes anywhere near an editor, adds that writing is a deeply enjoyable, deeply expensive hobby that tends to crowd out a great deal of everything else. Michael Bollen introduces a concept that most aspiring authors have not quite faced: a book’s shelf life, for literary fiction, sits somewhere between milk and yoga. He describes the editorial process as a dance, with the editor standing in for the general reader, keeping an ego-free eye on whether the character who died on page seven has somehow reappeared at the party on page 86. Rommie Corso explains that self-published authors often resist the very commercial adjustments that would help their books find readers, wanting independence and viability at the same time. These do not always coexist. There is a fine moment around the ethics of drawing real people into fiction. Michelle Prak describes her novel Goodbye Newsroom, set against the backdrop of shrinking newsrooms, as inspired by rather than transcribed from real events. Jane Ainslie explains that fictionalising her nursing experiences allowed her to treat them with more dignity than a straight memoir would permit. Steve raises the precedent of a Wakefield Press novel about South Australian politics whose characters bore a striking resemblance to identifiable figures (that was a reference to The novel you’re thinking of is Never A True Word by Michael McGuire, a former journalist and long‑time political writer for The Australian and The Advertiser – his interview was in episode 198). Michael Bollen confirms, diplomatically, that some adjustments were made. Segment Two: The Art and Heart of Romance, Episode 111The candles are on the table. There is a fire going. The Scenic Hotel has given this conversation a room of its own, and three romance authors have settled in to make a serious case for a genre that represents the largest slice of fiction sales on the planet, and which continues to be treated by the literary world as something slightly embarrassing. Trish Morey, Victoria Purman, and Bronwyn Stuart are completely clear-eyed about what they do and why it matters. Romance, Trish explains, is not a “whodunit” but a “howdunit.” You know who ends up together. The pleasure is in the journey, and in not being able to work out how on earth these two people are going to find their way through all the obstacles between them. Victoria adds that romance readers were among the earliest adopters of digital books, and that the genre has long sustained a community of writers who support one another in ways other literary communities have not managed to replicate. The conversation turns, as it always does in the best episodes, on a moment of genuine revelation. Victoria puts it plainly: the deepest appeal of romance fiction is that the heroine is truly seen by the hero. Trish confirms it. Steve, in what he describes as his second light bulb moment of the evening, sits with this for a beat before acknowledging that this is not a small thing. Steve is also pressed into service reading from one of the novels in the voice of a cowboy hero. He brings considerable commitment to the performance. The authors’ response is warm, specific, and entirely at his expense. The episode closes with the “Is It News?” quiz, hosted by Nigel Dobson, which draws on historical romance headlines from 1923 South Australia and, against all odds, confirms that the real thing was considerably more scandalous than anything currently on the romance shelf. 02:15:32 Musical Pilgrimage In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature Uncomfortable Ideas (The Adelaide Writers’ Week Song) by Steve Davis & The Virtualosos. Writers’ festivals exist, at their best, to put uncomfortable ideas into a room and let people sit with them. Adelaide Writers’ Week found itself this year at the centre of a very public argument about whether that is still something institutions are willing to do. The festival has been here before. Germaine Greer being Germaine Greer. The exposure of fabricated Holocaust revisionism behind the Helen Demidenko affair. Patrick White in 1986 urging writers to ignore critics if they wanted to avoid producing work that was safe and uninspiring and pleasing to nobody. Writers’ festivals are unsettling because they surface ideas people would often prefer to leave alone. They are necessary because a society that cannot examine uncomfortable thinking out loud gradually loses the capacity to protect itself from thinking that goes unexamined. “Uncomfortable Ideas” was written by Steve Davis to speak directly to that tension. It addresses the short-sightedness of those who believe audiences need to be shielded from difficult thoughts, and it takes seriously Patrick White’s case for artistic courage that does not stop to ask permission. Listen for the bridge, which captures the specific feeling of an invitation to speak in the open air being overshadowed by voices that underestimated what a well-read audience is capable of holding. Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    2h 24m
  6. 427 - This Adelaide Fringe Don't Die Wondering

