Award-winning street photographer Alex McClintock and internationally recognised audio documentarian Mike Williams will perform a new live, genre-bending slideshow documentary “24 Hours in Kings Cross” at the Sydney Fringe Festival this month.
With material gathered in a sleepless 24-hour blitz, the pair of storytellers combine live narration, recorded interviews, music and photo projections to take viewers through a chaotic day in the life of Sydney’s infamous red-light district.
Audiences will be charmed by the Cross’ long-term residents, surprised by its wild history and thrilled to meet tattoo artists, sex shop clerks, drag queens, historians, party-goers and more.
Mike Williams is an audio documentary maker with nearly two decades of experience, specialising in first-person narrative, Australian cultural histories, and music. This is the first time he has brought in visuals.
Alex McClintock, whose street photos have been honoured at the Paris International Street Photography Festival, the Mexican International Street Photography Competition, and the All About Photo Magazine’s 2024 World Street Edition, has been documenting Kings Cross since he switched from journalism to telling stories with pictures.
Documenting the area became more intense when he moved there a couple of years ago.
“Don’t listen to people who say it’s dead,” he said.
“The Cross is a street photographer’s paradise. There are people from all walks of life out and about at all times of the day and night.
“Walk out the door and you see a wealthy old lady in a fur coat walking a cat in a stroller right next to someone who’s accessing support services for drug use and homelessness.
“That makes it a great place to highlight the contradictions of living in a city like Sydney.”
McClintock said the best thing about collaborating with Williams was they pushed each other.
“The way he engages with the people he interviews forced me to do the same, so the photos became much more documentary and less fleeting. They’re much more meaningful than anything I’ve done in the past.
“Writing the show has been great too. We could have just made a standard documentary film, but audio and photography are both mediums which leave something to the imagination.
“By making this wacky hybrid live show, we’ve been able to make them interact in interesting ways, and I think the result is something that’s going to make people laugh and think.”
McClintock said getting out and talking to people from all walks of life taught him much about the Cross.
“A local historian told us it used to be Queens Cross but they changed the name. We found ourselves inside a nursing home for people at risk of homelessness.
“We learned what it’s like living in a backpackers hostel! And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I can’t give away everything we learned – we want people to come to the show!”
McClintock said he was excited to be performing in the heart of the Cross.
“This story is a love letter to the suburb, so it’s fantastic to be putting it on at Sean & Dolly’s, right under the Coke Sign. This is a show for locals, for visitors and for anyone who’s seen a sunrise from a Kings Cross smoking area.”
Keeping the soul of the Cross alive
“24 Hours in Kings Cross” will run for eight nights from September 10 to 20 at Sean & Dolly’s – Kings Cross’ newest live music and performance venue, with live music five nights a week, delicious food, and a specialty cocktail menu with a contemporary local twist.
Owner Sean Mackenzie has composed for films, festivals and orchestras. His music palate ranges from Afro-Cuban and Brazilian rhythms to soul, funk, jazz, blues and beyond. With Sean & Dolly’s he is not only performing – he is crafting a living eco-system of live music.
He said when he and bar maestro Dolly Kadek Pops opened the doors in March they had no expectations but the launch was better than they’d anticipated.
“There was no time to sit back and imagine outcomes: we were flat out giving this beautiful space a facelift, adjusting it to our vision, crossing fingers and burning through savings, while the goalposts kept moving with every setback.”
Dolly said, “The opening night was electric; admittedly, too electric — our service was underprepared because Sean and I thought we could handle it with a skeleton crew. We couldn’t.
“The turnout was far beyond anything we’d dared to expect. Those first three months became a crash course in building a team, running live music seven days a week, and learning the hard way where every dollar really goes.”
She said they overspent, got burnt by some deals and, instead of pulling the pin when maybe they should have, they doubled down.
“We threw in our last cent, sacrificed wages, sleep and probably a few kilos each. But we’re still here.
“That’s the special part: Sean & Dolly’s isn’t backed by big investors or polished PR. It’s blood, sweat, laughter and a piano at the heart of it all. It’s a bar built by two stubborn dreamers who refuse to back down – and the community who keep filling the room, proving we were right to risk it all.”
Dolly said when they decided as a couple – “as a bit of a hyper-thetical fantasy” – that they’d keep their eyes open for a venue, it came with a vision: “Live music every night of the week, until late, like the old days.
“[It would be] a place where Sean could play freely, where music didn’t sit politely in the corner – it ran the room. Because, compared to the more vibrant times, our live music scene in Sydney had been stripped bare – fewer venues, fewer opportunities for audiences and artists alike.”
That decline mirrored Dolly’s own frustration too: years of grinding it out in hospitality, seeing the culture dry up, watching the Cross turn from wild and alive into something hollow.
“So,” Mackenzie said, “when this space appeared, it wasn’t about ego or chasing riches. It was about love – for each other, for music, for a city that deserved its pulse back.”
He said running a bar in the Cross wasn’t easy. “The rent is high, the rules are tighter, the ghosts of the past are loud. But every night we light the room, and the guests enter, and they tell us, ‘This feels like the Cross again.’
“That’s the reward. That’s why we do it.”
Mackenzie said they couldn’t’t be more excited to be hosting “24 Hours in Kings Cross”.
“It feels like the perfect full-circle moment. Our bar is built on the idea of keeping the soul of the Cross alive: the grit, the glamour, the history, the now.
“To be part of Sydney Fringe and to welcome a show that literally celebrates the place we’ve planted ourselves in? It’s an honour, but it’s also fun.
“We want Sean & Dolly’s to be a stage for artists, not just a bar with a stage – so opening our doors to the Fringe feels like exactly what this place was meant for.”
Book tickets here
