King Kong The Musical

Get ready for a world exclusive, a musical about the world's favourite rampaging giant ape King Kong, the Eighth Wonder of The World.

King Kong will be staged at the Regent Theatre in Collins Street in Melbourne next year and will feature a Kong created by Global Creatures who are responsible for the amazing show Walking With Dinosaurs.

The story pretty well follows the plot of the various movies : a mysterious island with the mythical Kong and a party of explorers hoping to film the great beast with a hapless heroine captured and eventually King Kong himself captured by the party and taken to New York where, yes he ends up climbing the Empire State Building to meet his fate.

Playing the heroine Anne Darrow will be Esther Hannaford (left) who has sung in the musicals Hairspray and Mama Mia and picked up the odd Helpmann Award along the way. Composer of the musical is Marius  Du Vries who  has won Ivor Novello and BAFTA Awards and worked with acts like Bjork, U2 and Rufus Wainwright, with a list of musical credits a mile long.

King Kong opens on June 15th 2013 at the Regent Theatre and you can book now at this website

Fairfax : Stating the Bleeding Obvious or Taking The Piss

 The Fairfax family were once the proud owners of titles like the Sydney Morning Herald first published in 1831 and the Melbourne Age established in 1854 and once regarded as one of the greatest broadsheets on the planet.
The Fairfax family have long departed (making hundreds of millions of dollars in the process) and the Fairfax empire has been stumbling along badly ever since. The last remaining family member John B.Fairfax sold his shares for $189M in 2011.
 Reputedly the editor who spent time and money trying to convince Fairfax board members to embrace digital was booted only to be snapped up by The Guardian in the UK which now slightly lags behind the Mail Online as the most popular newspaper website in the world.

Tomorrow's Sydney Morning Herald will feature a piece titled Most powerful players in Australian film, basically a list of household names who command power and big money in the Australian film industry. the real heavy hitters with surprising results it trumps !

Well not quite. Sam Worthington, Chris Hemsworth, Geoffrey Rush, Mia Kasalwoska, Rose Byrne, Hugh Jackman, Emile Sherman etc etc are unlikely to surprise anyone. And who is one of their sources ?

Rose Byrne

A photo agency called Jamie Fawcett Photo News run by Jamie Fawcett the photographer bankrupted by Fairfax during a court case in which Nicole Kidman appeared as a witness.
A Shuttle reader sent us an email a week ago with 2 screen shots which we cannot display for legal reasons.
The Sydney Morning Herald had published a story about the arrest of a union official. We had already read the tale the night before on a website called Independent Australia which has been miles ahead of both News Ltd and Fairfax on the same story. In the first screen shot the SMH claimed it had "exposed the embezzlement" of union funds by the official as well as claiming something similar about a Member of Parliament.

By Mid-day the word 'allegedly' had finally been inserted before the damaging claims. Did Fairfax inform their readers of their mistake and apologise as  their code of conduct requires ?. Most certainly not. 

The editor of Independent Australia, David Donavon has ripped into Fairfax over their incorrect claim in their Brisbane Times that a woman had yelled at Prime Minister Julia Gillard during a Queensland community meeting that she was 'white trash', duly reported by the BT and picked up around the country by various news outlets.
What the woman actually said which is clearly audible on BT's own website is that "we are not white trash" referring to herself and her son.

The Sun

And the Brisbane Time's reaction when asked to correct the lie : total denial it had ever happened.

Sydney Morning Herald

Fairfax share price is plunging almost weekly despite it owning a reputed $5B in assets. Staff are being made redundant at a great rate with 29 fired a fortnight ago in Melbourne.
A month ago the Shuttle ran into a former Fairfax editor, now publisher of on-line magazines. Asked to comment on the anouncment that Fairfax will go digital in 9 years he scoffed. "5 at the most and possibly 3" was his reply. 

On Thursday the Shuttle attended the opening of the French brasserie style Aranas Bar in The Rocks owned by the same people as the nearby Lowenbrau beer cellar. We had forgotten it was Oktoberfestt and had to pick our way past a blaring oompah band and some thigh slapping chaps in lederhosen (we are assured they are of German descent). It was a reasonably staid affair with good food and copious amounts of Veuve Clicquot but the Shuttle didn't visit the Gents or we may have witnessed the bizarre urinals that became a feature the following day in the media.

Gina Rinehart

What we did notice is that the venerable Sydney Morning Herald produced a piece that was almost a carbon copy of Britain's infamous The Sun newspaper which 20 years ago would have been it's ideological opposite, quoting the same sources, feminist Ann Summers and former Parliamentarian Meredith Burgmann.

Will readers sign up to a digital version of Fairfax Newspaper to read this stuff ?. And more importantly, why is the world's richest woman Gina Rinehart snapping up Fairfax shares as they plunge. Is it to put it out of it's misery?.
                                  

