Australian Story

TV.Cynic · May 23, 2024, 7:08am

Kylie Kwong

Monday 27 May 8:00pm

Introduced by Australian Story presenter Leigh Sales

In the third and final instalment of Australian Story’s series on restaurateurs, Kylie Kwong looks back on her stellar 30-year career and reveals why it is time to embark on a new direction in life.

Kylie reflects on the pivotal moments of her life, including the trauma she and her wife Nell endured when their son Lucky was stillborn in 2012 and how she channelled that grief into something positive.

Other interviewees include friend Nigella Lawson and friend and mentor Maggie Beer.

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JohnsonTV · May 30, 2024, 1:15am

On The Outside Looking In - Cold Chisel

Monday 3 June 8:00pm (45 minute special)

As legendary rock band Cold Chisel prepare for their 50th-anniversary tour, Australian Story looks back over the band’s colourful history and examines why they have become such an essential part of our cultural history.

“The songs start as hits and then they become anthems,” says journalist, writer and fan Trent Dalton. “And then, with time, they become sacred.”

Music writer Mark Mordue – a Chisel fan since he was a teenager in Newcastle – says the songs are embedded into the national psyche. “Songs like Flames Trees and Khe Sanh, they’re stone-cold classics and they’re as much a part of who we are as Henry Lawson’s story The Driver’s Wife or Banjo Paterson’s The Man from Snowy River.”

In a special 45-minute episode, all four surviving members – Jimmy Barnes, Ian Moss, Don Walker and Phil Small – recount how the band rose from industry outsiders filling rough suburban pubs to arena-filling rock royalty.

An extraordinary live band, they were a combustible unit and broke up for the first of many times in 1983. “When we split up, I thought within two years it would be ‘Cold who?’,” says guitarist Moss. “But it’s the songs. It all comes down to the songs.”

This episode looks beyond the band’s history to explore the enduring impact and appeal of those songs.

“People come up to me in the street and say, I played your songs at my son’s 21st. I danced my first dance with my wife to your songs. I buried my son or buried my father to your songs,” Jimmy Barnes tells Australian Story.

Vietnam veteran Bob King describes Khe Sanh as the “unofficial national anthem” of Australia, since most people know the lyrics better than they do for the official anthem.

As the band prepare for the upcoming tour, songwriter and keyboard player Don Walker says he is looking forward to performing again.

Also see

TV.Cynic · June 6, 2024, 5:57am

VIDEO: The War Pup | Quaden Bayles

Monday 10 June 8:00pm

Introduced by Australian Story presenter Leigh Sales

Quaden Bayles is no stranger to public attention.

He was only nine when a video of him crying after being bullied over his dwarfism went viral and captured international concern and condemnation.

Now four years later, 13-year-old Quaden is back in the spotlight, this time for a happy reason.

Legendary Mad Max director George Miller reached out after seeing the video and gave him the opportunity of a lifetime.

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JohnsonTV · June 10, 2024, 12:20am

JohnsonTV · August 5, 2024, 10:43pm

The 2024 season resumes next Monday (August 11) at 8pm with a chat with Nick Cave.

Nick Cave with Leigh Sales: The rock legend talks candidly about grief, addiction, religion and why he’s still making challenging music in his 60s.

TV.Cynic · August 6, 2024, 1:04am

Nick Cave with Leigh Sales

Airs Monday August 12, 8pm, on ABCTV, ABC iview and YouTube.

Australian Story returns with an intimate and revealing sit-down interview with Nick Cave, one of the most successful and innovative songwriters and performers this country has ever produced.

For many decades, Cave led a chaotic life, addicted to heroin and fathering two children to different women 10 days apart. In the late 1990s he got clean and met his current wife, Susie Bick, with whom he had twin boys Arthur and Earl.

In 2015, Arthur died in an accidental fall, a cataclysmic event that changed the course of Cave’s life and work. He made the unusual decision to open himself up to his fans, responding to their letters via his website The Red Hand Files. Through this process of communion, he navigated his grief and came to see the world in a different way, embracing religion and making the case for a life grounded in curiosity and kindness.

