#1431 Cities You’ll Never See On Screen

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“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