Big Picture Fail

 The woes mount for pink haired self promoter Darryn Lyons, boss of  Big Pictures " the world's biggest and best celebrity picture agency", now residing in Australia (although it's probably safe for him to return to the UK now the Leveson Inquiry has concluded).

Questionable deals seem to have been arranged between Lyons and celebrities like Lara Bingle with reports of set-up "paparazzi" style photo shoots being offered to publications for big bucks.
The Australian media  have been strangely silent with the Shuttle  the only outlet reporting that Big Pictures has gone into administration. Surely it would have nothing to do with the fact they were eager buyers of celebrity snaps from the agency, some obtained by bribing Virgin Airline employees to reveal confidential travel arrangement of famous faces ?.
21 Big Picture staff have been made redundant without pay and freelance photographers are queuing up to demand monies owed. There are claims Lyons has re-located his office to a nearby building along with photographs and files and the snappers say they have asked the Old Bill to investigate.
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Peter Tory (Daily Express)

On the subject of 'high' society, the Shuttle is saddened to hear of the passing of a Fleet Street great that we once worked with.
 Peter Tory was a columnist and editor of the legendary William Hickey Column in the Daily Express and a regular figure on the London social circuit . Described as a 'debonair raconteur', renowned for his humour and quick wit and excellent manners plus an ability to produce a saucy tale for a newspaper devoid of nastiness.

Peter has passed away at the age of 74 after retiring before the 'new celebrity' that now features the likes of Essex girls made good, Jordon and Peter Andre's exploits and other such mind  numbing inanities.                                                
Sydneysiders would have seen him 3 weeks ago on SBS TV in the film Tabloid in which he played himself in the delicious true tale about Joyce McKinney. See it if you missed it.

Re-live Your Puberty

Your Puberty Blues that is.
 The 1981 film that centered around teenage angst on Sydney's Southern beaches has had a new lease of life with the success of the Network Ten TV series of the same name.

Beyond Puberty Blues will be held this Saturday evening at the Bondi Pavilion from 6pm with a special screening of the movie and some of the stars in attendance including Nell Schofield. The night will be a tribute to a co-star Jad Capelja to aid Beyond Blue, the very worthy organisation that provides aid and help to depression sufferers. Tickets are only $28 for what promises to be a great night.
 
 But hurry, tickets are going fast.
October 13th 2012. The Bondi Pavilion Theatre, 6pm – 11pm  Click HERE to buy tickets.
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Meanwhile one of the writers of Puberty Blues Kathy Lette has been out and about in London and attended the launch of Salman Rushdie's new book Joseph Anton which recounts the years he spent under the threat of death.

Rushdie who lived for ten years in a series of 'safe houses' spent time living in the attic of Kathy and her husband barrister Geoffrey Robertson's North London home.

right : author Salman Rushdie at his book launch with Stephen Fry and Kathy Lette

Lady GaGa and Julian Assange

Is Julian Assange one of Lady GaGa's Little Monsters?. Maybe, but it seems GaGa is certainly a fan of Assange's.

Yesterday she visited Julian at the Ecuador Embassy in London and spent five hours chatting to him. It was also the day a magistrate said those who put up Assange's bail of around $220,000 must forfeit the money. They include Australian journalists John Pilger and Phillip Knightley and Jemima Khan. Perhaps GaGa will chip in as well.

Seven Days - a Long Time...

Alan with John Serafino

It was British Prime Minister Harold Wilson who said : "a week is a long time in politics" but it could apply to many things.
Just last week the Shuttle was having celebratory drinks with a handful of guests including arguably Australia's most successful broadcaster Alan Jones at John Serafino's new city boutique.
Two days later his world crashed as a News Ltd reporter revealed Jones' distasteful remarks at a Young Liberals dinner, about the late father of Prime Minister Julia Gillard.  Liberal MP Malcolm Turnbull immediatey condemned Jones via Twitter (completely unconnected with the notion he is after Liberal leader and Jones' supporter Tony Abbott's job).

Peter FitzSimon

And the trickle became a torrent with on-line petitions via Facebook demanding Jones' lucrative sponsors and Radio 2GB advertisers withdraw from his show. And they left in droves- Harvey Norman, Woolworths, Telstra, Coles, McDonalds, 7-Eleven and more.

Mike Carlton

Macquarie Radio (owners of 2GB) chairman Russell Tate condemned the call on advertisers as cyber-bullying after the network finally announced that advertisers would be suspended from Jones' broadcasts completely, a loss of around $24M a year.
 Sun Herald writer Peter FitzSimon demolished that argument in his column yesterday.
 On Saturday Sydney Morning Herald columnist Mike Carlton who was a broadcaster on Radio 2UE when Jones was there (referring to him as The Parrot)  penned a scathing piece titled  Prissy shrieks of fear and loathing casting aspersions on Jones' claim to be an Oxford graduate and with these wounding words :" This is a man who thinks Jeffrey Archer is a great English novelist, whose taste in music screeches to a halt at Andre Rieu."  Jones is a great pal of Archer.