    9 FEB

    427 - This Adelaide Fringe Don't Die Wondering

    After 25+ years of reviewing Adelaide Fringe shows, Steve takes a sabbatical this year. But there’s one show he can’t help spotlighting: Rob Newman’s debut solo performance “Don’t Die Wondering”. Newman’s story offers something rare, a comedian willing to be deeply reflective about the journey that brought him to the stage at 60, shaped by a decade of hospitals and life-or-death moments. This episode contains no SA Drink of the Week segment. The Musical Pilgrimage features Steve’s own song about the Adelaide Fringe. Through “Centre Stage”, performed by Steve Davis and The Virtuosos, he offers a bittersweet love letter to a festival he’s watched change over decades. The segment includes his conversation with FiveAA’s Richard Pascoe about reviewing standards, five-star review inflation, and why the Fringe remains a jewel in South Australia’s crown. You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We’re here to serve! The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for Best Interview Podcast in Australia at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards. And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It’s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we’ll add you to the list: podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store – The Adelaide Show Shop. We’d greatly appreciate it. And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here’s our index of all episode in one concisepage. Running Sheet: This Adelaide Fringe Don’t Die Wondering 00:00:00 Intro Introduction 00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week. 00:03:17 Rob Newman Rob Newman appears on screen in full purple surgical scrubs against a hospital backdrop. It’s not a gimmick. Over the past decade, he’s spent considerable time in hospitals and operating theatres, told more than once to gather his family and say goodbye. These experiences form the bedrock of Don’t Die Wondering. The path to standup wasn’t part of Newman’s original plan. He traces it back to a coffee conversation with Steve 10 to 12 years ago. “Your suggestion at the time was, come and try standup,” Newman recalls. “It’s a great way to get the confidence to do public speaking.” What began as preparation for property market speaking tours became something much deeper. Steve shares his own early standup experience, driving across Adelaide to work with Glynn Nicholas, heart palpitating so strongly he could feel his pulse under his eyebrows. Newman agrees about the terror, offering perhaps the most vivid description of pre-show nerves: “It’s the best cure for constipation you’ll ever get in your life.” But the terror serves a purpose. Newman describes managing the fear of judgment. “Not so much to lose it, but control it in the sense of embracing the fear of it,” he explains. That fear never entirely disappears. What changes is the ability to handle surprises, to relax into improvisation, to step away from verbatim scripts. The conversation explores performing as yourself versus hiding behind characters. Steve admits he gravitated toward characters partly because “anything negative feedback that might happen is water off a duck’s back. In some ways it’s the cheat’s way out.” Newman has stuck with vulnerability. “Be yourself,” he says. “Basically unzip yourself and be vulnerable.” Steve’s immediate response: “What’s your show rated?” Newman confirms it’s R-rated, though the rating speaks more to emotional honesty than shock value. Newman’s been running around Adelaide dressed as a surgeon, offering free medical checks as promotion for the show. It’s playful promotion, but also a way of inhabiting the hospital world that shaped his perspective. Newman’s journey through the comedy ranks has been patient and methodical. Starting in his early fifties, he’s spent years developing his craft before attempting a solo Fringe show at 60. The title “Don’t Die Wondering” carries weight when spoken by someone who’s genuinely faced that possibility. Rob Newman was a grant recipient through the Adelaide Fringe Foundation. 00:38:30 Musical Pilgrimage In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature Centre Stage (The Adelaide Fringe Song) by Steve Davis & The Virtualosos. After 25+ years of reviewing Adelaide Fringe shows, often two to three per night, Steve presents his own song about the festival. “Centre Stage” is what he describes as “still a love song to the Fringe and just a cheeky fringe type, steampunk, gothic reflection on the state of play.” The lyrics trace the festival’s shift from experimental counterculture to celebrity-driven programming: “You were fringe to me / You did not need celebrities / But now a household name comes and cash in on fame / And crowds out smaller shows that have more soul.” His reviewing experience infuses the verses, cataloguing years spent in theatres, on blankets in parks, and sweltering in church halls without air vents, always writing reviews “to help all thinking people choose emerging art in our town.” The conversation with FiveAA’s Richard Pascoe addresses reviewing standards and the proliferation of five-star reviews. “There are some reviewers who are promised critics, et cetera, but there’s a lot of light dusting out there,” Steve observes. “They have become cheapened, like the money in Argentina during their inflation.” Steve’s reviewing philosophy was always accountability: “I had to write them knowing that you would go and buy a ticket and you need to be able to look me in the eye and say, yep, that was accurate.” Despite his criticisms of how the Fringe has changed, Steve’s message remains clear: attend the Fringe, take chances on weird and experimental shows, support artists attempting something genuinely different. “Enjoy the Fringe. We should, no matter how we do it. It’s an absolute jewel in our crown.” Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    57 min
  7. 426 - Is The ALP Guaranteed Victory In The 2026 South Australian Election?

