On January 1st Chris Thompson the presenter of Behind the Scenes passed away. The time, effort and care Chris put into Behind the Scenes and all other programs he touched here at Vision Australia Radio are a tribute to his passion and dedication to Vision Australia Radio and the arts.

Chris and his producer Mark put together some Summer Specials at the end of 2025 and with the blessing of his family we would like to share with you these Behind the Scenes specials.

Vision Australia Radio will always be indebted to Chris for his volunteering, and we share our deepest sympathies with his friends, family and colleagues.

Summer Special #3 - Monday January 19, 2026

We kick off our third Behind the Scenes Summer Special for 2026 with Part 2 of our visit to Adelaide.

Over January we’ve been chatting with some remarkable people from the arts world - slightly longer chats about their lives and work. Some have joined us for the very first time, and others might have been familiar to you if you’re a regular listener. This week we focus on the State Theatre Company of South Australia when we meet designer Kathryn Sproul, who’s working on two shows in this year’s season as well as relatively new Artistic Director Petra Kalive.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On January 1st Chris Thompson the presenter of Behind the Scenes passed away. The time, effort and care Chris put into Behind the Scenes and all other programs he touched here at Vision Australia Radio are a tribute to his passion and dedication to Vision Australia Radio and the arts.

Chris and his producer Mark put together some Summer Specials at the end of 2025 and with the blessing of his family we would like to share with you these Behind the Scenes specials.

Vision Australia Radio will always be indebted to Chris for his volunteering, and we share our deepest sympathies with his friends, family and colleagues.

SUMMER SPECIAL #2 – Monday January 12, 2026

Welcome to the second Behind the Scenes Summer Special for 2026. Over January we chat with some remarkable people from the arts world - slightly longer chats about their lives and work. Some will join us for the very first time, and others might be familiar to you if you’re a regular listener.

This week is part one of a two-part visit to Adelaide which, of course, means we will start with our regular Adelaide correspondent Elena Vereka but for a change, we’ll be talking about her work with InSite Arts – then she introduces us to dancer turned audio describer, Carol Wellman Kelly, before we catch up with Elena’s predecessor, our former Adelaide correspondent and Artistic Director of Patch Theatre, Geoff Cobham.

They’re all in Adelaide with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On January 1st Chris Thompson the presenter of Behind the Scenes passed away. The time, effort and care Chris put into Behind the Scenes and all other programs he touched here at Vision Australia Radio are a tribute to his passion and dedication to Vision Australia Radio and the arts.

Chris and his producer Mark put together some Summer Specials at the end of 2025 and with the blessing of his family we would like to share with you these Behind the Scenes specials.

Vision Australia Radio will always be indebted to Chris for his volunteering, and we share our deepest sympathies with his friends, family and colleagues.

Summer Special #1 - Monday January 5, 2026

This week we kick off our Behind the Scenes Summer Specials for 2026. Over January we chat with some remarkable people from the arts world - slightly longer chats about their lives and work. Some will join us for the very first time, and others might be familiar to you if you’re a regular listener.

First up, we meet a mother and daughter from a pretty famous artistic and musical family who both happened to release new albums at the end of last year. Tracey Miller has been a fixture of the music scene for around forty years - some might even say she’s a legend. Maybe she prefers ‘queen’ given that’s the title of her album – Queen of the Creek.

Tracey’s daughter Loretta Miller has also been around for a while, but while you’ll hear her voice on many other artists’ albums, she’s making her solo debut with a self-titled album, Loretta.

They both join Chris Thompson at his kitchen table to talk about their lives, about their music and, of course, about their new albums.

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Screens&Streams Annual Wrap - Monday December 29, 2025

Well, it’s that time of the year again when we look back at what we’ve been seeing on our big and small screens over the past twelve months. Marc Gracie is here for one last go around with our 2025 Screens&Streams Movie Wrap – what were our favourite movies and streamers? What were our biggest disappointments? What surprised us? And what are we looking forward to next year? You’ll get the answers to all these questions on this week’s special edition of the Behind the Scenes Movie Wrap with Chris Thompson and Marc Gracie right here on Vision Australia Radio.

