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Geoffrey Williams interviews the 2018 Darwin Festival’s Artistic Director, Felix Preval.

I remember my first Darwin Festival as though it was yesterday. In 2017, my long-imagined winter migration north, away from marrow-chilling Melbourne winter, had become a reality. And here I was – in shorts, a short-sleeve shirt and thongs – relaxing in spectacularly illuminated parkland, sitting beneath what appeared to be a hundred paper lanterns, sipping a chilled glass of white wine with friends. In the middle of August.

It is late afternoon on 24 December 1974. The residents of Darwin are preparing for Christmas Day, with many believing that the warnings of the approaching tropical cyclone Tracy would amount to nothing. Earlier in the month, Cyclone Selma was predicted to make landfall in Darwin, yet Selma had vanished north.

Muriel's Wedding the Musical was the big winner with five awards, on Sunday 15 July, when the first 20 Helpmann Awards were presented at the 2018 Helpmann Awards Act I, an intimate cocktail hour event held at the Sydney Town Hall. The winners were announced for the best creative, designer and supporting roles as well as the Awards for Best Presentation for Children, Best Regional Touring Production and Best Special Event in front of an industry A-list crowd.

Circus/Cabaret is the way to go, as Coral Drouyn has discovered.

Once, not so very long ago, theatre restaurants were the choice for people who wanted their entertainment accompanied by food and a bottle of something naughty, but times inevitably change. Now circus/cabaret is fulfilling that brief and offering something naughty on stage and off.