    24 JAN

    426 - Is The ALP Guaranteed Victory In The 2026 South Australian Election?

    As the March 21st, 2026 South Australian state election approaches, the Malinauskas Labor government maintains polling numbers that would make most incumbents envious. Yet beneath this apparent stability, questions linger about whether today’s ALP still embodies the values of the workers’ movement from which it emerged, or whether it has become something else entirely. ** The image features Gemini's best effort of imagining Steve Davis and Robert Godden as modern day Don Dunstans. This episode features no SA Drink of the Week, a decision that tips its hat to both Robert Godden’s teetotalling preferences and to King O’Malley, the flamboyant insurance salesman who permanently removed the ‘u’ from ‘Labor’ while dodging questions about his own birthplace. The Musical Pilgrimage presents Australia Day by Steve Davis and The Virtualosos, a song that addresses social cohesion and community connection in contemporary Australia, themes that connect directly to the political fragmentation discussed throughout the episode. You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We’re here to serve! The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for Best Interview Podcast in Australia at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards. And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It’s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we’ll add you to the list: podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store – The Adelaide Show Shop. We’d greatly appreciate it. And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here’s our index of all episode in one concisepage. Running Sheet: Is The ALP Guaranteed Victory In The 2026 South Australian Election?00:00:00 Intro Introduction 00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week. 00:02:37 Robert GoddenThe Adelaide Show: Special Briefing — The Labor Machine This conversation serves as the companion piece to episode 423’s examination of the South Australian Liberal Party. Where that episode explored the Liberal Party’s challenges, this discussion has our political commentator, Robert Godden, apply the same analytical rigour to the South Australia Labor Party‘s position heading into the 2026 state election. The conversation begins with King O’Malley, that peculiar figure in Australian political history who was, in Robert’s memorable description, “50% staunch Australian politician, 50% carnival worker.” O’Malley’s legacy includes both Canberra and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, institutions that prompted Robert to reflect: “Most of us Australians can just give thanks to the days, you know, before you go to bed, you think, I’m glad I live in a country that has a bank with an appalling logo and a capital city in the middle of nowhere.” The historical roots of the labour movement trace back to the Industrial Revolution, when workers were, as Robert puts it, “really the AI of the day, you know, come and get this. It’s cheap, it’ll do your work for you and you’ll make a huge profit.” This parallel between 19th century industrialisation and contemporary technological disruption threads through the conversation, particularly when Robert shares the story of a logistics company owner whose business is failing because “the work he used to do in working stuff out for people is now done by AI.” The discussion explores how guilds differed from unions, with Robert explaining that guilds “were designed to move their members toward the ruling class. They weren’t, guilds didn’t really exist to lift all boats. They were a highly specific rising tide.” This distinction becomes relevant when examining modern Labor’s approach to worker representation. Robert traces the evolution of Australian labor politics from its foundation in the shearers’ strikes of the 1890s through to contemporary challenges. The ALP emerged as the world’s first labour party to form government, a fact that speaks to Australia’s democratic traditions. Yet the party has undergone significant transformation, moving from representing primarily blue-collar workers to a broader base that includes professional and service sector employees. The conversation examines whether modern Labor still serves its founding principles or has become absorbed into the political establishment it once challenged. Robert notes the irony that many Labor MPs now come from professional backgrounds rather than the shop floor, raising questions about whether they truly understand the working-class experience they claim to