Latest news with #ChrissyAmphlett
7NEWS
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- 7NEWS
The tiny suburb that boasts heritage homes and a celebrity guest list
WATCH: $5m FIXER-UPPER hits Toorak | | 7NEWS Prahran East is a rising star suburb nestled between Melbourne's high-brow and hip. Originally home to the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong peoples of the East Kulin Nation, the suburb's unique blend of urban cool and village charm is quickly making it one of Melbourne's most compelling addresses. The suburb got its unique name from the Indigenous word for the area, Pur-ra-ran, meaning 'land partially surrounded by water'. Located slightly further down 'the hill' from Toorak and Armadale's mansions, Prahran East originally housed the workers and servants of these grand houses in single-fronted Victorian workers' cottages and Edwardian terraces. From the 1970s, the area began to gentrify and houses were renovated and restored. The 1980s saw a wave of Greek migrants move into the area creating a shift in demographics. VIEW LISTING: 12 Greville Street, Prahran, VIC However, it was during the 1990s that the suburb gained its status as an artistic hub when it became an enclave for creatives and the gay community, who were attracted to the avant-garde Prahran TAFE (previously an art school) leading to further gentrification in the 2000s. Now, Prahran East is a tightly held enclave on the cusp of Armadale's leafy prestige and Prahran's edgy vibrancy. A - List credentials It's not just locals who've fallen in love with Prahran East, some big celebrity names have called it home too. Rock legend Chrissy Amphlett of The Divinyls, Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett, and AFL greats Ted Hopkins and Chris Judd have all called this tiny pocket of Melbourne home. A grand circa- 1863 residence on Greville Street, was once home to The Divinyls' frontwoman Chrissy Amphlett during the early days of her music career. Years later, Carlton premiership hero Ted Hopkins lived there for more than a decade following his time on the field. It recently sold for $5,250,000. Cate Blanchett and her husband quietly listed their Prahran East terrace in 2024, selling the stylish three-bedroom, two-bathroom home at 5 Trinian Street for $3.01 million through Kay & Burton. The A-list couple had held the property since 2006, when they snapped it up for just $745,000, according to public records. With its blend of charm, character and low-key luxury, it's easy to see why Prahran East quietly attracts Australia's who's who. A suburb that has it all When it comes to lifestyle, Prahran East is a suburb that simply has it all. "You're smack in the middle of everything, but still get that genuine community feel," says sales consultant and auctioneer at Jellis Craig, Ashley Maikousis. "You don't feel locked away in a bubble here, which makes it really inviting." Its proximity to destinations such as Hawksburn and Toorak Villages, and retail hot spots, High Street in Armadale and Chapel St, make it a location that delivers the best of both worlds: high end sophistication and urban soul. "The leafy, tree-lined streets with beautiful Victorian and Edwardian homes give it classic charm," says Maikousis. "You've got a great mix of young couples, families, and long-time locals who all appreciate the convenience of being close to the city but still having their own peaceful village vibe." Residents are spoilt for choice when it comes to dining out with an evolving food scene filled with standout restaurants. Mount Erica Hotel has a buzzy vibe with courtyards perfect for alfresco dining all year round. In nearby Armadale, charming classics like the Orrong Hotel, a 150-year-old art deco pub, stand proud. Andrew McConnell's boutique grocer Morning Market has taken up residency in the village, offering locals everything from pantry staples to gourmet meals to freshly cut flowers. The suburb also has great access to public transport, sought-after schools, and the arts scene. A blend of heritage and character Residential architecture in Prahran East is predominantly a mix of single storey Victorian and Edwardian terrace houses, with larger double storey terraces located closer to the main shopping strips. "A lot of young couples buy a charming single-front Victorian or Edwardian here to start with, and when it's time to upgrade, they nearly always want to stay," says Maikousis. "Most people end up renovating or extending rather than moving because the location is just unbeatable. "It's not uncommon for long-time locals to encourage their kids to buy here, knowing it's not only a fantastic lifestyle but a smart investment too." Due to this popularity, the suburb has been an attractive choice for developers keen to offer buyers an alternative residential option. Managing Director of Abadeen, Andrew Leoncelli, says the suburb was a top choice for his latest development due to its "local village" feel. "We chose Prahran East as the site for Grandview because it is one of the most incredible local villages in the inner south eastern suburbs," says Mr Leoncelli. Mr Leoncelli believes the development will appeal to buyers who love the area, but are unable to purchase a stand-alone house. "We offer a more affordable option to young professional couples who want two-to-three bedrooms with secure car spaces, but can't afford the small cottage homes that are typically in need of a renovation," he says. "These are basically out-of-reach for buyers who are time-poor and wanting to start a young family." The next evolution of Prahran East Director of Marshall White Developments, Leonard Teplin, has worked in the area for 15 years and believes the suburb is undergoing a "significant transformation". "The area has grown in sophistication with a more curated offering of shops, dining, and lifestyle services," he says. "The arrival of high-end names like Andrew McConnell, P Johnson Tailors, MCM Studio, and Leaf Store have elevated the local experience." Loading Instagram Post Much like its previous evolutions, Mr Teplin says he is witnessing a change in Prahran East's property landscape with buyers seeking out a wider range of housing options. "The housing landscape is evolving, with a move away from investor-style apartments and toward larger, architecturally designed homes." Mr Teplin says he is seeing an increase in downsizers and professional couples seeking out boutique developments that offer them the best of both worlds: house-sized living and luxury amenities. "These buyers are looking for move-in-ready homes with no renovation required," he says. "The ability to customise, combined with the boutique scale of developments, adds to the appeal." When he looks towards the future, Mr Teplin sees Prahran East remaining a tightly-held, low-density suburb, known for its character and exceptional lifestyle offering. "There's a genuine sense of community here that continues to resonate with residents," he says.
