Latest news with #LoveStories
ABC News
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Trent Dalton reflects on the impact of local radio as ABC Radio Brisbane celebrates 100 years on air
There's something timeless about hearing a voice tell a yarn on the radio, it's a powerful connection between life and storytelling that brings together so many. As ABC Radio Brisbane celebrates 100 years of local radio, Loretta and Joel are joined by one of Brisbane's most beloved storytellers live from Queen Street Mall. From a life lived in the backstreets of Darra to the banks of the Brisbane River, he's presented his take on the soul of our city in books like Boy Swallows Universe and Love Stories. Trent Dalton reflects on the impact local radio has had on our city and discusses his upcoming book.
Scoop
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Prepare To Fall In Love: Trent Dalton's Love Stories Comes To The Civic, Auckland, This October
Press Release – 818. Auckland Live, in association with Auckland Writers Festival, proudly presents the New Zealand exclusive season of Love Stories — the critically acclaimed stage sensation by Trent Dalton, direct from standing ovations and five-star raves in Australia. This heart-expanding theatrical gem plays just five performances at The Civic, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, from Thursday 16 October to Sunday 19 October. Adapted for the stage by award-winning playwright Tim McGarry and directed by Sam Strong (the creative team behind the smash-hit page-to-stage adaptation of Boy Swallows Universe), Love Stories invites audiences into Dalton's world: a city street corner, a battered Olivetti typewriter, and a single question posed to strangers passing by – ' Can you please tell me a love story?' ' In a time when we need joy more than ever, Love Stories lifts the spirit.' – Arts Hub From strangers to soulmates, parents to children, friends to lifelong companions, the stories collected and celebrated in this remarkable production traverse the full spectrum of human love. Weaving real-life encounters with music, laughter, movement, and tenderness, Love Stories is an unforgettable tribute to the beauty, fragility, and fierce resilience of the human heart. 'It dives into the chaos of love – the joy, the pain, the laughter, the heartbreak … sending you back to the streets feeling just a little more alive' – The Guardian Trent Dalton reflected on the production's journey from the streets of Brisbane to The Civic in Auckland: 'Early this year, the extraordinary gang from Auckland Live walked me into that hallowed Civic theatre in the heart of that glorious city. They showed me exactly what it will feel like to walk into Love Stories come showtime. The theatre ceiling literally shimmered with a blanket of stars. That theatre – that city, their writer's festival – embodies everything the play is about … community, dreams, storytelling, connection, love in all its tricky and wondrous forms. I kinda lost my mind with the joy and possibility of it all. It's a dream come true for me, to create a piece of art that adds to a history of NZ culture – theatre, books, film, music, art – that has inspired me since I was a teenage writer wannabe who could only dream of having something he wrote travelling across the ditch, all the way to paradise. Thank you Auckland Live, from the bottom of my heart. And thank you dear Auckland!' Daniel Clarke, Director of Performing Arts at Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, leading Auckland Live commented: 'I saw the very first pitch of this work at idea stage and knew that it would be a winner. And it has been. Thousands of people across Australia have seen this play since its world premiere at Brisbane Festival. This is a beautiful work, full of heart and innovatively staged; we can't wait to share this stunning production with the audiences of Aotearoa. It is the perfect spring show – love will be in the air!' Love Stories was originally commissioned and produced by Brisbane Festival and Queensland Performing Arts Centre. The production features additional writing and story by Trent Dalton and Fiona Franzmann, with choreography by Nerida Matthaei, design by Renee Mulder, lighting by Ben Hughes, and original music and sound design by Stephen Francis. Don't miss this moving celebration of humanity, connection, and the stories that bind us. Presales are on now, ahead of the general onsale on Thu 3 July, 9 AM. With just five performances, audiences are encouraged to book tickets early to secure their seats for this strictly limited season. For more information, go to Auckland Live is the premiere organisation for performing arts, culture, entertainment and events in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. As Aotearoa New Zealand's largest performing arts entity, we proudly present a programme of live arts and entertainment across our iconic venues: Aotea Centre, The Civic, Auckland Town Hall, The Cloud, Shed 10, Viaduct Events Centre, Bruce Mason Centre, and Aotea Square. Auckland Live is part of Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, a Council-Controlled Organisation.