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We kick off this week’s festival season show with a little Christmas song from Sting called Soul Cake… and if we’re starting with a Christmas song then that must mean this is our last regular show for the year. But fear not, there’s plenty of good stuff lined up for our season of Summer Specials…

But first, let’s meet some people who are getting ready to help us kick off 2026 with some really great events.

First up, it’s the Peninsular Summer Music Festival which would explain why Melissa Doecke is back to let us know what she and Ben Opie have got lined up for us this year.

Then, it seems like Adelaide is taking over Arts Centre Melbourne in January when Patch Theatre returns with their sublime work for children – Zooom – and we’ll chat with our former Behind the Scenes Adelaide Correspondent Geoff Cobham, who also happens to be Artistic Director of Patch.

Then once Patch leaves the building, Gravity and Other Myths moves in with their high energy show, Ten Thousand Hours and we catch up with the company’s Co-Founder and Director of this production, Lachlan Binns.

And finally, Arena Theatre Company in Bendigo may not have anything planned for January, except maybe a farewell party for long-serving Artistic Director Christian Leavesley who, true to his name, is leaving.

They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.

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A bit of poetry to get us going this week with award winning poet and playwright Emilie Collyer who has a new collection of works called As If I’m Really There… funny that, because she really is here…

Then we’re getting in early on the 2026 Midsumma Festival with CEO Karen Bryant who’s here to give us an overview of the whole programme… followed by Karan Nagrani whose festival show From Grndr to Blindr invites us to experience storytelling through the eyes of someone who's learning to live without sight.

And finally, some music to take us out from a Benson and Clem who go by the name Missing Opal and who, surprisingly write and record their music together even though Benson lives here in Naarm/Melbourne and Clem lives in London.

They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.

If you’d like to hear my other conversations with Emilie Collyer – we spoke about her first collection – Do You Have Anything Less Domestic - on the December 12, 2022 show and we spoke about her play Super on the June 16 show this year - you’ll find them both on our podcast page- just put Vision Australia Radio Behind the Scenes into your favourite podcast search engine and you’ll find this and all our other episodes and bonus chats… plus if you subscribe, you’ll never have to search for an episode or our bonus material again… talk with you next week… bye!

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Jake Lynch & Annabel McGoldrick met in 1992 when they were reporters for Yorkshire Television. They married and moved to Australia where, these days, he lectures in Social Justice at Sydney University and she’s a psychotherapist. But now, they’ve combined all those experiences in a murder mystery novel – Mind Over Murder – and we’ll find out how they manage this impressive juggling act.

After that, we’ve got a bit of music when we meet Anne Frankenberg CEO of Musica Viva Australia to find out what they’ve got programmed for 2026, followed by QiQi who’s followed up a successful Fringe season with a live album – Elysian Blues – recorded at this year’s Sleepless Festival AND a solo EP both of which will be launched this weekend at Tempo Rubato in Brunswick.

Then Marc Gracie’s here for a bumper, final Screens & Streams for the year ahead of our annual movie wrap at the end of the month.

They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.

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It's our last Theatre Network Australia segment for 2026 which means Yuhui Ng Rodriguez is here for a final wrap up and to tell us who our final TNA Member of the Month is… here’s a clue – multidisciplinary artist and creative producer Teneille Clerke is hanging on the line…

Then, it's our last visit to Darwin for the year and Brown’s Mart Artistic Director Yvette Walker will be talking us through their recently released programme for 2026…

Then, it’s music all the way to the end of the show…

First up is young singer/songwriter and mental health advocate Harley Müller (aka Capes and Crowns) who’s just released a second single from his new album – Growing Pains…

…and then, Tim Richmond of the Tim Richmond Group fame has been recording songs since the early nineties and he’s just released a new solo album – The Taste…

We’ll meet both musos and listen to some of their music…

They’re all on this week’s edition of Behind the Scenes with Chris Thompson right here on Vision Australia Radio.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.