source : the age
Actor Craig McLachlan is attempting to stage a comeback. Again.
The former Neighbours star’s career has been spluttering since he was found not guilty of indecent assault involving allegations made about his behaviour during a production of The Rocky Horror Show.
After attempting a comeback last year, and cancelling it, McLachlan will appear next month in his own cabaret, music, circus, magic and “gloriously twisted” comedy show titled Schadenfreude.
His character is described “as the devilish Dr Schadenfreude”, a “psychologist, eccentric and provocateur”.
The blurb from his PR, Max Markson, states: “The good doctor has a theory: there is something wonderfully entertaining about watching somebody else’s perfectly ordered world fall apart. And he intends to explain exactly why.”
Nothing to do with McLachlan’s real life we are sure.
The show might rankle with those who kept an eye on McLachlan over the years.
In 2018, this masthead reported the former star of the Doctor Blake Mysteries was alleged to have indecently assaulted and sexually harassed female performers during a 2014 stage production of The Rocky Horror Show. McLachlan then launched defamation proceedings against this masthead, the ABC and performer Christie Whelan Browne over reports about the allegations.
In 2020, he was acquitted in the criminal case involving allegations made by four women.
In 2022, McLachlan abandoned his defamation case and was ordered to pay legal costs. And in 2024 Whelan Browne settled out of court a case she brought against production company GFO, seeking compensation for lost earnings and damages.
McLachlan is in Greece on holiday before the big gig, which opens at Melbourne’s Spiegel Haus on October 28 ahead of a potential Sydney run.
Appearing alongside him is a former cast member of The Rocky Horror Show, Kristian Lavercombe, who played Riff Raff in 2600 performances, as well as another Rocky Horror alumni, Stellar Perry, a 2020 grand finalist on The Voice Australia. Also in the cast is Brendan Irving.
Music supervision is by Vanessa Scammell, McLachlan’s partner.
The outcry was considerable a year ago when McLachlan was cast by producer John Frost in a production of Cluedo, and he abandoned the role. In 2023, he appeared in Seven’s survival reality series SAS Australia, quitting the course before the finale.
Schadenfreude promises original music, twisted takes on familiar songs, burlesque and puppetry. The age designation is strictly 18+.
Failure to launch
To infinity and beyond is the dream of former prime minister Scott Morrison, but the plan to build a space port in Far North Queensland might have hit gravitational turbulence after a court application to wind up a company associated with the venture.
Regular readers will recall that Morrison took up the gig as non-executive chairman of Space Centre Australia in October 2024.
Shortly after, Space Centre Australia signed a contract with Hensoldt, the local offshoot of a German aerospace and defence company, to buy two high-performance, next-generation air surveillance radar systems (ASR-NG) in a deal worth about $30 million.
Morrison flew to Taufkirchen, Germany, for the signing along with James Palmer, chief executive of Space Centre Australia.
The ex-PM said: “The establishment of SCA’s Spaceport in Cape York will not just provide the infrastructure needed to make Australia a leading nation in the global space industry, but it will importantly and significantly enhance Australia’s surveillance and aviation domain management capabilities in remote Northern Australia, to support the work of our defence forces and border protection agencies.”
Oh, to dream a dream.
But ASIC documents show that on September 9, Space Centre Australia changed its name to A.C.N. 651 009 737 PTY LTD. And on September 17 Hensoldt lodged in the West Australian Supreme Court action to wind up the company formerly known as Space Centre Australia but now listed under the company number.
CBD reached Hensoldt’s Perth law firm, Jackson McDonald, where a wary sounding lawyer declined to comment.
WA court documents include an affidavit from Nadine Baertl, who is head of finance and control new business and global operations at Hensoldt.
Morrison and Palmer were approached for comment but did not respond by deadline. The WA court application is listed for October 29.
Top end of town
Spotted: On Wednesday, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson was seen sauntering down George Street in Sydney’s CBD, near the Four Seasons hotel in The Rocks, flanked by an entourage and security.
The following afternoon, Hanson’s man in Farrer, David Farley, was seen several hundred kilometres south of his NSW border electorate, outside Melbourne’s historic art deco National Bank of Australia (Western Branch) building in Collins Street, which is now commercial office space.
Who said One Nation was just for the outer suburbs? Its representatives are occasionally spotted in the big smoke.
Cooling off
Heading into Thursday, most people wouldn’t have known much about Brent Thomas, the Australian-based global affairs executive at OpenAI responsible for working with the federal government. No doubt he’ll have better name recognition now, though.
Thomas, who is one of the artificial intelligence behemoth’s most senior local executives, has had a whirlwind 24 hours. There were the bombshell revelations made by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of a rogue OpenAI agent infiltrating Medicare. Then NSW Premier Chris Minns came out and said there was another incident involving an OpenAI agent accessing information held by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
On Thursday, the power of CBD prevailed once again, when we became the only reporters in the country to get Thomas on the phone. The substantive issue we sought comment on was the new $90,000 swimming pool he was granted local council approval for in his humble Sydney suburb of Mortdale.
Our luck ended shortly after Thomas picked up the phone, at which point he politely told us where to go.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
Stephen Brook is a special correspondent for The Age and CBD columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously deputy editor of The Sunday Age. He is a former media editor of The Australian and spent six years in London working for The Guardian.Connect via X or email.
John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.
