The 2026 Red Cross Ball in Monte Carlo

Prince Albert II and Princess Charlene of Monaco were joined by their niece, Camille Gottlieb, as they presided over the 76th annual Gala de la Croix Rouge Monégasque (Monaco Red Cross Ball) in the Salle des Etoiles of the Sporting Club of Monte-Carlo.

Princess Charlene and Prince Albert II

Also in attendance was Dame Shirley Bassey.

The Monaco Red Cross was founded by Prince Louis II of Monaco in 1948 and the first Monaco Red Cross Ball was held that same year, becoming one of the largest charity galas in the world, which is the culmination of the summer season in Monaco.

The Monaco Red Cross Gala is one of the most prestigious events in the Principality of Monaco. H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco will be presiding at this event and SOUL! Where legends come back will give an incredible concert at Salle des Étoiles.

The Monaco Red Cross is presided by His Serene Highness Prince Albert II. He is assisted by a 17 member Board of Directors nominated for 3 years by Sovereign Ordinance.

The Monaco Red Cross was created on 3 March 1948 by Prince Louis II. The same year, it was recognised by the International Committee of the Red Cross and admitted to the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The Monaco Red Cross National Society respects the seven Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

First published at The Royal Watcher, July 18, 2026

Related site: Dame Shirley Bassey blog

‘Parky’ takes centre stage at British Film Festival

Parky in his heyday, surrounded by fans.

By Helen Musa

The opening film of the British Film Festival this Wednesday will be My Duchess, starring Joan Collins as Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, but as the 2026 event progresses, all eyes will be on a star of a very different kind, Sir Michael Parkinson.

The life and career of the veteran broadcaster will take centre stage in the world premiere of Parky, a documentary about the man who interviewed some of the biggest names in entertainment, sport and politics.

Remarkably, it was co-directed by Australia’s Luke Mazzaferro with Englishman Luke Cornish (not ELK the stencil artist).

Three other films have Australian connections. Cynthia Erivo stars in Prima Facie, adapted from Australian playwright Suzie Miller’s award-winning play, in A Talent for Murder, Helen Mirren plays Patricia Highsmith, author of The Talented Mr Ripley in a script based on Joanna Murray-Smith’s play Switzerland, and the closing-night film is the Australian premiere of Elsinore, directed by Australian filmmaker Simon Stone.

When I catch up with Mazzaferro by phone, he has only just finished watching the final version of Parky, about the man who became one of Britain’s best-known television interviewers over a career spanning decades, earning a knighthood and the affection of millions of viewers.

An incredibly intelligent man, Mazzaferro tells me, Parkinson seemed equally at ease with Princess Anne, Muhammad Ali, Malcolm Fraser, Madonna and Tony Blair, although his personal leanings were perhaps most apparent when he interviewed Dr Jacob Bronowski, the scientist and presenter of the BBC documentary series The Ascent of Man.

It all about two years ago, when Parkinson’s youngest son, Mike Jr, approached the Australian team through a mutual friend, James Erskine, although much of the film has come together this year.

“It’s not a best-of clip show,” Mazzaferro assures me. Rather, the documentary peels back the layers to reveal the man behind the famous television personality.

Mike Jr had wanted the film to be made in Australia, and Mazzaferro believes there was good reason for that. Parkinson had a strong connection with Australia, where he lived for a time and felt a certain affinity with the underdog. As a working-class boy from Yorkshire, he recognised something of his own experience in Australian attitudes to class and regional identity.

Parkinson believed Australia was a more relaxed society, without the rigid class system he knew in Britain. As Mazzaferro recounts, Paul Hogan once put him right on that score, telling him, “We have it here but we hide it better.”

Nevertheless, Parkinson clearly felt at home here. He became the first non-Australian to deliver the official Australia Day Address.

“Mile told us his father’s show was a window into who he was,” Mazzaferro says, explaining how the filmmakers approached the vast archive of material available to them. They sifted through footage spanning more than 650 programmes and thousands of interviews to discover the questions and themes that repeatedly drew Parkinson in.

