Based on the lifelong mistakes of steel guitarist Kier Stevens, Melbourne band Doggerel flog their own roughhouse brand of bung blues and black ballads on drinking, dishonour, and death and yet, the good news continues... A heavy focus on ratbaggery and having a rollicking good time keeps the music fresh and raw like a wound.

And just like a scar you love to tell the story of, Doggerel is the weird thing on your shoulder that everybody wants to ask about.

Poet gig guide

Hailed as a rural Australian Blues gem, GKJ has made audiences across the globe dance, stomp, and holler to the sound of his Delta inspired music. He is excited to be playing at The Drunken Poet to share his passion for this music that was originally fuelled by exposure to early solo players such as Blind Blake, Scrapper Blackwell, John Lee Hooker and Snooks Eaglin.

With a sound that ranges from dirty and dangerous to sweet and sexy and occasionally hilariously comical, GKJ is a captivating performer not to be missed.

Poet gig guide

Indie-pop sensation, Rubita, is ready to enthrall audiences with her high-energy performances and mesmerizing stage presence at the Drunken Poet this November.

Prepare for an unforgettable experience as she delivers her vibrant hits like "Milky Moon," "Black Underwear," and "Geraldine." Rubita's smooth electric guitar playing blends seamlessly with her captivating vocals and is supported by a dynamic rhythm section of drums (Josh Brown) and bass guitar (Davin Ojala).

Rubita's show promises a night of infectious melodies and unforgettable moments that will leave you wanting more.

Poet gig guide

Audiences are transported into an expansive and theatrical environment that celebrates the power and remarkable beauty of Australian flora in this exhibition by Valerie Sparks. Populated with radiant images of red flowering gums, pink proteas, white waratah, magnolia grandiflora and other native plants, the Sanctuary 3 series blurs the boundaries between fantasy and reality.

This powerful series of inkjet prints invites a closer inspection of the colour, texture and luminescent leaves and petals of native plants. Imbued with notions of healing and protection for plants, the series provides a sanctuary in which to explore the relationship between nature and humans.

The work pays homage to the achievements of nineteenth and twentieth-century women botanical artists including Margaret Anderson Hope, Ellis Rowan, Mariane North, and Louisa Anne Meredith and their contribution to our understanding of biodiversity and the natural world.

This is a free event // Booking not required

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STEAM on up and explore the fun of science, technology, engineering, art and maths with hands-on activities.

Age: 7 to 12 years.

This is a free event - bookings not required.

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Immerse Yourself in Thai Culture

EziStreat, North Melbourne's beloved food hall and events space, invites you to discover the vibrant world of Thailand at the upcoming Thai Sunday Market. On the 21st of April, from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM, join us for an enriching cultural experience filled with tantalising flavours, captivating crafts, and lively entertainment.

Savour Authentic Thai Flavours

Explore the bustling markets of Bangkok as EziStreat transforms into a haven of Thai gastronomy. Indulge your taste buds with authentic Thai cuisine from renowned vendors such as Soi Thai and ASAP Room. From flavourful curries to spicy street food, our diverse array of food offerings promises to delight even the most discerning palates.

Experience Thai Traditions

Immerse yourself in the sights and sounds of Thailand with traditional and modern Thai acoustic performances by Wachirun (Terry) Zarapho. Explore over 20 stalls and food vendors offering a variety of Thai delicacies, crafts, and entertainment, providing a rich tapestry of Thai culture right here in North Melbourne.

Join Us for a Day of Fun

Whether you're a Thai food enthusiast or simply looking for a fun day out, the Thai Sunday Market at EziStreat promises to be an enjoyable experience for all. Bring your friends and family for a day filled with delicious food, entertainment, and cultural discovery.

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Prepare for a laughter-packed ride as Big Dyke Energy returns after its sold-out season at Melbourne Fringe.

Join acclaimed writer, performer and internet pest Hannah Malarski as she dives head first into the unique pressures faced by queer women. A comedy about the power of story, pride and the dangers of cultural omissions, Big Dyke Energy is a show that will make you laugh, think, then spread your legs and take up all the available space on the tram ride home.

Part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Tickets : Adult $25 // concession $20

Booking online

Audiences are transported into an expansive and theatrical environment that celebrates the power and remarkable beauty of Australian flora in this exhibition by Valerie Sparks. Populated with radiant images of red flowering gums, pink proteas, white waratah, magnolia grandiflora and other native plants, the Sanctuary 3 series blurs the boundaries between fantasy and reality.

This powerful series of inkjet prints invites a closer inspection of the colour, texture and luminescent leaves and petals of native plants. Imbued with notions of healing and protection for plants, the series provides a sanctuary in which to explore the relationship between nature and humans.

The work pays homage to the achievements of nineteenth and twentieth-century women botanical artists including Margaret Anderson Hope, Ellis Rowan, Mariane North, and Louisa Anne Meredith and their contribution to our understanding of biodiversity and the natural world.

This is a free event // Booking not required

Visit website

After a sold-out international run of his last show, Cultural Appreciation, David Nihill is touring Australia for the first time with his new show, Shelf Help.