In a wide-ranging and deeply personal conversation with Leigh Sales, Cave discusses the enduring strength of his Australian roots, what he has learned about grief, his attitude to drugs, his search for meaning in religion and why he continues to make new, often challenging, music well into his 60s with his band the Bad Seeds. He reflects on his famous 1995 duet with Kylie Minogue (“I wasn’t remotely in showroom condition at the time”) and jokes that he is no longer “in awe of my own genius”.

Combined with archival interviews, live performances and excerpts from recent documentaries, Nick Cave’s interview with Leigh Sales paints a fascinating portrait of a complex artist who has made peace with the world while remaining at the peak of his powers.

Producer: Kirstin Murray.

NewsKing · August 12, 2024, 10:35am

Australian Story seems to be breaking with a long-held tradition of not featuring interviewers in the program.

Tonight host Leigh Sales is seen throughout the program interviewing Nick Cave.

TV.Cynic · August 15, 2024, 1:57am

Flashpoint: A matter of conscience or an act of betrayal?

Monday, 19 August, 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview

Presented by Leigh Sales

Former Labor senator Fatima Payman reveals why she voted against her party and the fallout that followed, both at home and in the capital.

A week after she returned to Canberra as an independent, Australian Story presents the dramatic inside story of Senator Fatima Payman’s decision to break ranks with the ALP and cross the floor.

Senator Payman gives a rare insight into the conflict that arises when private views clash with party policy and the personal toll of her actions on her and new husband Jacob Stokes.

“It’s not often that your wife is in a public fistfight with the prime minister,” says Stokes, who was then a Labor staffer in WA.

“We got into arguments about it.”

After speaking out against the party’s position on the Gaza war, the first-term senator became the centre of a media and political storm, which culminated when she quit Labor to sit on the crossbench seven weeks ago.

Labor Minister Anne Aly speaks candidly about her former colleague’s actions.

Australian Story documents the WA senator’s return to federal parliament as an independent, speaking to her controversial new chief of staff, former “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery.

“I don’t know what to expect in terms of how my former colleagues are going to treat me,” she says.

Fatima Payman was the first-born of four siblings whose family were forced to flee when the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan. In 2022, at the age of 27, she unexpectedly won a seat in the Senate for Western Australia and became the parliament’s first politician to wear a hijab.

She’s the first Labor member to cross the floor in 40 years.

Producers: Olivia Rousset, Robyn Powell and Kirstin Murray.

TV.Cynic · August 21, 2024, 5:45am

Dead Funny: Michelle Brasier

Presented by Leigh Sales

Monday 26 August at 8pm

Comedian Michelle Brasier was once told by a doctor that given her family history she had a 97 per cent chance of getting cancer.

Her response – to laugh in the face of death.

She’s toured the world with her acclaimed stage show Average Bear, an intimate and comical insight into her life, which leaves audiences howling with laughter one minute and drying tears the next, as she jokes about keeping her brothers’ ashes under the sink in a zip lock sandwich bag and getting sick of eating all the home baked lasagnas given to her family after her dad’s death.

“Comedy is good friend to grief. Physiologically laughing, crying and singing are all really close, and so I’m always on the edge of one of them and I like it, I like that” Brasier says.

But off-stage Michelle’s grappling with the serious side of living with a fear of dying young from cancer.

As she contemplates her future, she discovers that genetic testing may not give her all the answers she needs.

So, she’s learning to embrace uncertainty.

“They say that I’m young, I have a head start. And so, my body is a temple and I go to yoga and they say that I will die young. And so, I party and I do this for a job and I haven’t consolidated my super. And maybe everyone should live like me. Yoga in the morning, whisky in the evening”.

Producers: Kirstin Murray & Vanessa Gorman.

TV.Cynic · August 29, 2024, 3:41pm

This is How it Goes | Missy Higgins

Monday 2 September 8:00pm

Singer-songwriter Missy Higgins shot to fame when still in her teens. Her 2004 debut album the Sound of White sold a million copies and won five Aria Awards.

From the start, Higgins was always determined to do things her own way, resisting attempts to be moulded into a pop star, and withstanding intense speculation about her sexuality.

