Amanda Keller hosts a new series coming to the ABC this week which celebrates creating joy by playing the piano.
The producers of the show have searched across the nation to find Australia’s best pianists, young and old. Then they’ve set pianos up in four very public spaces for people to play.
What the participant’s don’t know is that jazz musician Harry Connick Jr and classical music star Andrea
Lam are listening in and will choose four of them for some special mentoring sessions. They’ll then perform at a concert on one of Australia’s most revered stages.
Seventeen-year-old Dom, who lives in rural New South Wales, shares that he hides his love of playing classical music on the piano because he’s afraid that people won’t think its masculine enough. He’s never played on a public piano before, and now he’s about to play on a piano placed in the middle of Sydney’s Central Station.
The Evergreens are a troupe of four women in their 60s, 70s and 80s who play one piano simultaneously. As they launch into Albert Lavignac’s Galop-Marche Harry Connick Jr proclaims, “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”
DJ played the piano since he was young and studied at the Conservatorium of Music with dreams of becoming a concert pianist. He continued his studies is Russia but in his early 20s he suffered a debilitating stroke that left his unable to move the right side of his body. He then learned how to play the piano with just one hand, saying you can do a lot with five fingers.
Some performers also sing while they play, some inspire the surrounding crowd to sing-along, some bring people to tears, and quite few make people to stop and listen – and probably a few people missed their trains.
When he’s asked who his musical heroes are, 16-year-old Fergus says Stevie Wonder and Marry Connick Jr, completely unaware that his hero is just meters away listening to him play.
While 5-year-old Maya from Perth delivers a rendition of Arabesque by Burgmuller that brings the station to a standstill, at the other end of the scale Bill Warden in 103 and still tinkling the ivories.
Throughout this series remarkable stories of different lives and shared, and the power of music can have on mental health and wellbeing. This is a guaranteed free-good series, but it’s also likely to bring a tear to your eye, happy tears though.
Catch the first episode on Sunday 4th May at 7:30pm on ABCTV, and all six episodes will be available to watch on iView.
Everything old is new again: Bergerac is back
Damien Molony is Jim Bergerac, a detective struggling to keep his life together dealing with alcoholism and the trauma of his wife’s death.
The original British series of Bergerac ran for 10 seasons in the 1980s and made a star of actor John Nettles. He’d later go on to appear in the long running Midsummer Murders.
This remake features Molony in the title role, you might have seen him previously in Almost Human, Ripper Street or Brassic. The cast also includes Zoe Wanamaker, Philip Glenister and Pippa Haywood. For the remake the role of Charlie Hungerford has been gender-flipped with Wanamaker taking on the part originally played by Terence Alexander.
‘Heartstopper’ will conclude with a feature film rather than a fourth series
Popular Netflix show Heartstopper is coming to an end, and it’s going to wrap up with a feature film rather than a fourth series.
The series is based on Alice Oseman’s incredibly popular graphic novel series that follows the teenage romance of Charlie Spring and Nick Nelson, and the lives of their closeknit group of friends.
The movie finale will pick up from where the third series ended, where Nick and Charlie took their relationship to the next level. Fans might have a while to wait though for the final instalment; they’re only schedule to begin filming in the English summer which means it will likely be 2026 before the film makes its way on to our screens.
Creator Alice Oseman shared her excitement about the final outing.
“I am completely overjoyed that we will get to tell the end of the Heartstopper story,” Oseman said.
“I’m so grateful to everyone who has worked hard to make this possible and to the incredible fans of Heartstopper for your patience and passion. I cannot wait to bring this story to a magical conclusion.”
