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When Lucinda Davies walked through the doors of Story Factory in 2018, it was as a student in Story Factory’s Year of the Novella, a year-long program where students commit to writing a novella for professional publication at the end of the year. 

Against a minimalist set (Zoë Atkinson) consisting of pale grey squares Christopher (Daniel R. Nixon) introduces himself and his special education teacher, Shiobhan (Brigid Zengeni), who will also narrate part of his story from the book he has written about his adventures.

Louise Milligan has spent most of her writing life as a journalist and her debut novel describes the life of Kate Delaney, well-known around Melbourne for her insightful, compassionate reporting from a range of crime scenes.

Irish playwright Enda Walsh’s Arlington presses the boundaries of theatre with a multimedia performance accompanied by aggressive lighting and sound effects. The production’s staging demands and discomposes, shocks and bewilders but the play’s most discomforting proposition is that the audience assemble their own sense from the triptych of contemporary anguish offered to it. The process is thrilling.

The irony of a romantic comedy not being comic or romantic is when it’s based upon an untrue moment capitalising upon a true event.

Fear not those theatregoers who love Chekhov and for whom Uncle Vanya is their favourite play. Joanna Murray-Smith’s adaptation maintains the Chekhovian melancholy – the sense of life passing without being lived – and comedy generated by human zaniness.