If love makes the world go round, this is confirmed by the stage version of Trent Dalton’s compendium of real life love stories collected on a Brisbane street corner and published in 2021. Captured in the moment on Dalton’s old school typewriter, these hopelessly devoted everyday epiphanies include proposals by flashmob, reunions across generations, and musings on how love lives on beyond death. With Dalton riding high on the 2024 Netflix adaptation of his 2018 semi autobiographical novel, Boy Swallows Universe, Love Stories was first seen on stage in 2024 at Queensland Performing Arts Centre. The show is adapted by Tim McGarry and directed by Sam Strong, reuniting the trio behind the 2021 stage version of Boy Swallows Universe. Closer to home, additional writing and story comes from Dalton and fellow journalist Fiona Franzmann. Given that Dalton and Franzmann also happen to be married, this should give an extra frisson to the couple’s own story, used as a framing device b...
An archive of arts writing by Neil Cooper. Effete No Obstacle.