Leaving Dublin, Ireland where he was born and raised until the age of 22, David got drunk on travel and never quite hit sobriety. He has lived and worked in twelve countries and visited over seventy. His shows draw on his wide travels, cultural observations, attempts at language study, (occasional) international drinking session(s) and being a mildly confused immigrant.

David is the winner of the prestigious annual San Francisco Comedy Competition, and runner up in the Moth’s largest US Grandslam storytelling competition. Also a bestselling writer, David recorded his debut special for Dry Bar Comedy in 2019 and has been featured on TED.com. David’s videos have gone viral many times over with over 400 million views.

Tickets: $49.90

Book online

Prepare for a laughter-packed ride as Big Dyke Energy returns after its sold-out season at Melbourne Fringe.

Join acclaimed writer, performer and internet pest Hannah Malarski as she dives head first into the unique pressures faced by queer women. A comedy about the power of story, pride and the dangers of cultural omissions, Big Dyke Energy is a show that will make you laugh, think, then spread your legs and take up all the available space on the tram ride home.

Part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Tickets : Adult $25 // concession $20

Booking online

Audiences are transported into an expansive and theatrical environment that celebrates the power and remarkable beauty of Australian flora in this exhibition by Valerie Sparks. Populated with radiant images of red flowering gums, pink proteas, white waratah, magnolia grandiflora and other native plants, the Sanctuary 3 series blurs the boundaries between fantasy and reality.

This powerful series of inkjet prints invites a closer inspection of the colour, texture and luminescent leaves and petals of native plants. Imbued with notions of healing and protection for plants, the series provides a sanctuary in which to explore the relationship between nature and humans.

The work pays homage to the achievements of nineteenth and twentieth-century women botanical artists including Margaret Anderson Hope, Ellis Rowan, Mariane North, and Louisa Anne Meredith and their contribution to our understanding of biodiversity and the natural world.

This is a free event // Booking not required

Visit website

Audiences are transported into an expansive and theatrical environment that celebrates the power and remarkable beauty of Australian flora in this exhibition by Valerie Sparks. Populated with radiant images of red flowering gums, pink proteas, white waratah, magnolia grandiflora and other native plants, the Sanctuary 3 series blurs the boundaries between fantasy and reality.

This powerful series of inkjet prints invites a closer inspection of the colour, texture and luminescent leaves and petals of native plants. Imbued with notions of healing and protection for plants, the series provides a sanctuary in which to explore the relationship between nature and humans.

The work pays homage to the achievements of nineteenth and twentieth-century women botanical artists including Margaret Anderson Hope, Ellis Rowan, Mariane North, and Louisa Anne Meredith and their contribution to our understanding of biodiversity and the natural world.

This is a free event // Booking not required

Visit website

Guitar in hand, stand-up comedian Jess Karamjeet – a 30-something, mixed-race, bisexual immigrant – navigates the awkward intersections of her identity while grieving the loss of her dear, departed dad.

Riding shotgun is Sophie Gibson, an NZ On Air funded singer/songwriter with over a million Spotify streams, who's made the ever-so-logical side-step into stand-up comedy.

This taboo-busting, stereotype-subverting hour is a workout for your mind and your sides (you know, from all the laughter).

Part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Tickets from $21 to $26

Book online

Audiences are transported into an expansive and theatrical environment that celebrates the power and remarkable beauty of Australian flora in this exhibition by Valerie Sparks. Populated with radiant images of red flowering gums, pink proteas, white waratah, magnolia grandiflora and other native plants, the Sanctuary 3 series blurs the boundaries between fantasy and reality.

This powerful series of inkjet prints invites a closer inspection of the colour, texture and luminescent leaves and petals of native plants. Imbued with notions of healing and protection for plants, the series provides a sanctuary in which to explore the relationship between nature and humans.

The work pays homage to the achievements of nineteenth and twentieth-century women botanical artists including Margaret Anderson Hope, Ellis Rowan, Mariane North, and Louisa Anne Meredith and their contribution to our understanding of biodiversity and the natural world.

This is a free event // Booking not required

Visit website

Prepare for a laughter-packed ride as Big Dyke Energy returns after its sold-out season at Melbourne Fringe.

Join acclaimed writer, performer and internet pest Hannah Malarski as she dives head first into the unique pressures faced by queer women. A comedy about the power of story, pride and the dangers of cultural omissions, Big Dyke Energy is a show that will make you laugh, think, then spread your legs and take up all the available space on the tram ride home.

Part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Tickets : Adult $25 // concession $20

Booking online

Audiences are transported into an expansive and theatrical environment that celebrates the power and remarkable beauty of Australian flora in this exhibition by Valerie Sparks. Populated with radiant images of red flowering gums, pink proteas, white waratah, magnolia grandiflora and other native plants, the Sanctuary 3 series blurs the boundaries between fantasy and reality.

This powerful series of inkjet prints invites a closer inspection of the colour, texture and luminescent leaves and petals of native plants. Imbued with notions of healing and protection for plants, the series provides a sanctuary in which to explore the relationship between nature and humans.

