Podcast: Play in new window
All the Best takes you to places of power outside the hallowed halls of parliaments— in the most unpredictable of places. A disgruntled solicitor swaps her law books for a pole, emerging as one of Australia’s leading pole dancers and a candidate for parliament to boot; while a woman remembers her teenage crush and the undeserving pedestal she placed him on while reading the private diary she kept at the time.
Pole Position
Today, Zahra Stardust is a Penthouse Pet, the Australian Pole Dance Champion and an award-winning stripper. But she was once a full-time as a solicitor in a corporate law firm, and later swapped her law books for sparkles and hotpants. She believes her decision— like pole dancing generally— was more in line with her feminist beliefs.
Produced by Liam Knierim
Sound design by Belinda Lopez
Music: ‘I Touch Myself’ The Divinyls, ‘Closer’ Nine Inch Nails.
Dear Diary
Everyone has at least one teenage crush that has stayed with them: for the rollercoaster of emotions, for the way they consumed your thoughts— and for the sheer awesome power they possessed over you. That one person you’d placed on a pedestal. Niki Aken has one of those people. We hear about him through the diary she kept as a teenager, now shared with the world.
Recorded by Kate Ryan
Produced by Heidi Pett
Music: ‘Escale’ Les Zekoutzy Pourvoir.
Presenter: Georgia Moodie
Features Executive Producer: Belinda Lopez
Executive Producers: Giordana Caputo and Eliza Sarlos
Photo: ‘Zahra Stardust’ by Dieter Knierim
Music: ‘In the Middle of the Night’ Martha Wainwright