represent. On the Malinauskas government specifically, the analysis reveals a pragmatic administration that has maintained stability during challenging economic conditions. However, Robert questions whether this stability comes at the cost of bold vision. “Is it enough to simply manage well, or should a labor government be pushing for more substantial change?” he asks. The discussion touches on the tensions within modern Labor between traditional unionised workers and newer constituencies, between economic management and social justice, between South Australian interests and national party directions. Robert suggests that while Malinauskas has successfully navigated these tensions so far, the test will come when difficult choices force the government to reveal which interests truly take priority. When examining Labor’s electoral prospects for 2026, Robert notes the Liberals’ current disarray creates favourable conditions, but warns against complacency. “Oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them,” he observes. The question becomes whether Labor can maintain discipline and avoid the kinds of missteps that have undone seemingly secure governments in the past. The conversation concludes with broader reflections on the state of South Australian politics. Robert suggests that both major parties face a fundamental challenge: reconnecting with an electorate that increasingly feels disconnected from traditional political structures. This alienation creates opportunities for minor parties and independents to claim territory that major parties once dominated. Throughout the discussion, the historical parallels between past industrial disruption and contemporary technological change illuminate present challenges. Just as workers in the 1800s faced displacement by machinery, today’s workforce confronts automation and artificial intelligence. The question of how a modern Labor party responds to these challenges reveals much about whether it remains true to its founding mission of protecting workers’ interests. 01:24:41 Musical Pilgrimage In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature Australia Day by Steve Davis & The Virtualosos. The Musical Pilgrimage connects directly to the episode’s themes of social cohesion and political fragmentation. Steve introduces his original composition “Australia Day” by reflecting on how disconnection fuels the rise of fringe political movements. The song addresses the transformation of Australian community life, opening with the observation that “The Australia which I was born had lots of backyards and lots of lawn, and we knew our neighbours down the street.” This nostalgia isn’t mere sentimentality but recognition of something lost: the neighbourhood connections that once helped integrate newcomers and build social cohesion. Steve explains how two factors exacerbate contemporary division. First, physical disconnection: “My dad used to know everyone in our neighbourhood, and therefore we did too. Now most of us hardly know anybody. We’ve got our houses closed off.” Second, algorithmic isolation: “The communication we do have externally is very filtered. Algorithm-focused content that feeds more of what the big American corporations like Meta and Google think is going to pander to our vulnerabilities.” Drawing on his own experience living in Hungary, Steve reflects on the immigrant perspective: “When you’ve moved somewhere new… you look for compatriots to connect with, so you’ve got something to hold onto.” This understanding shapes the song’s call for empathy and connection rather than fear and division. The song’s chorus captures the core message: “Who’s here is here now let’s make it work. It starts with learning. We share this dirt, we share the same song, we share the flies, and there’s a vibe here beneath our skies. Just tone it down, be laid back, bend a little, and cut some slack.” Steve positions the song as a counterpoint to political and social fragmentation, a reminder of Australian values that have, imperfectly but meaningfully, helped diverse groups find common ground. “Part of that is not blowing a fuse at the smallest thing. It’s actually calming the farm and being a little bit laid back, holding things a little bit loosely, drawing a line in the sand when it needs to happen, but not making that a knee-jerk reaction.” The song is available on all streaming platforms, and Steve extends an invitation to performers who might want to bring their own interpretation to the material. Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1hr 39min
  8. 425 - A Slingsby Life Of Wonder With Andy Packer