The Guardian
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Amplified review – loving but uneven musical tribute to the Divinyls' Chrissy Amphlett
The Divinyls' Chrissy Amphlett was the kind of rock star we just don't make anymore: brashly subversive, mercurial, brightly burning and gone all too soon. She grew out of the dick-swinging pub rock scene of the late 70s but retained a punk feminist edge throughout her career, a sense of danger and defiance. Actor Sheridan Harbridge attempts to revive Amphlett's spirit in this part-biographical tour, part-tribute concert, which is a loving – if fragmentary and uneven – panegyric to a lost rock goddess. When approaching this kind of material, a performer can aim for a precise and mannered recreation of every vocal tick and facial expression or settle for something more suggestive and impressionistic. Amplified opens with a solid, energising version of I'll Make You Happy, and it's immediately clear that Harbridge has opted for the latter approach. She borrows some of Amphlett's inflections and vocal mannerisms but we're aware we're watching Harbridge channel an attitude rather than fully submerging herself into character. This is both Amplified's charm and limitation. Amphlett grew up in Geelong – according to her, merely the first in a series of prisons she'd have to escape – when it was still a rough and dangerous place to live, dominated by the Ford factory and a heavily industrialised waterfront. Harbridge evokes those early years of abusive men and nasty cops, of sexual violence and drug addiction, culminating in a rendition of Boys in Town that is potent in its desperation. When she sings 'Get me out of here', we can feel the stakes. This is also true of scenes set much later in Manhattan, where a post-Divinyls Amphlett prepares a solo show she'll never get to perform (she was tragically cut down by cancer in her early 50s). Her decline is subtly suggested and poignantly underpinned by a rendition of Good Die Young – although it seems an odd decision dramatically to treat the bulk of her time with the Divinyls as an ellipsis, given how central that period was to her fame. We will hear the big hits eventually – songs like Pleasure and Pain and I Touch Myself – but they aren't as well supported by the biographical material and so we don't feel them as intimately or acutely. For a large part of the (relatively short) run time, Harbridge indulges in a kind of wish fulfilment, envisaging the show we're watching as an actualisation of that unrealised solo show in New York. This 'final act before the curtain' narrative device seems ubiquitous in music biographies – from Renée Zellweger's Judy Garland biopic to the play about Billie Holiday's final performance, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill – and while it gives Amplified some structure, it feels hesitant and half-hearted. By the conclusion, the device seems to have been abandoned altogether. Director and co-creator Sarah Goodes tries to wrangle Amplified into something vigorous and coherent but, while there are moments of joy and jubilation, no truly illuminating portrait of the singer emerges. If Amphlett were more famous, the details of her life and arc of her career better known, this kaleidoscopic approach might have worked well; the uninitiated may find it all a bit confusing. Amplified works best when it threads Harbridge's own feminism through Amphlett's biography, when she connects directly to the songs and the life like plugging into a power grid. Early in the piece, Harbridge explains the effect Amphlett had on her sexual awakening, with an anecdote about a bus and the seam of her pants that perfectly elucidates a song like I Touch Myself. But she doesn't perform the song here, inexplicably leaving it to the end like a tease. When it does arrive, it feels perversely like an afterthought. There is a strange ambivalence haunting the edges of Amplified in its current state. Harbridge seems preoccupied with the differences between herself and Amphlett: she eschews any attempt to look like her – there's no red wig or school uniform, for example – and only flirts with an imitation of her sound. Harbridge comes from the world of musical theatre, with its tendency to neatness and closure, but Amphlett was a bone fide rock star, messy, obstinate and brazen. Until she finds her inner rock goddess, Harbridge's tribute will remain stubbornly underdone. Amplified: The Exquisite Rock and Rage of Chrissy Amphlett is on in Melbourne until 13 June as part of Rising festival, then Brisbane festival 19-21 September
ABC News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Spirit of rock legend Chrissy Amphlett channelled in Rising cabaret Amplified