Scoop
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Prepare To Fall In Love: Trent Dalton's Love Stories Comes To The Civic, Auckland, This October
Auckland Live, in association with Auckland Writers Festival, proudly presents the New Zealand exclusive season of Love Stories — the critically acclaimed stage sensation by Trent Dalton, direct from standing ovations and five-star raves in Australia. This heart-expanding theatrical gem plays just five performances at The Civic, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, from Thursday 16 October to Sunday 19 October. Adapted for the stage by award-winning playwright Tim McGarry and directed by Sam Strong (the creative team behind the smash-hit page-to-stage adaptation of Boy Swallows Universe), Love Stories invites audiences into Dalton's world: a city street corner, a battered Olivetti typewriter, and a single question posed to strangers passing by - ' Can you please tell me a love story?' ' In a time when we need joy more than ever, Love Stories lifts the spirit.' - Arts Hub From strangers to soulmates, parents to children, friends to lifelong companions, the stories collected and celebrated in this remarkable production traverse the full spectrum of human love. Weaving real-life encounters with music, laughter, movement, and tenderness, Love Stories is an unforgettable tribute to the beauty, fragility, and fierce resilience of the human heart. 'It dives into the chaos of love – the joy, the pain, the laughter, the heartbreak ... sending you back to the streets feeling just a little more alive' - The Guardian Trent Dalton reflected on the production's journey from the streets of Brisbane to The Civic in Auckland: 'Early this year, the extraordinary gang from Auckland Live walked me into that hallowed Civic theatre in the heart of that glorious city. They showed me exactly what it will feel like to walk into Love Stories come showtime. The theatre ceiling literally shimmered with a blanket of stars. That theatre - that city, their writer's festival - embodies everything the play is about … community, dreams, storytelling, connection, love in all its tricky and wondrous forms. I kinda lost my mind with the joy and possibility of it all. It's a dream come true for me, to create a piece of art that adds to a history of NZ culture - theatre, books, film, music, art - that has inspired me since I was a teenage writer wannabe who could only dream of having something he wrote travelling across the ditch, all the way to paradise. Thank you Auckland Live, from the bottom of my heart. And thank you dear Auckland!' Daniel Clarke, Director of Performing Arts at Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, leading Auckland Live commented: 'I saw the very first pitch of this work at idea stage and knew that it would be a winner. And it has been. Thousands of people across Australia have seen this play since its world premiere at Brisbane Festival. This is a beautiful work, full of heart and innovatively staged; we can't wait to share this stunning production with the audiences of Aotearoa. It is the perfect spring show - love will be in the air!' Love Stories was originally commissioned and produced by Brisbane Festival and Queensland Performing Arts Centre. The production features additional writing and story by Trent Dalton and Fiona Franzmann, with choreography by Nerida Matthaei, design by Renee Mulder, lighting by Ben Hughes, and original music and sound design by Stephen Francis. Don't miss this moving celebration of humanity, connection, and the stories that bind us. Presales are on now, ahead of the general onsale on Thu 3 July, 9 AM. With just five performances, audiences are encouraged to book tickets early to secure their seats for this strictly limited season. For more information, go to Auckland Live is the premiere organisation for performing arts, culture, entertainment and events in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. As Aotearoa New Zealand's largest performing arts entity, we proudly present a programme of live arts and entertainment across our iconic venues: Aotea Centre, The Civic, Auckland Town Hall, The Cloud, Shed 10, Viaduct Events Centre, Bruce Mason Centre, and Aotea Square. Auckland Live is part of Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, a Council-Controlled Organisation.