For Mazzaferro, the real achievement of the documentary is to show that those conversations revealed not only something about the people in the interview chair, but also about the man asking the questions.

Addiction fascinated him. Parkinson himself struggled with alcohol, and Mazzaferro says the filmmakers noticed how quickly he would steer conversations towards the subject when interviewing people such as Richard Burton, David Bowie and Naomi Campbell.

The complications of celebrity life were another recurring interest, explored in conversations with Goldie Hawn, Robbie Williams and Madonna.

His own family life also emerges as an important thread. Born in the South Yorkshire mining village of Cudworth, the son of a coal miner, Parkinson grew up between two powerful influences. His mother was determined that he would not end up in the pit village and introduced him to the movies, where he became fascinated by Fred Astaire. His father, meanwhile, instilled in him a love of sport.

The documentary suggests that the tensions between these influences helped shape a man who could command a television studio yet remain burdened by self-doubt.

That insecurity extended into his family relationships, seen in one revealing conversation with Tom Hanks, revealing about Parkinson’s relationship with his three sons than anything.

Despite his immense success, Parkinson apparently never entirely abandoned his youthful ambition to become a Hollywood star, although he was happy to make fun of the idea.

He was, Mazzaferro suggests, a man of contradictions, combining the assured manner of the celebrated interviewer with the insecurities of the working-class boy.

One fascinating thread is the longevity of his interviewing career. Parkinson spoke to both Bing Crosby and Michael Bublé. Well before the carefully managed publicity circuits, social media and the short soundbite, Parkinson excelled at the long-form conversation. At his peak, his program attracted as many as 15 million viewers per episode.

Parkinson was a devoted husband to Mary, although her own rise to prominence elicited envy.

His interests went well beyond television, into writing, sports journalism and radio, where hr presented Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 and hosted a long-running jazz program on BBC Radio 2.

“He ran the whole gamut,” Mazzaferro says.

The British Film Festival, Palace Electric Cinemas, October 28 to November 29.

First published at Canberra City News, October 27, 2026

'He was desperate to escape': Why the real Christopher Robin resented being linked to Winnie-the-Pooh

By Fiona McDonald

AA Milne's first Pooh book was published a century ago in October 1926. Generations of children loved it, but its inspiration, the author's own son, told the BBC that he took to "running away when people bring up the subject".

"Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not even when I'm a hundred." This is the plaintive cry made by Christopher Robin to his teddy bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, in the final chapter of The House in Pooh Corner. 

British novelist and playwright AA Milne needn't have worried. The first Winnie-the-Book was published 100 years ago in October 1926, and introduced a cast of characters modelled on the author's son and the soft toys he played with: lovably dim Pooh Bear, nervy Piglet, hyperactive Tigger, pessimistic Eeyore. Far from being forgotten, in the century since then the characters have taken on a life far beyond the parameters of their idyllic home, the Hundred Acre Wood.

From 1966, they became the subject of animated and live action Disney films, in what is now one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time. Pooh Bear has even courted controversy in Poland for being "inappropriate", sparked memes mocking the Chinese president Xi Jinping, and prompted tongue-in-cheek pop-culture theories in which the residents of the Hundred Acre Wood have been “diagnosed” with different psychological conditions.

“People like myself were in those days brought up by nanny. And really all my childhood up to the age of 10 was nanny-dominated – Christopher Robin

Yet the reality of Pooh's inception and following success was not easy for Milne's son, who appeared in the books as Christopher Robin. On the BBC's Desert Island Discs in 1976, he said that he was "excited and proud" when the books were first published, but that the thrill of being linked to Winnie-the-Pooh "began to pall when I grew a bit older".

He then came to resent his father's literary use of the childhood games he played in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, England, the inspiration for the Hundred Acre Wood. "It seemed to me almost that my father had got to where he was by climbing upon my infant shoulders, that he had filched from me my good name and left me with nothing but the empty fame of being his son," Christopher wrote in his 1974 memoir The Enchanted Places.

As portrayed in the 2017 film Goodbye Christopher Robin, his was not quite the carefree childhood of Milne's books. "People like myself were in those days brought up by nanny. And really all my childhood up to the age of 10 was nanny-dominated," he told the BBC in 1971.