As frontwoman of Australian rock group Divinyls, formed in Sydney in 1980 with guitarist Mark McEntee, Chrissy Amphlett was renowned for her powerful stage charisma. Her thick, bright red hair; short, black-and-white sailor tunic with suspender belt and fishnets; her "Monster Schoolgirl" persona and sexually provocative stage-writhing, are legendary. And her music is still incredibly powerful. "When you're in the centre of those songs and they're a wall of rage, it feels mythically enormous," says Sheridan Harbridge, who performs in Amplified: the Exquisite Rock and Rage of Chrissy Amphlett, as part of Melbourne's Rising festival. The word that keeps coming up as I talk about Amphlett with Harbridge and the show's director, Sarah Goodes, is "electric". "People who I've spoken to, her friends and people who saw her, they really describe her as conjuring an electricity that just gripped the room," Harbridge says. "There were no women in rock doing what she did at the time. She was getting up there and giving sex, passion and rock'n'roll, any way she wanted to. With no rules of pandering for men or pandering for women." Amplified, a cabaret, brings to life Amphlett's story through her music. Goodes is quick to point out that the rockstar contained multitudes, beyond her on-stage, rage-filled persona. "At the time you had to pre-empt it, you know. To avoid being eaten alive, you had to kill first," Goodes says. The show aims to let all Amphlett's contradictions — of rage, vulnerability and anger — "shimmer in the air together", Goodes says. Harbridge is drawn to telling stories of the women society has labelled "disobedient". "As a writer, it's always been my sort of manifesto … making sure that their story is on the record." Amphlett rejected feminist ideas prevalent in the late 1970s and early 80s, that dismissed overt sexuality as pandering to a male gaze. "Chrissy was like, 'I don't need to follow any of these rules,'" Harbridge says. "That was her punk." "It's that ancient [contradiction of] women being too sexual or not sexual enough," Goodes says. "It's this impossible shadow-boxing with what it means to be a woman. And she just burst through it and roared. Everyone just shut up and loved it and embraced it." The idea for a one-woman show about Amphlett's life was conceived by Amphlett herself. She'd been working on the idea before she died of breast cancer in 2013. It was Amphlett's longtime friend Simon Morley (of Puppetry of the Penis fame) who brought the idea to Goodes, back in 2018. COVID delays pushed the project back but, eventually, Morley asked Goodes to direct. She was interested, on one condition. "If I can do it with Sheridan," Goodes says. "I couldn't really imagine anyone else who can traverse that tightrope between rock'n'roll and theatre. "You don't want someone impersonating Chrissy," Goodes says. "What [Sheridan is] able to do is channel the spirit of her." Harbridge describes Amplified as a "rock odyssey". The cabaret format allows her to directly address the audience, to conjure memories of what Amphlett was like on stage. "The fans who adored her are as much a character as I am," Harbridge says. "I want it to be a communion of an artist. So yeah, we're in the room together." The weight of responsibility in creating a show centred on the life and music of someone so beloved by fans doesn't escape Harbridge. "People get this distant, shimmering, glossy look in their eyes when you mention Chrissy Amphlett. They go, 'Oh yeah, I saw her in Toowoomba in '88. And she just blew the roof off.'" Goodes has directed numerous plays about other trailblazing Australian women — art patron and founder of Melbourne's Heide gallery, Sunday Reed (Anthony Weigh's Sunday, for MTC in 2023, STC in 2024), former prime minster Julia Gillard (Joanna Murray Smith's Julia, National Tour in 2024). And she says that the key is not in attempting to imitate that person, but in finding ways to bring their essence to life in the room. Harbridge and Goodes hope Amplified: The Exquisite Rock and Rage of Chrissy Amphlett will offer younger audiences the chance to get to know Amphlett's music and celebrate her as an artist and rule-breaker 20 years ahead of her time; as a pioneering woman who kicked down doors for future generations of women artists to walk through. "I think an artist who enrages at the time, is often giving you a glimmer of the rules of the future," Harbridge says. "Someone who just keeps pushing other people's brains into that kind of considerate sponginess. Until one day, the whole matrix moves. "I know I stand on the shoulders of women like her, who demanded to work in an art form. And now I don't take that for granted." And what would Amphlett think of the show? "That's all I'm worried about," she admits. "I hope we're honouring her. I really hope we are. And I hope we're letting people meet her beyond the 'monster' persona. Which is what she wanted from doing the show." Amplified: the Exquisite Rock and Rage of Chrissy Amphlett runs as part of Rising festival from June 11-13.