Twenty years on, Higgins’ lyrics have shifted from teenage to middle age angst, as she grapples with the unexpected collapse of her marriage and the challenges of becoming a single mother. Music, as always, has helped her through her darkest hour.

Watch Monday September 2, 8:00pm (AEST), on ABCTV, ABC iview and YouTube.

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foxyrover · August 29, 2024, 10:30pm

New album coming out soon? Booked everywhere it seems.

JohnsonTV · August 29, 2024, 11:10pm

Missy Higgins posted the same promo on her Instagram last night, with this message:

Eek, I finally did Australian Story! This has been in the works for a while. Nervous and a little excited, but mostly nervous, haha. We’ve gone deep Catch it on Monday at 8pm on @abciview and prepare yourself to find out more about me than you probably wanted to!

Thanks #AustralianStory for featuring me, I’m a fan of the show so it’s a real honour

JohnsonTV · August 30, 2024, 11:39pm

Missy Higgins is also on the cover of Good Weekend magazine inside The Age and SMH today.

(paywall article)

TV.Cynic · September 3, 2024, 10:15pm

Making Lachlan Murdoch: A Three-Part Special

Monday 9 September at 8pm

Who is Lachlan Murdoch? And how has he been shaped by the family legacy, his rivalry with his siblings, the years at his father’s side and those spent estranged from the media empire?

In a three-part Australian Story special, journalist Paddy Manning sheds light on one of the media industry’s most enigmatic and least understood characters.

From Australia to Britain and America, Manning talks to those who know, have worked with and reported on the Murdochs for decades. He examines how Rupert Murdoch built his media empire, explores his complicated relationship with Lachlan and how his desire for one of his children to take over the family business led to the bitter rivalry that is about to play out in a US courtroom.

The first episode, Blood, examines the origins of the Murdoch family mythology – the desire for power, the love of newspapers, the disdain for elites and the sense of being an underdog – that drove Rupert Murdoch in his voracious global expansion and has been absorbed by his eldest son.

It reveals the unhappiness of the family’s time in London, where Lachlan was born in 1971, and how Lachlan was prepared from a young age by his father for a life in the media. It also exposes the roots of the sibling rivalry between Lachlan, his older sister Elisabeth and younger brother James.

The three-part special combines a treasure trove of archival material with acute analysis from friends, associates and commentators, including James Packer, Malcolm Turnbull, New York Times journalist Jim Rutenberg, footballer Ian Roberts and former Murdoch employees Mark Day, Eric Beecher, Roy Greenslade and David Armstrong.

Manning’s fascination with the Murdochs, and Lachlan in particular, has led to him becoming one of the world’s leading authorities on the family. In this landmark series, he combines forensic investigative skills with a down-to-earth style to tell one of the great untold stories of our time.

Producer: Greg Hassall.

foxyrover · September 4, 2024, 6:48am

A puff piece?

dipper · September 9, 2024, 11:03am

After watching tonight’s episode, which I found very interesting - can’t fault it content or production wise and will be watching the next two episodes - but don’t really feel it’s really an ‘Australian Story’. Much like the Nick Cave episode which felt more like watching One plus One, this feels like it could have been a standalone series or under another brand. Whether it be lack of funding or for whatever reason it feels like stories that wouldn’t have been otherwise told on Australian Story are being shoehorned in and potentially tarnishing a much loved brand.

TV.Cynic · September 11, 2024, 6:24am

AUSTRALIAN STORY

Monday 16 September at 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview

Making Lachlan Murdoch Part 2: Money

Who is Lachlan Murdoch? And how has he been shaped by the family legacy, his rivalry with his siblings, the years at his father’s side and those spent estranged from the media empire?

In a three-part Australian Story special, journalist Paddy Manning sheds light on one of the media industry’s most enigmatic and least-understood characters.

From Australia to Britain and America, Manning talks to those who know, have worked with and reported on the Murdochs for decades. He examines how Rupert Murdoch built his media empire, explores his complicated relationship with Lachlan and how his desire for one of his children to take over the family business led to the bitter rivalry that will play out this week in a US courtroom.

This second episode, Money, examines Lachlan’s complicated relationship with the family business – his desire to prove himself to his father and take over the empire but his need to also show that he can also go it alone.

