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Sydney Festival

A Model Murder

Where
138 Oxford St
Darlinghurst NSW 2010
Australia
Darlinghurst Courthouse
When

Saturday 4 January 2025 from 5pm to 6pm Sunday 5 January 2025 from 5pm to 6pm Tuesday 7 January 2025 from 7:30pm to 8:30pm Wednesday 8 January 2025 from 7:30pm to 8:30pm Thursday 9 January 2025 from 7:30pm to 8:30pm Friday 10 January 2025 from 7:30pm to 8:30pm Saturday 11 January 2025 from 7:30pm to 8:30pm Sunday 12 January 2025 from 2pm to 3pm Sunday 12 January 2025 from 7:30pm to 8:30pm Tuesday 14 January 2025 from 6:30pm to 7:30pm Wednesday 15 January 2025 from 7:30pm to 8:30pm Thursday 16 January 2025 from 7:30pm to 8:30pm Friday 17 January 2025 from 7:30pm to 8:30pm Saturday 18 January 2025 from 2pm to 3pm Saturday 18 January 2025 from 7:30pm to 8:30pm Sunday 19 January 2025 from 2pm to 3pm Sunday 19 January 2025 from 7:30pm to 8:30pm

Cost

Starting from: $69

The true crime story of Shirley Beiger

On the night of 9 August 1954, glamour model Shirley Beiger pointed a gun at her bookie’s clerk boyfriend, Arthur Griffith, in front of Chequers, one of Sydney’s ritziest nightclubs. Arthur was there with another woman… he’d told Shirley he was at the dentist. In her trial for Arthur’s murder, Shirley claimed she did not hear the gun go off, “but knew something dreadful must have happened”.

Playwright Melanie Tait (The Appleton Ladies’ Potato RaceThe Queen’s NannyA Broadcast Coup, Sydney Festival 2022) and co-writer and director Sheridan Harbridge (44 Sex Acts in One Week, Sydney Festival 2022) take you back in time 70 years. Their brand-new immersive work not only uses the words from the trial itself but takes place in the very same courthouse – which is welcoming theatre audiences for the first time.

Think Chicago meets Witness for the Prosecution and immerse yourself in a wickedly funny, tantalising recreation of a media event that had Australia on tenterhooks.

Contact event organiser

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