Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Saturday 24 April
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Our much-loved sex and relationships advice series, Take It from Me, is back – and badder than ever, gleefully tossing up handfuls of laughter, love and stardust. Join us to celebrate queerness and launch the new edition of Archer magazine: the Friendship Issue.
With an address from Archer Magazine editor-in-chief Lucy Watson, performance and reading from the new issue by contributor Mama Alto, and – of course – a panel of hilarious non-experts to give you advice you will love, but almost definitely shouldn’t follow. Hosted by the dashing Jess McGuire, there’ll be a stellar lineup of queer agony aunts including Kira Puru, Vanessa Muradian and Alistair Baldwin.
Got a knotted romantic entanglement? A tricky friendzone dilemma? A hopeless crush? Anonymously submit your hot messes and love quandaries before the event through our online form.
Then roll up to the Malthouse Outdoor stage in April and prepare to have all your troubles melt away*. Our 100% unqualified panel will puzzle over your problem before a live audience, then serve up terrible and totally context-free advice. Just the way you like it.
So, get loved up, and get over here.
* Troubles may not be so melty
This event will be Auslan interpreted.
Presented in partnership with Midsumma Festival and Archer
Featuring
Vanessa Muradian
Vanessa Muradian is a sexologist, yoga teacher and the founder of the sex and wellness platform Mia Muse. Vanessa has been working predominantly with women, non-binary and GNC folk over the past 12 years. Vanessa works with ...
Alistair Baldwin
Alistair Baldwin is a writer and comedian based in Naarm / Melbourne. He has written for ABC's The Weekly, Get Krack!n, Hard Quiz & At Home Alone Together. Published works include pieces for un. Magazine, Archer, Metro and Black Inc.'s Growing Up Disabled In Australia anthology. He is 1/2 of the experimental (and toxic) comedy duo Nemeses with Vidya Rajan.
Lucy Watson
Lucy Watson is Archer Magazine's editor-in-chief. Lucy also works in health promotion for LGBTQ people, and recently finished a PhD about celebrities.
Mama Alto
Mama Alto is a jazz singer, cabaret artiste and gender transcendent diva. She is a transgender and queer person of colour who works with the radical potential of storytelling, strength in softness and power in vulnerability. In addition to her excellence as a performing artist, she is a writer of intelligence and sensitivity.
She has performed original spoken word and pieces of new writing for Melbourne Writers Festival, Queerstories, Emerging Writers' Festival and Word In Hand. Her writing has been published in the Age, Archer Magazine, Querelle 2018, the Music, and Melbourne Recital Centre's Soundescapes, and she has contributed chapters to Queerstories (ed. Maeve Marsden, Hachette Australia 2018) and Living & Loving in Diversity (ed. Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli, Wakefield Press and AGMC 2019).
In 2019, she was one of the playwrights selected for the MTC's Cyber Electric workshop and readings series. Her Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship will build upon the research and writing work on the concept of the diva which she undertook as one of the 2019 Creators supported by Creative Victoria's Creators Fund.
Jess McGuire
Jess McGuire is a writer and broadcaster based in central west NSW, and hosts breakfast radio each weekday morning on on ABC Western Plains. She previously appeared regularly as a reviewer and cultural commentator ...
Kira Puru
Kira Puru is a multi-disciplinary artist and musician, based in Melbourne, Australia. Known for her dynamic live performances and genre-defying writing style, she is widely respected as one of Australia’s biggest voices. Kira quickly gathered a cult following with the hypnotic single Tension which has amassed 2.3 million streams. The September 2018 release of her self-titled EP showcased an exhilarating evolution. Second single Molotov landed at #75 on the triple j hottest 100 and has clocked up over 2.6 million streams. In 2019, Kira delivered the unconventional love song Why Don’t We Get Along and her anthemic jam with attitude Everything Is Better Without You, before she unveiled Idiot in 2020 - a deeply infectious track that represents strength in vulnerability.
The uniquely human star has performed sold-out national tours and supported Peking Duk and Yungblud. Kira has also taken the stage at Jam in a Jar, Yours and Owls and Grapevine Gathering Festivals.