 Media and advertising experts have claimed Jones advertisers will be back eventually. But will they? 
Mercedes Benz have issued the most damning press release saying they have not only abandoned advertising at 2GB permanently but have demanded Jones hand back his grace and favour $250,000 Merc and if not, they will re-possess it.
Still there are plenty more luxury motors in the basement of Jones' luxury apartment in the famous Toaster building. Waiting outside John Serafino's was the latest gleaming Jaguar XJ with a chauffeur perusing the Daily Telegraph while he waited for the master. Unless of course, it's a loaner as well.

Russian Invasion

With a report that Russian oligarch David Traktovenko (left) has slipped into town for Summer, the Shuttle hears a former KGB spy has his eyes set on Australia.

Alexander Lebedev worth a reputed $3B owns Russia's largest bank, a third of Aeroflot, and the UK Independent and Evening Standard newspapers. The Shuttle reported last year that Lebedev and his son Evygeny who runs the families UK interests had cast their the attention on Australia's media.

Evygeny &Alexander Lebedev 

That was put on hold when the Huffington Post re-launched it's new UK & USA on-line newspapers which have become a roaring success, and mooted plans for a Southern hemisphere edition based in Australia. The Aussie version didn't eventuate.

Apparently Lebedev has re-newed his interest and a representative has been in town for 2 weeks based at the Park Hyatt Hotel, holding meetings with a number of people including several well known media figures and meeting with local banks.

Could this be a lifeline for workers of the ailing Fairfax empire that appears to be stumbling badly ?. Last week it's reported Fairfax laid off 29 employees in Melbourne including 18 photographers. News Ltd is also planning large redundancies.
Lebedev subsidies his UK newspaper businesses which don't make a profit but he enjoys the power that comes with being a media mogul while son Evgeny is a fixture on the London social circuit.

On-line newspapers will be the future of publishing.  The Global Mail with it's unique reading format is going from strength to strength and attracting quality writers while crikey has just re-launched it's new website. A recent competitor Independent Australia is quickly gaining a reputation for breaking stories. It's been way ahead of both News & Fairfax in the HSU scandal and been publishing exclusive stories, even trumping both with a scoop about the imminent arrest of the former HSU boss Michael Williamson . The 2 major Australian publishers have lagged in coming to grips with digital and they could now have a well heeled competitor with solid media links on the other side of the world.

'Everything Old Is New Again'

Peter Allen

The line above is from a song by the late Peter Allen, about fads and fashions that re-cycle every few decades. For Allen, an old style showman who was praised as one the USA's greatest live performers, his song was a joyous celebration.

During October and November Australia is to be treated for the first time to another legend and some old style music, the Glen Miller Band on the  75th anniversary of Miller's death. Miller vanished in 1944 when the flight he was on disappeared over the English Channel but his band lives on.
Meanwhile in the UK The Bugle Boy, a musical based on the life of Miller has been drawing huge foot tapping crowds and great praise from critics.The show features a 16 piece band that plays all of Miller's hits.

The Glen Miller Band will premiere at The State Theatre on Thursday 11th October. For tour dates and tickets go to the official website. Below is an exert from The Bugle Boy:

Going Out In Style

Luna Park

Darryn Lyons

Some years ago the Shuttle attended a function at one of Sydney's most fab restaurants Quay.
 With it's glorious views over the Sydney Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and Luna Park (motto : 'Just For Fun') and a reputation as one of the world's top restaurants, it was one of those parties you just don't turn down.

The occasion was the Australian launch of Big Pictures- a newish paparazzi agency that was set to take Australia (and the UK ) by storm.

In typical Shuttle faux pas style we questioned just who was the conservatively suited rotund chap before us (protectively eyeing our third glass of Moët).
" I am Big Picture", he responded.
For it was he : the (not yet) cockatoo haired Darryn Lyons, late of Bendigo in Victoria and soon to take London by storm.
Sadly it's all come adrift. While the broadcaster Alan Jones' (left) media career seems to be plunging downwards- only days after the Shuttle sipped drinks with him at tailor John Serafinos's 50th year celebrations-so too is Big Picture grinding to halt with the announcement that it is in administration.  Read it all in the Press Gazette.

Back In The Big Smoke

Duncan & Sally

They are some of the Shuttle's fave people :
British born banker Duncan Mount and his glamorous wife ex-model  Sally. They hosted sensational parties at their Elizabeth Bay Spanish style, harbourside mansion Boomerang.

Once they let out Boomerang to Tom Cruise so he could film Mission Impossible 2 there. During the day we would see Duncan tooling about town in his black Rolls convertible, dropping the kids off at school or perhaps the video hire shop in Kings Cross.

