The guy on the corner wearing a pirate hat. The man who says everything twice. The small, tanned smiling man who walks everywhere. The dancing man. The woman with long grey hair who plays piano. The eleven year old who busks as a statue. The shoe shiner. The barber who sings.
Every town and city has local characters who populate it. People who everyone knows or at least knows of. We might not know much about them, or who their friends and family are, but we know what they do every day and how they go about their lives.
This episode is all about the mystery of the local character. Some of them are real, and some of them are fictional.
The sausage who joined Michael in the studio, though, she was real.
Graham Graham
What makes someone a local character? Could we be local characters ourselves? Made Stuchbery explores this through a fictional story about a man named Graham who says everything twice.
Produced by Made Stuchbery
Flag Man
Everyone on Steve’s street knows who he is – they decode the flags that fly from the mas in his front yard.
Produced by Harriet Conron
Garage Sale
If you’ve ever had a garage sale in the Sydney region, you might have had an early morning knock on your door from VICKI WILLIAMS. Vicki is a garage sale enthusiast and nothing pleases her more than getting up at the crack of dawn to scour the possessions of strangers.
Produced by Karla Arnall
Michael was joined in the studio by Brunswick local character Snags from the band The Burnt Sausages.
Presenters: Michael Brydon and Michaela Morgan
Community Coordinator: Pip Rasmussen
Executive Producer: Giordana Caputo
Features Executive Producers: Heidi Pett & Jess O’Callaghan
Image Credit: Harriet Conron
There’s a lot of mythology around neighbours. A good neighbour can turn into a very convenient friend, one who lends you a cup of sugar when you run out mid-bake, or who’ll water your plants when you’re out of town.
Then there are the neighbours who are a pair of eyes over a back fence, or a passive aggressive note stuck to your front door. The people who steal your newspaper subscription. The mysterious Boo Radley at the end of your street.
This episode we found out that when it comes to neighbours, the truth is much more interesting that fiction. Some of our listeners should probably move house. Or at least have quieter sex and parties.
All My Neighbours Are Dead
We’ve all had bad neighbours, right? The loud ones, the ones that are up all night playing awful guitar, the ones that host endless parties. Well Yasmin Parry moved house earlier this year and she thought she’d scored the perfect place. It was big, with lots of light, in a good neighbourhood.
And it was quiet. Really quiet.
Produced by Yasmin Parry
Music Credits:
Danse Macabre (Dance of Death) by Camille Saint-Saëns, Get the Party Started by Pink, Smile Like You Mean it by Mika, Don’t Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult
Sex sounds, torn up trees and marriage
We asked for stories about your neighbours. Stories about people who really did fall in love with the girl or boy next door, current affair style feuding neighbours, and the neighbours you actually do borrow things from. Turns out most of you guys hate your neighbours.
Presenters: Michaela Morgan and Michael Brydon
Community Coordinator: Pip Rasmussen
Executive Producer: Giordana Caputo
Features Executive Producers: Heidi Pett & Jess O’Callaghan
Image Credit: Johnny Ainsworth
“If we are going to create a better future for ourselves the people who are going to show us how to do it are those people who are working in the crazy spaces.”
New York, LA, Tokyo. We see cities destroyed all the time in film, TV and in books. But how often does the apocalypse come home to Australia? And what does this mean for our ability to imagine catastrophe? This week on All the Best, we’re destroying Australian cities and towns, in all sorts of fictional, terrifying ways.
We’re ducking for cover and stocking up on canned goods. We’re digging bunkers and investing in solar panels. This episode is all about the apocalypse.
Melbourne Crumbling
Melbourne author Jane Rawson imagined a Melbourne in 2030, a Melbourne which is unbearably warm, a west full of slums and a city swelling with US dollars and UN soldiers. Here, she and Emma Kohen visit the Doutta Gala Hotel in Flemington, destroyed in Jane’s novel A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists and talk about climate change, community, and the importance of leafy suburbs.
Produced by Emma Koehn
Music Credits: ‘Rarified’ by Podington Bear
Fallout
Professor Joseph Siracusa, a nuclear conflict expert talks to Leona Hameed about the day after. How would Melbourne cope in the event of a nuclear terrorist attack, and what has imagination got to do with it? Dr. Leonie Cooper shows us around the Brave New World project at Monash University and Professor Keith Jacobs discusses why hope hope can be found in these crazy spaces.
Produced by Leona Hameed
Music Credits: ‘Overout’ by Johnny Ripper , ‘Little Cloud’ by Johnny Ripper, ‘Keep Them Alive’ by Nuclear Winter
Apocalypse Fiction
We asked writers to re-imagine the places they lived in apocalypse fiction.
Thanks to Yumi Iwama, Erin Handley, John Back and Deborah Kane for their contributions. The complete stories in which they destroy Melbourne, Tamworth, and rural Queensland can be read here.
Music credits: ‘Little Cloud’ by Johnny Ripper
Presenters: Michael Brydon and Michaela Morgan
Community Coordinator: Pip Rasmussen
Executive Producer: Giordana Caputo
Features Executive Producers: Heidi Pett & Jess O’Callaghan
Image Credit: Bruce Melendy / Flickr
There are some things we do day after day after day. This episode of All the Best is all about those things. We have stories about waking up, going to work, singing quietly on the commute. Stories about the every day things that can make someone happy – and how they change over time. And a story about something we all use every day, and rarely think twice about.
Routine
Pip Rasmussen and Milly McGrath decided to take a look at the repetitive life circuit of the modern day worker who doesn’t even come close to a boundary, let alone over step it.
Produced by Pip Rasmussen and Milly McGrath
Toilet Renaissance
This is a story of design, and the people that use that which is designed.
The designer: Conrad Johnston of Fox Johnston.
The non-designer: Tiger Webb
The Design: Cockatoo Island Amenities.
Yes, it’s about toilets. This is a story about the most everyday of objects, one you never think twice about, and the thought that goes into making your daily deuce more pleasant.
Produced by Gordon Leibowitz
Supervising Producer: Tiger Webb
Music credits: ‘Se rayer provisoirement de la liste des vivants’ by Melodium, ‘Emptykuerten’ by Melodium, ‘Eyes Closed’ by BadBadNotGood, ‘Confessions’ by BadBadNotGood
Doodling
What makes you happy? Feta cheese? Getting mail? 7:15pm? Are the things that make you happy the same now as they were at 19?
Produced by Jess O’Callaghan
Music credits: ‘Gracie’ by Caitlin Park, ‘Out and Over’ by Johnny Ripper
Thanks to Giordana Caputo, Kate Montague, Leona Hameed, Lucie Robson, Michael Brydon, Pip Rasmussen and Scott Whinfield for sharing what makes them happy.
Episode song: ‘Avant Gardener’ by Courtney Barnett
Presenters: Michael Brydon and Michaela Morgan
Community Coordinator: Pip Rasmussen
Executive Producer: Giordana Caputo
Features Executive Producers: Heidi Pett & Jess O’Callaghan
Image Credit: Klaus Friese
