Late Night Live - Separate stories podcast

Australia has a surprisingly long history of cinema enjoyment. It takes many forms, and pops up in a wide range of settings. Guest: Ruari Elkington, Senior Lecturer in Creative Industries,  QUT*This show originally aired on 03 February 2025

After 30 years of appearances on Late Night Live - spanning nine Australian Prime Ministers - Laura Tingle bade farewell to LNL as its political correspondent in Canberra, before commencing her ABC Global Affairs role. In a sprawling conversation, Laura recounts her early beginnings in journalism, the ebbs and flows of Canberra politics through the decades, and what she's come to admire in our representatives.Guest: Laura Tingle, ABC Global Affairs Editor *This show originally aired on 26 May 2025

Actor Dame Harriet Walter — known for her recent roles in TV hits like Succession and Killing Eve — has been performing Shakespeare on-stage for half a century. Her latest book She Speaks! imagines what thirty of Shakespeare's female characters might have said if they'd been given more voice in the Bard's beloved plays. Guest: Dame Harriet Walter, actor and author of She Speaks!: What Shakespeare's Women Might Have Said, HachetteOriginally broadcast on 19 May, 2025

One hundred and twenty five thousand people visited Antarctica last year. Can the region cope with an ever growing tourism industry?Guest: Anne Hardy, Professor of Tourism & Society at the University of TasmaniaOriginally broadcast on 5 February, 2025

AI, we’re told, has the potential to free us from mundane tasks, revolutionise industries, and solve global problems. Linguistics Professor Emily Bender, warns that the big tech companies who promote AI, with an almost spiritual zeal, may be off the mark. The warning? Don’t believe the hype.GUEST: Dr Emily M. Bender, Professor of Linguistics, University of Washington and co-author of “The AI Con. How To Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We WantPRODUCER: Ali BentonOriginally broadcast July 2025

During the 1920s, dozens of expeditions scoured the Chinese and Tibetan wilderness in search of the panda bear, a beast that many believed did not exist.  When the two eldest sons of President Theodore Roosevelt sought the bear in 1928, they had little hope of success. But they ultimately introduced the panda to the West. Guest: Nathalia Holt, author of ‘The beast in the clouds: the Roosevelt brothers’ deadly quest to find the mythical giant panda’ (Simon & Schuster) Producer: Ann ArnoldOriginally broadcast July 24, 2025

20 years on from her famous novel The Secret River, writer Kate Grenville retraces the footsteps of her settler ancestors, and asks what it means to be on land taken from other people.Guest: Kate Grenville, author of Unsettled, published by Black Inc

Along the coast of Australia are hundreds of humble shacks, often with interesting stories to tell. Basic shelters for no-frills fishing, or homes for people who were forced to the margins. The stigma attached to coastal shacks has been replaced by nostalgia and a passion for these once-derided items of coastal real estate.Guest: Anna Clark, Professor at the Australian Centre for Public History, University of Technology Sydney. Anna wrote an article about beach shacks for The Conversation website. She is researching the history of the beach in Australia for a forthcoming book. Originally broadcast on 27 January, 2025

In the early seventies two Melbourne feminists hatched an idea to set up their own publishing house. Diana Gribble was a socialite working in advertising and Hilary McPhee a novice editor. McPhee Gribble Publishing was born. Soon authors like Tim Winton, Dorothy Hewett and Helen Garner were knocking at their door. But in 1989 it all came to an end when they were swallowed up by Penguin.Guest: Hilary McPhee, founder and former Publisher at McPhee Gribble and Chair of the Australia Council from 1993–96.Producer: Catherine ZengererOriginally broadcast on 19 February, 2005

Despite the promise that we were “all in it together”, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a flight from sociability. While that escape may have been a relief for some, has it intensified a culture of excessive individualism, narcissism, and disconnection from one another? Julia Baird, Geraldine Brooks and Rachel Kushner join David Marr in front of a live audience at Adelaide Writers' Week.