He revealed that he didn't know his parents in his early years. "Both my parents were fairly remote up to the age of about nine… I only saw them at particular periods during the day." He also claimed that the books weren't intended for him. 

"[My father] wasn't concerned with me. He was writing for himself."

Shyness and jealousy

In his memoir, Christopher recalled how, when a journalist told his father that his books "seemed to show a great understanding and love of children", his response was that "I am not inordinately fond of them… and I've certainly never felt in the least sentimental about them".

In the same interview, when asked how being a household name had affected his son, AA Milne replied, more slowly, that he hoped "it had done him no harm".

That hope wasn't quite realised. In Christopher's memoir, he explained: 

"Unfortunately the fictional Christopher Robin refused to die, and he and his real-life namesake were not always on the best of terms." As a schoolboy, his association with the character had been "a sore place that looked as if it would never heal up", due to his crippling shyness.

Then, once he became an adult and was struggling to find work, jealousy caused more problems. Although his father had appeared to have succeeded by his own efforts, Christopher asked, "Were they entirely his own efforts? Hadn't I come into it somewhere?" 

He was desperate to escape from forever being known as Christopher Robin. The owner of his childhood home, where the Pooh stories were set, told the BBC in 2002 that he had invited Christopher to visit a few decades earlier. "He wrote back a rather unpleasant letter saying nothing would induce him to cross the threshold of this house ever again."

Christopher did return to Ashdown Forest in 1979 to throw his own Pooh Sticks (a game he'd played that was made famous in the books). But eight years later, after he'd helped the local council buy the woods in order to preserve them, he still acknowledged that being known as the boy with the bear had been a burden – saying he dealt with it "mainly by avoiding it and running away when people bring up the subject". 

Yet by the end of his life, Christopher had reconciled himself to his father's work, if not to the discomfort of his unwanted fame. "He came to accept that his father, in fact, had been devoted to him and that he had had no idea of what was going to happen," AA Milne's biographer Ann Thwaite told the BBC in 2002.  

Christopher was able to see that the Pooh books might have been a way for his father to bridge the gap between them in his early years, allowing him to express the things he couldn't say otherwise. "My father's heart remained buttoned up all through his life," Christopher wrote in his memoir. "He felt deeply, but he kept his feelings to himself – or rather, being a writer, he let them escape in his writing. But even here he disguised them… and so, such sadnesses as there were put on cap and bells and emerged as Eeyore."

Christopher agreed that he'd come to see Winnie-the-Pooh as a way for his father to find a connection with him. "People sometimes say to me today, 'How lucky you were to have had such a wonderful father,' imagining that, because he wrote about me with much affection and understanding, he must have played with me with equal affection and understanding." 

Yet, Christopher wrote, "My father was a creative writer, and so it was precisely because he was not able to play with his small son that his longing sought and found satisfaction in another direction – he wrote about him instead."

First published at BBC, October 25, 2026

Australian drag icon Courtney Act glitteringly enshrined at National Portrait Gallery

By Lily Nothling

Courtney Act says it is validating to have her portrait unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery.  (ABC News: Lily Nothling)

Discarded fingernails, sequins, a pair of high heels, a beer can, and a dismembered Barbie doll have been used to capture the likeness of Australia's most celebrated drag queen.

A glittering new portrait of Courtney Act has been unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.

The large mosaic by artist Paul Yore is an eclectic assemblage of thousands of objects, each meticulously placed with tweezers, to pay tribute to the queer icon.

"I sent Paul a bag of my old fingernails and eyelashes and broken jewellery, and so I knew that it was going to be made of found objects and mixed media, but to see it hanging on the wall is absolutely amazing,"  Act said.

Courtney Act's portrait features found items, including a football.  (ABC News: Lily Nothling)

Courtney Act has spent more than two decades in the public eye and is an internationally celebrated drag performer, queer advocate and television personality.

She is the alter ego of Queensland-born Shane Janek, who never felt like he fit into masculine norms growing up.