It looks at his wins and losses – including Super League, which pitted him against fellow media heir James Packer, One.Tel, REA and Channel Ten – his nine-year self-imposed exile from the family business and his eventual return following the phone-hacking scandal in the UK that tarnished the reputation of his brother James.

Making Lachlan Murdoch combines a treasure trove of archival material with acute analysis from friends, associates and commentators, including James Packer, Malcolm Turnbull, New York Times journalist Jim Rutenberg, footballer and friend Ian Roberts and former Murdoch employees Mark Day, Eric Beecher, Roy Greenslade and David Armstrong.

Manning’s fascination with the Murdochs, and Lachlan in particular, has led to him becoming one of the world’s leading authorities on the family. In this landmark series, he combines forensic investigative skills with a down-to-earth style to tell one of the great untold stories of our time.

Producers: Paddy Manning, Lisa McGregor and Greg Hassall.

TV.Cynic · September 19, 2024, 8:47am

Making Lachlan Murdoch: Part 3

Monday, 23 September at 8pm

This week extraordinary scenes unfolded in Nevada, USA, as Lachlan Murdoch, his father Rupert and siblings Prudence, Elisabeth and James made their way up the steps of a Reno courthouse with their respective spouses. At stake, the future of the Murdoch empire, as Lachlan and Rupert attempt to alter the family trust to secure Lachlan’s position following Rupert’s death. It’s a battle that has torn the once-close family apart.

Journalist Paddy Manning has covered the Murdochs for years and is the leading expert globally on Lachlan Murdoch. In the third and final part of this Australian Story special, he explores how the fight to succeed Rupert Murdoch came to this.

Manning looks at the power struggle between Lachlan and his brother James following Lachlan’s return to the family business in 2014 and the forces that led to the present acrimony. He also examines the role of Fox News in the 2020 US election and its explosive aftermath and looks ahead to the coming election in November.

From Australia to Britain and America, Manning talks to those who know, have worked with and reported on the Murdochs for decades. A treasure trove of archival material is combined with acute analysis from friends, associates and commentators, including James Packer, Malcolm Turnbull, New York Times journalist Jim Rutenberg, former footballer and friend Ian Roberts and former Murdoch editor Eric Beecher.

In this landmark series, Paddy Manning combines forensic investigative skills with a down-to-earth style to tell one of the great untold stories of our time.

TV.Cynic · September 25, 2024, 4:21am

Leading Man: Michael Theo - Monday 30 September

Monday, 30 September, 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.

How Love on the Spectrum and Austin’s Michael Theo found his voice and became a global star.

When Michael Theo was diagnosed with autism as a boy, his parents were told to set their expectations low for what he could achieve. Initially non-verbal, Michael developed an early fascination with animated film and TV and that helped him learn to talk. He would sit for hours reciting scripts, with a particular love for the villains, and he began to harbour an unlikely dream to become an actor.

His teenage years were difficult. He was marginalised by his peers and developed terribly low self-esteem, referring to himself as a “double scoop of dog crap”.

But everything changed in his mid-20s when his search for a girlfriend propelled him onto the TV series Love on the Spectrum. Audiences in Australia and around the world fell in love with the straight-talking romantic. Then a TV director came knocking to see whether Theo could act, and an unlikely dream became a reality.

TV.Cynic · October 3, 2024, 11:48pm

Holding On | Gus Taylor

Monday October 7, 8:00pm

Introduced by Australian Story presenter Leigh Sales

Gus Taylor understands the risks of rock climbing better than most. The 34-year-old has been involved in two devastating accidents but each time he’s returned to the rockface, determined to “turn mistakes into gold”.

In 2017 he fell and shattered his leg. After three years and 11 surgeries the leg was amputated but he returned to climbing with a special prosthetic leg.

Then tragedy struck. He agreed to take a friend for his first climb and in a freak accident his friend was struck by a loose rock and died. The accident left Gus in a dark place, wrestling with guilt and ready to give up climbing forever.

This is the story of Gus’s long climb back.

Airs Monday October 7, 8:00pm (AEST), on ABCTV and ABC iview.

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