The Show of the Year 2019

Casey Bennetto is an award-winning writer, musician and radio broadcaster. He wrote the musical KEATING!, hosts the program Superfluity on Melbourne’s 3RRR, and has appeared in places as diverse as ABCTV’s Spicks and Specks, the Melbourne International Arts Festival and the Festival of Dangerous Ideas at Sydney Opera House.

Born in 1969, Bennetto spent his formative years amongst the fragrant meadows and blossoming malls of Greensborough, Melbourne.

He made his way to university, procured a BA and worked variously as a proofreader, a copywriter, an IT specialist and as the lead singer in the band Skin, which garnered national commercial airplay for their 1994 EP, Waking Up With You.

As part of the ‘Drowsy Drivers’ project, in 2004 Casey wrote a musical theatre biography of former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, KEATING!.

In late 2008, Casey premiered a new project as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival: A Largely Fanciful History Of The Spiegeltent, in which he also starred; he also wrote and performed in 2009's Evening and provided the songs for the ever-threatening Christmas pantomime The Terminativity in 2010–11. He served as dramaturge on Eddie’s Shane Warne: The Musical as well as making contributions to Company B’s The Adventures Of Snugglepot And Cuddlepie and Die Roten Punkte’s Super Musikant and Kunst Rock.

He scored both series of Amanda Brotchie and Adam Zwar's Lowdown and was nominated for an AACTA with Shellie Morris and Tim Cole for work on the 2014 musical documentary Prison Songs. He appeared with Alan Brough as underappreciated alternative rock icons The Narelles in 2015, and has hosted A Swingin' Bella Christmas for the past five years. He has hosted The Show Of The Year for the Wheeler Centre since the show's inception in 2013.

Most recently, he scored the ABC TV series Get Krack!n and is currently working on several things at once, obviously to the detriment of all of them.

Casey has also hosted a regular show on 3CR, worked extensively for PBS FM and made many appearances on 774 ABC Melbourne as host, co-host and guest.

His appearances on ABC TV’s Spicks And Specks resurface occasionally to shame him.

Louise Milligan is an investigative reporter for ABC TV's Four Corners and the bestselling author of Cardinal, which won the Walkley Book Award and broke massive international news preceding the court case and successive and ultimately successful appeals involving one of the most senior members of the Catholic Church hierarchy. Among many awards for her work, she's also the recipient of the 2019 Press Freedom Medal. Her latest book is Witness: An investigation into the brutal cost of seeking justice.

Paul Kelly was born in Adelaide, one of nine children, in 1955. He wrote his first song in 1976 and has been making records since 1978, over thirty to date. He has collaborated with many other songwriters and written music for film and theatre. His prose has appeared in Meanjin, The Monthly, Rolling Stone and the Age, and in 2010 he published a ‘mongrel memoir’, How to Make Gravy. Love is Strong as Death: Poems chosen by Paul Kelly was published in 2019. His most recent albums are 2019’s Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds and 2020's Please Leave Your Light On, with Paul Grabowsky.

The Merindas are a Contemporary R&B/Electropop duo that present a much anticipated show never seen before on the Australian music scene. They're the synthesis of warrior queen, bringing an on-trend style of rhythmic, expressive and beautiful music dedicated to the preservation of Indigenous language and culture in a modern form. 

The Merindas are Candice Lorrae of Jawoyn and Thursday Islander heritage (born Darwin NT) and Nyoongar Ballardong Whadjuk woman Kristel Kickett (from Tammin WA). They discovered their mutual passion for music in Perth more than 7 years ago. Now based in Melbourne, these soul sisters are set to trail-blaze their innovative style of Indigenous music.

The group formed in Perth singing Motown hits for the premiere of The Sapphires in 2012. They went on to sell out shows, receive a 2013 Deadly award nomination, win the Indigenous WAM Song of the Year, and headline major corporate events, festivals and fashion shows along with supporting some of Australia’s biggest stars – including Jessica Mauboy, Dan Sultan, Mojo Juju and International Grammy Award-winning artist, Brandy. 

With a global movement in Women Empowerment and LGBTQ communities push for Equality, the duo have taken on the mission to improve self worth and inspiring others to do the same. This is prevalent in everything that is 'The Merindas'. The duo deliver workshops in remote and rural communinties across Australia to work with young Indigenous women in building confidence and creative leadership skills through fashion, dance and modelling.  

Since their feel good 2016 single release 'We Sing Until Sunrise', Candice and Kristel have been writing and compiling banger tracks with ARIA award-winning producer Dazastah from Downsyde. Now, two years in the making with master producers Frank Eliesa (Auckland) and Jake Steele (Melbourne), The Merindas are set to fire up new releases in late 2019, heading into 2020 with a debut album release. 