Cedar Springs

Then they upped stakes and departed for Byron Bay and principally Paul Hogan's hinterland mansion Cedar Springs at Possum Creek which they bought off Hoges for $8.1M (after selling Boomerang for a whopping $29M). Hoges had built the 27 room mansion in 1990 for his marriage to Linda Kozkowski.

Boomerang

Paul & Linda

Duncan who made a fortune selling bicycles to the masses in Hong Kong parceled up Hoges extensive acres and sold them off for $2M a plot.
 Last week he unloaded Possum Creek for a reputed $6.5M. The last we saw of the Mounts they were back in Sydney living in a rented Bellevue Hill penthouse and contemplating the future. Hopefully they'll hit the scene again soon.  We need them !.
                                                    

Alan Jones Stays Loyal

Les Murray, John Serafino and Alan Jones

 How 24 hours can change the world.
 Just before it seems his world was to crash, broadcaster Alan Jones was hobnobbing with city tailor John Serafino who hosted drinks at his new Pitt Street store to celebrate his half a century dressing Sydney businessmen and radio stars.

Aaaron Zerefos checks out the finery

Amongst Serafino's customers are Jones and his rival John Laws , singer Kamahl plus a host of corporate names who flock to John's store for their expertly tailored duds. Serafino travels to his store every day and has done so for the last 50 years and just recently moved to new premises. He has a sale on at present with a 50% discount. Check it out at 51 Pitt Street near Circular Quay.

Up The Workers!

Bob Hawke & John Singleton

To harbour side Balmain and the launch of The Workers Bar in Darling Street. The Workers is part owned by media mogul John Singleton who also hosted the launch party and it's part of Unity Hall, the pub Singleton owns and the location for a legendary meeting of unionists in 1891 that coincided with the famous Shearer's Strike in Queensland.

Out of that strike and the Balmain meeting came the formation of the Australian Labor Party, the first 'worker's party' in the world and now the longest surviving political party that is still in government under the  leadership of PM Julia Gillard.

Ned Kelly (?), Benny Elias & Sally Singleto

So who better to invite to launch the Worker's Bar than the great legend himself, former trade union boss and the 23rd prime Minister Bob Hawke.
 Bob is 83 and as sprightly as a 40 year old. He's also a great pal of Singleton's and told a fairly racy joke about his friend which we won't relate here. Suffice to say it's not hard to see that Hawkie is still one of Australia's most beloved political figures who during his tenure at the top received approval ratings of around 80%.

As for Balmain it's hardly a worker's paradise anymore and the fine convict built sandstone houses and terraces are more likely to be inhabited by bankers, stockbrokers and celebrity figures like playwright David Williamson and actors Judy Davis and Colin Freils who have a large waterside mansion. Still there are plenty of young professionals living locally and The Worker's bar is bound to become a favoured watering hole.

Life At The Top

Nick & Holly

Former soap star Holly Vallance is to get hitched to her (reputed) billionaire boyfriend property developer Nick Candy this Saturday in Los Angeles at a wedding bash that is said will cost up to $2M. Guests like Sir Elton John  and Simon Cowell are expected to celebrate with the couple.

Erica & James

Meanwhile in Sydney local billionaire James Packer and his beautiful wife former model Erica


have just welcomed the birth of their second baby daughter Emmanuelle yesterday.
 James is selling off the last of the media empire he inherited from father Kerry Packer for around $1B while he expands his gambling and casino empire.

Ain't life grand !.

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And from the Emmys actor Tom Hanks demonstrated a new use for the award : he taped one to the bonnet of his car and drove around LA.

Lots Of Life in This Latte

Latte Life's Jane King cuts a birthday cake while Maria Venuti sings

Double Bay based local newspaper Latte Life celebrated it's second successful year with a party at the Watson's Bay Hotel hosted by editor Jane King.

Loyal readers Jan & Geoffrey Karpin

What started as an experiment has became a major success with distribution now extended throughout Sydney's Eastern suburbs with celebrities and local politicians courting support from the publication.

Aaron Zerefos & Cheyenne Tozzi

Celebrity agent Max Markson emceed the evening and chanteuse Maria Venuti sang Happy Birthday to the assembled throng.

Later in the evening gorgeous model Cheyenne Tozzi took to the stage to sing a few numbers. 


 Read the newspaper online here.



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Chip Of The Old Block

 Not too hard to see who this lad takes after. Young Roman Upton is Cate Blanchett's son and he escorted her last night to the Helpmann Awards. Dad Andrew Upton, who Roman is the image of was busy working.
 Cate picked up the Best Actress Award for her role in the Sydney Theatre Company's Gross Und Klein while Paul Capsis (right) picked up Best Actor for his brilliant part in the Belvoir Street Theatre's Angela's Kitchen.