Diana Simmonds

Diana Simmonds is one of Sydney’s most respected theatre critics, and was a judge of the 2017 Walkley-Pascall Award for Arts Criticism. She runs the arts website www.stagenoise.com, and was a founder of the Sydney Theatre Awards. She co-presents Sydney radio's Arts Tuesday. She was arts-features editor of The Bulletin, worked on the Sydney Morning Herald, Sunday Telegraph, and Time Out (London), and also for CSU Bathurst, UTS, and University of Sydney. She has published a number of books and has had two stage shows produced.

Diana Simmonds reviews 'How I Clawed My Way to the Middle' by John Wood

October 2020, no. 425 • 24 September 2020

To his obvious surprise, John Wood became a household name playing ordinary, reliable Aussie blokes – most memorably Sergeant Tom Croydon on Blue Heelers and magistrate Michael Rafferty on Rafferty’s Rules – two of television’s best-loved everyday heroes. (I confess to writing about the latter in The Bulletin and describing him as ‘the thinking woman’s crumpet’.) Less well known is ... (read more)

Saint Joan (Sydney Theatre Company)

ABR Arts • 12 June 2018

In his preface to the play, George Bernard Shaw wrote, ‘There are no villains in the piece. Crime, like disease, is not interesting: it is something to be done away with by general consent ... It is what men do at their best, with good intentions, and what normal men and women find that they must and will do in spite of their intentions, that really concern us.’ What concerned Shaw in the 1923 ... (read more)