"Imagine beaming back to 14-year-old me, listening to the Spice Girls, wearing my platform buffalo boots to school," Act said.

"In Brisbane in the 90s there was certainly nobody like me around and not anybody like me portrayed in the media.

"So when an institution like the National Portrait Gallery commissions a portrait of you, it feels very validating."

Australian queen of drag, Courtney Act and artist Paul Yore. (ABC News: Lily Nothling)

'Get that off my face'

Among the objects used in the portrait is an old Nokia phone — the same model used by a young Shane Janek to come out to his parents.

There is also a statue of Aphrodite, an array of Australian iconography, and a football — something Act admits she has never played.

Artist Paul Yore said he was initially intimidated when he was approached by the gallery to create the portrait.

"I've obviously followed Courtney's career for decades now and idolise her as an icon as so many of us in the queer community do," he said.

Yore's mosaic portrait of Act has been unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery. (ABC News: Lily Nothling)

The process took him about a year, and Yore said he felt a great sense of responsibility to "get it right".

"It was one of the most challenging things I've ever had to make,"  he said.

"At different times, I did hear Courtney's voice in my head being like, 'Oi, what are you doing? Why are you putting that there? Get that off my face!'"

Virgin Mary inspiration for queer 'monument'

Growing up queer in a Catholic household, Yore said he took inspiration from illuminated icons — including the Virgin Mary — to make the portrait.

National Portrait Gallery director Bree Pickering described the artwork as a "monument to queer culture".

"At a distance, this is a glossy likeness of Courtney, yet up close thousands of small details tell another story, about a big life lived without apology," she said.

Act's portrait mosaic features glitter and a beer can.  (ABC News: Lily Nothling)

The portrait is now the first artwork you see when you walk into the gallery.

"Well, they say that you should always open with a strong number," Act said.

"I think that when people turn in, and they see this, they're just going to have a smile on their face.

"There's a sense of joy about it.

"I'm very grateful that this portrait has been created of me and that it celebrates drag and queerness in all of its sparkle."

First published at ABC News, October 23, 2026

Five actors, 39 characters and one wild journey

Around the World in 80 Days in rehearsal. Brendan Kelly as Phileas Fogg with Leo Amadeus as Captain Bunsby. Photo: James Scott

By Helen Musa

Five actors will take on 39 characters in a fast-moving production of Mark Brown’s adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days, directed and produced by Honest Puck Theatre’s James Scott.

Based on Jules Verne’s classic adventure, the story follows Phileas Fogg, played by Brendan Kelly, who wagers that he can travel around the world in just 80 days.

What follows is a theatrical race across continents involving trains, ships, elephants, missed connections, an unexpected romance and the persistent attentions of Detective Fix, who is convinced Fogg is a wanted bank robber.

Rather than attempting to recreate the scale of Verne’s journey literally, Brown’s adaptation makes the challenge part of the comedy. The five performers conjure dozens of characters and locations through rapid transformations, physical performance and theatrical invention.

One cast member, Leo Amadeus, the director’s son, plays 16 different characters during the evening.

Scott says the production also has a strong Canberra connection, with all five cast members current or former Perform Australia teachers, three of whom originally trained there as students.

The cast includes a father and son pairing, with Scott playing Detective Fix alongside Leo. They previously performed together in Danny the Champion of the World in Canberra in 2020, when Leo was 12.

“We don’t have to put a train, an elephant or a steamship on stage,” Scott said. “Five actors, some suitcases and an audience can create all of that together. The fun comes from watching the performers solve the problems the story keeps throwing at them.”

“This is the kind of show where the audience can see the machinery of theatre working,” he said.

“You watch an actor disappear offstage as one character and return seconds later as somebody completely different. Sometimes they don’t even get offstage. There’s a lot of precision underneath it, but the result should feel playful and spontaneous.”

And, Scott adds, the production features a “fairly heroic collection of suitcases”.

Around the World in 80 Days, Perform Australia Theatre, Reed Street, Tuggeranong, October 24 to 31.

