Getting political: David Berthold’s debut Brisbane Festival

Explorations of race, colonialism and the environment are among the many connecting threads running through the 2015 Festival program.
[This is archived content and may not display in the originally intended format.]

Brisbane Festival’s Flexn. Photo by Stephanie Berger.

From an all-male, Singaporean production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest to a life-affirming response to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s brutal colonial past; at first glance there’s little to connect the diverse array of art works from West Africa and South-East Asia which Artistic Director David Berthold has programmed in his inaugural Brisbane Festival.

Unlock Padlock Icon

Unlock this content?

Access this content and more

Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in 2020. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts