Entertainment

Two new exhibitions at National Cartoon Gallery

Cartoonists for Change 3 June – 31 July 2022

One of the highlights of this exhibition is the recent donation by the Cheetham family of The Sea of Satire collection. This is a unique collection of cartoons by some of Australia’s most celebrated cartoonists created to raise awareness and funds for ANTaR (Australian for Native Title and Reconciliation). This will works are being publicly shown in a Gallery. This exhibition will celebrate NAIDOC Week 2022, with the theme Get up! Stand up! Show up! with the Sea of Hands being on display throughout the exhibition.

Who is Moo? 3 June – 18th July

Local artist Moo, aka Scott Mollan, tells his journey from a little kid who loved cartoons to an advertising guru in two of the most diametrically opposed cultures on the planet, India and China. Each painting, childish by necessity (Moo was never trained in art), has a story about the adventures and characters he encountered and is accompanied with panels showing Moo’s journey from his high school meanderings 50 years ago to childhood artists

Book your tickets: www.trybooking.com/ BZOXC

The National Circus Festival returns in 2022

The National Circus Festival (formerly the Mullum Circus Festival) today announced its return in 2022, to be hosted from September 26 – October 2 at the Mullumbimby Showgrounds.

To celebrate its return, the festival today revealed that it will become the first event in the NSW Northern Rivers to host The Famous Spiegeltent.

The Famous Spiegeltent, the most beautiful and original of the last remaining Belgian Spiegeltents, is a unique travelling venue that has made regular appearances at the Edinburgh and Adelaide Fringe Festivals. It has hosted some of the world’s greatest performing artists, including German singer Marlene Dietrich, who famously performed “Falling in Love Again” during the 1930s.

As part of the National Circus Festival, The Famous Spiegeltent will bring excitement and colour to a region that has been through COVID Shutdowns and once in a lifetime floods over recent months. A venue for book readings, cabaret, new works, musicians and kids’ shows, The Famous Spiegeltent will be a place to bring the community together to celebrate and connect.

National Circus Festival’s General Manager and Creative Producer, Alice Cadwell, said that although the community has been through so much over the recent year, the festival will be a beacon of light for those in the region.

“It’s been a long 12 months for the Northern Rivers and National Circus Festival. The festival was cancelled due to COVID in 2021 and then ravaged by the Northern NSW floods in February 2022, which saw its home at the Mullumbimby Showgrounds, including storage sheds and training facilities, inundated with up to a metre of muddy water,” said Ms Cadwell.

“Three months on from the floods and countess helping hands and a whole community behind us and the National Circus Festival is preparing to deliver another amazing festival of circus from September 26 – October 2 and we are excited to see the community come together and celebrate with us!”

The National Circus Festival hosts a dual program with two distinct streams, including a four-day National Training Program from September 26 – 29,assembling the nation’s best performers in one location to collaborate, trial new shows and develop existing works.

Following the training program, the weekend of September 30 – October 2 will see the festival go into full swing, with a program of more than 100 events set to take the five stages over the threeday event.

To celebrate its return in 2022 festival organisers have announced a limited run of early bird tickets available via the National Circus Festival website - www. nationalcircusfestival. com.

MT WARNING releases new single ‘Hey Hi’

Byron Bay based singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mikey Bryant, aka MT WARNING, is back with a sunny new single “Hey new album coming later in the year.

Opening with a 1970’s set to disco AND rock, “Hey Hi” is the optimistic tune we all need heading into part 2 of 2022.

Recorded at his homebuilt studio, by himself, MT set out to rediscover the joy in music after a few dismal years globally. With two clear aims, honesty and fun, he set about writing, re-introducing himself to his audience and letting them know how he is… “Hey, hi, I’m doing

“Hey Hi” pays homage to the 90’s music MT grew up watching on Rage from midnight to dawn on weekends. Bouncing and fun, the song is a wrestle to make the mundanity of life a good time. The tremolo guitar bending it out for fun, the late entrance of the tambourine like a drunk in the corner waking up mid jam and getting back to work. An old loaned drumkit allowing him to channel his best Ringo Starr. The single, and whole forthcoming album, is also punctuated by a 1960’s Wurlitzer piano, found at a farm at the back of Lismore pre nostalgia feels.

Throughout Covid and the “Hey Hi” writing process, MT was in constant correspondence with a visual artist from the UK named Sally. She sent daily voice notes and sketches of otherworldy caricatures from her painting studio in Frome. In true Covid fashion they never met in real life and never actually spoke directly, just one daily voice message to the next, supporting, questioning, challenging and inspiring the line “my friend Sally says hi, one day at a time”.

MT WARNING released his 2014 debut album Midnight Set, featuring the much Shazamed track “Sinking Sun”, to rave reviews.