First published at Canberra City News, October 20, 2026

The legends, standards and lessons that shaped jazz vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater

By Ria Andriani

ABC Jazz

Legendary vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater says jazz is freedom. (Supplied: Niccolo Bruna)

For more than five decades, Dee Dee Bridgewater has been one of jazz's most distinctive voices.

She began her career with the legendary Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra and has shared stages with jazz greats including Max Roach, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie.

A multiple Grammy and Tony Award winner, her career has spanned not only music but also acting, broadcasting and founding her own record label.

Bridgewater was due to return to Australia this October for her first tour in almost 12 years. 

However, just days before her first performance, it was announced that her Australian and Asian tour had been cancelled due to ill health.

We spoke with Bridgewater ahead of her planned tour. She reflects on unforgettable encounters with Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie, shares the songs closest to her heart, and offers advice for the next generation of musicians.

What is it about jazz that sustains you and gives you lifelong pleasure?

It's a music that is free.

Jazz is freedom of speech, is freedom of expression. It's just complete freedom.

Dee Dee Bridgewater encourages young artists to learn as much as possible about the business side of music. 
(Supplied: Hernan Rodriguez)

I don't have to be any one particular way.

I can improvise and change the music nightly and find new ways to interpret a song in different kinds of musical settings.

Then, to watch other jazz artists take the music and go places that I wouldn't think of going.

I don't know any other music [where] everyone is able to create their own world.

What was it like working with jazz legends like Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie?

When I first moved to New York with my first husband, Cecil Bridgewater, sometimes the phone would ring and it would be Sonny.

He'd say: "Dee Dee, this is Sonny Rollins … would you come and sing with me?"

And I was like, "Of course I'll sing with Sonny Rollins! Are you kidding?"

From the 1950s until his death in 2026, Sonny Rollins was a pioneering force of jazz. His towering figure
and bellowing brilliance on the tenor, certainly earned him the title of saxophone colossus.
Photo courtesy The New Yorker

So, I would do these afternoon shows with Sonny for some jazz society in New York.

As my career developed, we would occasionally see each other at festivals or awards ceremonies.

I just knew him as a person. He was a really nice man and not at all pretentious.

Dizzy Gillespie … oh, I loved working with Dizzy.

Dizzy loved to make people laugh. He would blow those cheeks up and he'd look like a puffer fish. And then all those notes would come out.

We had so much fun together and he was a jokester offstage.

What are your three favourite jazz standards?

Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life

I have always been astounded that someone in their teen years could write such a deep song.

It appeals to my dramatic senses and it's a challenging song to sing musically.

George David Weiss and Bob Thiele: What a Wonderful World

Singing that song always brings about a sense of peace and calm.

The clouds, the rain, the children, seeing people; it just reminds us of the beauty of humanity in the world. And it's just a beautiful melody.

Johnny Burke: Here's That Rainy Day

It's a ballad I have sung since I began singing professionally with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, [but] I've just started doing that song again recently.

I was about to sing it for one of my shows and got news that someone who I was very close to had passed.

[Years ago], he had asked me to marry him, and I was afraid to do it because he was Jewish and I was Black in the 70s.

I thought it would have been very difficult for us.

I was terrified when I was young of what that kind of a relationship could entail.

So, I said no, [even though] he was someone that I really did love.

Maybe I could have saved those leftover dreams. 

Funny. 

Here's that rainy day.

I realized that I had not been brave enough to go with this love that we both felt, [which fills me with] a very big tinge of regret.

It's still hard to sing, but I do like singing it because it has a totally different meaning for me now. 

What advice would you give aspiring musicians, especially young women?

I say to all young women, no matter which area of jazz they want to work in, whether they're instrumentalists or vocalists or even sound engineers behind the scenes, the most important thing when you are young is to gather as much knowledge about what it is you want to do.

You [need to be] well-armed to go into the profession, to know as much about the business side of whatever it is that you want to do.

Know how to take care of yourself, know your rights as a musician when you're coming out, know how to read contracts.

And I always say to young musicians: create safe spaces so that they can create their music.

Then whatever your music is going to be, you've got to do it to the best that you can possibly do.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

First published at ABC News, October 20, 2026