    5 JAN

    425 - A Slingsby Life Of Wonder With Andy Packer

    When a South Australian theatre company that began with The Tragical Life of Cheese Boy – performed more than 800 times worldwide – prepares to take its final bow, it doesn’t fade quietly. Instead, Slingsby is staging its most expensive and ambitious production yet: A Concise Compendium of Wonder, a triptych of three interconnected shows housed in a custom-built structure in the Botanic Gardens during the Adelaide Festival.In this episode, we settle into Slingsby’s Hall of Possibility in Parkside with artistic director and CEO Andy Packer for a wide-ranging conversation that explores the company’s distinctive aesthetic, their commitment to treating young audiences with intellectual honesty, and why nostalgia creates the perfect emotional space for processing difficult truths. In the South Australian Drink Of The Week, we taste the company’s signature Hall of Possibility Tea – a bespoke blend featuring licorice root, organic lavender, red rose petals, spearmint and peppermint that Andy describes as both “invigorating and calming. “The musical pilgrimage features the Slingsby Ensemble performing “Song for the Adolescent Seal” from their 2018 Adelaide Cabaret Festival show Songs for Those Who’ve Come Across the Seas – a piece Andy realised he’d forgotten to mention during our conversation, despite being extremely proud of it. You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We’re here to serve! The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for Best Interview Podcast in Australia at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards. And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It’s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we’ll add you to the list: podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store – The Adelaide Show Shop. We’d greatly appreciate it. And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here’s our index of all episode in one concisepage. Running Sheet: A Slingsby Life Of Wonder With Andy Packer 00:00:00 Intro Introduction 00:03:12 SA Drink Of The Week The SA Drink Of The Week this week is Brewed by Belinda Hall of Possibilitea. Belinda Hill of Brewed by Belinda created this bespoke blend specifically for Slingsby, capturing both the company’s aesthetic and the practical needs of artists in creative process. The brief: create something both invigorating and calming. The blend looks almost theatrical. Organic lavender, red rose petals, organic blue cornflower petals creating visual layers in the pot. Licorice root provides the grounding bass note, with spearmint and peppermint lifting everything. There’s aniseed hiding in there too.Andy explains the tea’s role in Slingsby’s creative practice. During those inevitable moments developing new work when “you get very lost,” the tea provides structured pause. “People go off and do different things and I’ll have a cup of tea and I might go outside for a little while. Usually you find the solution.” What’s crucial is that Hall of Possibility Tea won’t get bitter or overly steeped. “There’s no black tea leaf or anything like that. It just gets better.” Andy keeps a flask throughout rehearsal days, taking sips during fifteen-minute breaks. As we taste, the experience unfolds in layers. Initially, the mint notes dominate. Then the aniseed emerges from backstage, as Andy puts it, “ready for you, it knew you were coming, it was just waiting in the wings.” By the end of our tasting, all the subtle players have made their entrance. No single flavour dominates. They’re holding hands across the palate like a well-mannered audience at a Slingsby show. Slingsby has been gifting this tea to presenting partners around the world since 2019. After performances overseas, small tins of Hall of Possibility Tea remain behind, tangible tokens of the connections Slingsby creates between communities. 00:13:08 Andy Packer Andy Packer describes A Concise Compendium of Wonder as “the perfect bookend” to Slingsby Theatre Company’s twenty-year journey. We’re sitting in the Hall of Possibility in Parkside, where families have gathered to experience work that never softened darkness for young audiences, never offered easy answers. In a few weeks, after the final curtain falls on this ambitious triptych at the Adelaide Festival, Slingsby will cease creating new work. The company that began with The Tragical Life of Cheeseboy, performed more than 800 times worldwide, closes with its most expensive, most ambitious production yet. In this interview, you’ll discover: The origins trace back to amateur theatre at La Mama in the late eighties, where Packer learnt that being involved in every aspect wasn’t just practical necessity but essential training. “You are crafting an experience for an audience, not just there for your ego to be on stage, but actually to prepare the space to welcome people into the church that theater can be.” The crystallising moment arrived in Montreal in 2005, watching Danish company Group 38 perform The Little Match Girl. Packer sat in the audience afterwards and wept for fifteen minutes, unable