Herald Sun
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Herald Sun
Trent Dalton reveals deeply personal new novel and BSU secret
You probably know TRENT DALTON as the writing sensation behind Boy Swallows Universe – the Aussie No1 novel that became a global Netflix phenomenon – plus a string of other bestsellers like Lola In The Mirror and Love Stories. But he's also an award-winning journalist: so, with a deeply personal new project on the boil, he sat down for an interview – with himself. From secret books to superpowers, this is what he learned... What's on your horizon? A new book called Gravity Let Me Go. It will land across Oz in late-September and I'm currently filled with my usual feelings of profound gratitude and crippling dread. The dread comes from the fact I think this might be the most personal book I've ever written. It's a marriage story buried inside a murder mystery. It's a story about a journalist, a husband, a father of two living in the northern suburbs of Brisbane who becomes so obsessed with the true crime scoop of his lifetime that he almost misses an even bigger scoop: the one about true love and the very meaning of his life. My aim was to write something that might feel familiar to the eight-million-plus married people in this country and to the 70 per cent of Australians who live in the suburbs, while also being my version of a rattling noir-ish whodunit. Ultimately, I think the feelings of dread are a good thing because I think writers can benefit from discomfort; from working in an imaginative space just close enough to the bone to make every word matter. How many times have you watched Boy Swallows Universe on Netflix? Once, from start to finish. And then I think I've skipped to the final scene of the final episode about a hundred times after the kids have gone to bed and it's just me alone with the TV remote. I hope it's not too much of a spoiler to tell you that the final scene is a simple scene of a simple family eating dinner in the suburbs of Brisbane on a balmy summer night. All I ever wanted when I was a kid was for my mum and dad to get back together after breaking up before I could even write my name. My beautiful mum and dad loved each other dearly, they just couldn't live with each other. I wrote a semi-autobiographical book called Boy Swallows Universe that imagined a world in which they might one day be able to live together. Then Netflix came along and turned that book into a series and added on a scene at the end that showed me exactly what such a world might have looked like. It's so beautiful to me, that scene, that I can't stop watching it and every time I do it makes me cry tears of joy. Maybe I think if I watch that scene enough times I might be able to convince myself that it's real. Tell us a secret. What is one thing people may not know about you? Twenty-four years ago I shared half a low-set two-room shoebox rental house with a British World War II veteran in Windsor, Brisbane, who conversed at length with his ginger cat every night after six VB tallies. To distract myself from this dear old man's increasingly troubled nocturnal ramblings, I started to try my hand at writing a book. I called this book Armour. The title came from the fact my three older brothers and I were obsessed with the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. All the streets where we grew up in this particular Housing Commission cluster of Bracken Ridge, Brisbane, were named after Arthur and his knights. Arthur Street. Gawain Road. Percivale Street. Lancelot Street. I always thought it was so hopeful and optimistic that a place bursting daily with innumerable social sores was named after such romantic and noble figures of mythology. I feverishly devoted 40,000 words to Armour before I wisely realised it was a load of garbage and I swapped bad writing for reading the works of good writers and, after doing that for 18 years, I turned the bones of Armour into my first novel, Boy Swallows Universe. Why does music always figure so heavily in your novels? Almost every waking hour that I spend on this earth, there's some form of a song rattling through my head. These songs fall out of me in whistles or the taps of a wooden spoon on a fry pan edge or headbanger slaps of my palms on a steering wheel and sometimes even sentences in my books. Usually one song will rotate for hours on repeat in my head until I've hummed it into oblivion. Today's song has been Nothing Lasts Forever by Echo and the Bunnymen. This is because I've been reading edits of Gravity Let Me Go and one of the characters in the book is wearing an Echo and the Bunnymen T-shirt. This caused me to play, after I dropped my daughter to uni, my favourite Echo song, Nothing Lasts Forever, on the drive home. Of course, good music always has a new revelation for us and today's revelation for me was that the lyrics of Nothing Lasts Forever could actually define what I've been trying to say in all my books: 'All the shadows and the pain are comin' to you' …. but the good news is … 'nothing ever lasts forever'. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Time travel. I'd pull my own version of a Marty McFly and go back in time to 1982 and I'd go down to the Brighton Hotel and become friends with my dad by talking about the wonders of Lennon & McCartney and the films of Jack Nicholson. I'd tell him about the wonders of the future – FaceTime, electric cars and Billy Slater's chip kick try in the 2004 State of Origin – and he'd be so awed by my words that he'd listen to me when I told him he should work harder on fixing his marriage. Trent Dalton's Gravity Let Me Gowill be published later this year by HarperCollins. Chat about – and with – your favourite authors at The Sunday Book Club on Facebook. Originally published as 'Most personal book I've written': Trent Dalton on his new novel, the 'garbage' origin story of Boy Swallows Universe and why he wants to be Marty McFly