Bill Shorten is the Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the Shadow Minister for Government Services, and was leader of the Australian Labor Party from 2013 to 2019.

Mr Shorten joined the ALP at 17 and the Australian Workers’ Union as an organiser in 1994, he has been secretary of the Victorian branch and AWU National Secretary.

He is credited with reforming and reviving the AWU, and while there led the fight against WorkChoices.

His public profile was raised during the Beaconsfield Mine collapse in Tasmania 2006 where he acted as a union advocate for the workers at the mine and their families. 

As Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services he was the key architect of the NDIS.

He has also served as Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation, Education Minister, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation.

He was elected as the Member for Maribyrnong in 2007 and has held the seat ever since.

He lives there with wife Chloe, their three children and two bulldogs.

Nath Valvo’s hilariously physical, high-energy comedy is impressing critics and winning crowds across the globe. Not many comedians can boast that their fan base includes TV royalty, but Nath has the tweet from Graham Norton to prove it.

In 2018, Nath’s stand up show, Show Pony won the Adelaide Fringe Weekly Best Comedy Award and was the runaway hit of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, adding five extra dates to meet demand. Audiences could not tear their eyes away from his MICF Gala spot which went viral, racking up over two million views.

Far from camera-shy, Nath has an impressive list of TV appearances under his belt having hosted ABC’s Comedy Up Late and recorded an hour long stand up special as part of ABC’s Comedy Next Gen. Nath’s other TV credits include The Project, Show Me The Movie, Celebrity Name Game, Hughesy We Have a Problem and Just For Laughs Sydney.

Nath loves the sound of his own voice which, luckily for him, has resulted in an impressive radio career. In 2015 Nath hosted the Saturday Morning Breakfast Show on Nova 100 in Melbourne and now regularly appears on the KIIS FM, Nova, Fox FM, Triple M and Triple J networks.

On the international stage, he was nominated for Best Newcomer at the world’s biggest arts festival, the Edinburgh Fringe, had a hit season at the Soho Theatre in London and was selected for the MICF Asia Roadshow performing shows in Singapore, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur.

In 2019, Nath toured a new show, I’m Happy For You which saw him nominated for Most Outstanding Show in the Melbourne Comedy Festival – where he appeared again in their gala for Oxfam – and with which he toured to Edinburgh Fringe.

Sydney songwriter Laura Jean is revered for the striking beauty of her music and the strength of her piercing, intimate lyrics. She has twice been shortlisted for the Aus- tralian Music Prize, and has recorded with Paul Kelly, The Drones, Rolling Blackouts and Grand Salvo. She has toured UK/Europe with Courtney Barnett, Aldous Harding and Jenny Hval, Aus/NZ with Aldous Harding and Marlon Williams, and played Meredith, Dark Mofo, Falls Festival, the National Gallery Of Victoria and Sydney Town Hall.

2018 album Devotion is a stunning artistic about-face from her previous folk-based work. Working with Melbourne producer John Lee, she created an enveloping, deep pop album like nothing she has done before. It has had superlative reviews from Pitch- fork, Gorilla Vs Bear, Noisey, NME and elsewhere, and made it into end of year lists for Spin, Apple Music, Idolator and more. Devotion was nominated for four Age Music Victoria Awards, three AIR Awards and shortlisted for the Australian Music Prize. Laura has also acquired some high profile fans such as Lorde and actor Brie Larson.

Devotion took Laura to UK/Europe in November 2018, supporting Courtney Barnett and performing at Sonic City Festival in Belgium, as well as playing headline shows in London and Brussels. She returned to UK/Europe in May 2019 with Aldous Harding.

Laura Jean signed with Chapter Music in 2011, her album A fool who’ll called “an uncompromising triumph” by Rolling Stone. In 2014, Laura recorded her self-titled album in the UK with producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius, Aldous Hard- ing), with backing vocals by Norwegian star Jenny Hval.

Laura sings on albums such as Paul Kelly’s Spring and Fall, Feelin’ Kinda Free by the Drones, Hope Downs by Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and Grand Salvo’s Sea Glass. She also features on three songs on the new Jenny Hval album The Practise of Love.

Alice Bishop grew up in Christmas Hills, a town ravaged by the Black Saturday bushfires. A Constant Hum, her much-anticipated debut, was commended by the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript and shortlisted for the Penguin Random House Literary Prize. Stories in the collection won the 2017 Lord Mayor’s Prize and the Rachel Funari Prize. 

Evelyn Araluen is a Goorie and Koori poet, researcher, and co-editor of Overland Literary Journal.

Brodie Lancaster is an author and essayist from Melbourne. Her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times, Vogue Australia, the Guardian and New York magazine. Her first book, the pop culture memoir ...