to move. That company’s aesthetic showed him precisely what he wanted to create. Slingsby’s first expenditure as a company was flying their entire creative team to Hobart to see Group 38 perform again, establishing that benchmark from day one. The distinctive Slingsby voice, that curious blend of the new and familiar, serves a specific purpose. “When you create a nostalgic space, it’s like you’ve gone on a holiday back in time,” Packer explains. “You let your guard down and that allows you to attend to the deep concern, the deep anxiety that sits deeper.” Slingsby productions have never shied from exploring loss, loneliness, domestic violence and grief. “We can’t protect our audience, we can’t protect children. We have to prepare them.” But preparation doesn’t mean pessimism. Every show ends with hope. The conversation hopscotches through key productions: The Tragical Life of Cheese Boy (800+ performances) Man Covets Bird (where a boy’s parents no longer recognise him) Ode to Nonsense (a full opera celebrating Edward Lear) The Young King (Oscar Wilde’s fable about capitalism performed without softening) Emil and the Detectives (capturing post-war reconstruction with audiences building cardboard cities) The Boy Who Talked to Dogs (an Irish-Australian collaboration about surviving domestic violence) The final chapter confronts climate reality. Measuring carbon use revealed that flying sets internationally consumed vastly more carbon than shipping by sea or road transport. “We can’t be flying sets around anymore. We wanna make the world a better place, but we wanna do it now in a way that reduces our impact on the climate.” The solution: A Concise Compendium of Wonder. Three shows, Hansel and Gretel, The Selfish Giant, and The Little Match Girl, performed by one cast on one regeneratively designed wooden building that can be disassembled and reused. The Wandering Hall of Possibility features 17 speakers, 5,500 pixels built into walls, seating that reconfigures for each show, all touring by road only. The three fairytales trace a journey from medieval times to 3099 on a lunar colony. At the centre of each story sits a tree or forest, moving from living as part of the forest, to fighting for access to a single Moreton Bay fig, to finding the last tree on the moon whilst Earth re-greens in humanity’s absence. For Adelaide audiences, the Wandering Hall sits on Plane Tree Lawn in the Botanic Gardens. This is both thank you season and goodbye. Audiences can experience one show or commit to the full “sling cycle” across one day. “I think it is the most important thing happening in the universe right now,” Packer says about the intent behind every Slingsby show. “We want this for the people that have bothered to come and be with us.” 01:07:07 Musical Pilgrimage In the Musical Pilgrimage, we feature a piece from the Slingsby show that Andy Packer forgot to mention during our conversation, an oversight that left him “racked with angst.” Songs for Those Who’ve Come Across the Seas premiered at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival in 2018 and was subsequently invited for a three-week season at the New Victory Theater in New York and a festival in Atlanta. COVID prevented those tours. “Sometimes even the big fish get away,” Andy philosophically notes. The Slingsby Ensemble perform Song for the Adolescent Seal with the distinctive musicality that characterises Quincy Grant’s compositions, spare and emotionally direct. The piece explores the necessary letting go that allows children to grow into their full selves. There’s additional resonance hearing this now, as Slingsby itself prepares to let go. The song’s metaphor of adolescent seals venturing beyond safe shores speaks to trusting that what you’ve nurtured will survive and flourish independently. Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    2h 17m
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About

A weekly podcast recorded in Adelaide that puts South Australian passion on centre stage with a featured guest who joins us each week as a co-presenter to share how they're pursuing their passions. We venture across topics as diverse as history, wine, food, art, music, relationships, critical thinking, health, news, interviews, chat and quizzes. Every single interview, every single show, unlocks insights into what drives people to be doing what they're doing and what keeps them striving. The Adelaide Show is produced by Steve Davis and Nigel Dobson-Keeffe. Please subscribe to our In Crowd list; you get an email each Friday (when we have published a new episode) with an overview of that week's show. Plus, consider joining our Inner Circle; a small group of passionate South Aussies who allow us to pick their brains and gain interviewee suggestions. This podcast began life as Another Boring Thursday Night In Adelaide from episodes 1-79.

Information

  • Creator
    Auscast Network
  • Years Active
    2013 - 2026
  • Episodes
    431
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Auscast Network
  • Show Website
    The Adelaide Show

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