The work pays homage to the achievements of nineteenth and twentieth-century women botanical artists including Margaret Anderson Hope, Ellis Rowan, Mariane North, and Louisa Anne Meredith and their contribution to our understanding of biodiversity and the natural world.

This is a free event // Booking not required

Visit website

Nireekshane (ನಿರೀಕ್ಷಣೆ: ‘the act of seeing’) examines how redistributing the power of the gaze can be an act of building equity. Presenting a range of traditional and expanded image-making practices from South Asia and the diaspora, this exhibition showcases works that arise from the margins – both in context and in form.

Foregrounding forgotten or overlooked lived experiences in South Asia, nireekshane explores the surreal, hypnotic and subversive methods with which narratives are constantly formed and reformed. Vantage points shift between ideas of domesticity, belonging and landscape, drawing parallels between connotations of purity within both social-hierarchies and photographic practices.

Nireekshane references the disappearing of bodies and practices during the formation of dominant narratives, and calls for a thorough re-examination of contemporary visual culture in South Asia.

Presented as part of PHOTO 2024.

Monday 15th - Saturday 20th April // 10:30AM - 4:30PM

This is free event, bookings not essential

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SPECIAL FINISSAGE: We hope you will join us on Sunday afternoon April 14th.

2:15pm - Improvisation to the Video 'Breaking Ice' (12 mins) Directed by Anne Algar featuring opera singer Hemi Titokuwaru and Barbara Hornung on Viola.

3 pm - Song/spoken word performance written by Anne Algar, with musical accompaniment.

(gallery open from 1-5 pm bar and coffee etc)

All exhibited works by Anne Algar are for sale and purchased works can be taken home at the end of this event.

Onestar Insta

Artist Sue Lovegrove’s delicate and layered mark-making explores the patterning and rhythms of the land, water and sky.

In this series of paintings the artist is interested in the abstract and indeterminate qualities of the elemental forces of water and air in the landscape, with both in a constant state of flux and transience.

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From Frantz Fanon and Aime Cesaire to Can Xue and Michelle Tea, Henry James and Cynthia Ozick to James Baldwin and McKenzie Wark, writing has served as both a tool for change and a mirror of the world as it exists – a way of representing the world and responding to it.

This workshop will look at essay and fiction forms, how they operate and how to convey ideas in writing.

This is a free event

Book online

ಒಡಲಾಳ Odalala (‘from the depths of one being’), unfolds across the entirety of Arts House during Dalit History Month. ಒಡಲಾಳ Odalala is a multi-format activation, featuring an exhibition, public programs, talks, screenings, communal meals and curator and accessible tours.  

Among the works of ಒಡಲಾಳ Odalala are two new major commissions: Alam from Elyas Alavi spans a large-scale sculptural work, videos and performances that look at the intersections of Islamic ritual and marginalised queer identities; and Sajan Mani’s performance installation, set between colonisation, missionary-led education and growing up in a Dalit community of rubber tappers. 

ಒಡಲಾಳ Odalala expands on the contextual framework of ಒಕ್ಕೂಟ Okkoota, held at Arts House in April 2023. As new and varied systems of knowledge inhabit the spaces of the building, the institution shifts and reshapes its relationship to curatorial practice, community, and to itself.

Closed on public holidays and Sundays.

This is a free event // Booking not required

Visit website

Jarrod Shaw possesses a passion and appreciation for blues music that becomes obvious from the moment the first note sounds. He delivers a soulful blues inspired show, performed with conviction.

Jarrod was born and raised in country Victoria, down the dirt roads of the Macedon Ranges. He taught himself to play guitar listening to the renowned blues greats, as well as the icons of the Australian and local Melbourne blues scene.

Performing countless solo gigs has aided Jarrod in developing a musical style of his own. He blends his unique guitar approach lying somewhere between piedmont fingerstyle and the blues of the delta, with a powerful voice often described as belying his years. At times he even wails away on a racked blues harp - all at once without missing a beat. If you close your eyes you might even believe there’s more than one person performing…

Poet’s gig guide

The Poet welcomes Maggie Carty to The Poet!

Poet’s gig guide

Poet faves Daniel Watkins and Justin Vilchez plays the songs of Bob Dylan!

Poet’s gig guie

Roll the dice, make your choice.

Four players take on the role of a fellow community member. As the rest of us watch on, an unnerving and hyperlocal world is created through imagination and play. The streets of North Melbourne become a site of escalating and discomforting choices, where the lines of responsibility between ‘individual’ and ‘community’ blur. 

From shapeshifting Māori storyteller Daley Rangi, Dissent is an irreverent and provocative exploration of everyday resistance. Each roll of the dice and subsequent decision shapes an unfolding story, as we face predicaments that bring us into conflict with forces of authority, and with our own morality. 

With custom-designed game pieces and a supportive and playful host, this is a warm-hearted and immersive tabletop roleplaying encounter of ethical and social dilemma.  

No-one is forced to play, but as the game unfolds, you won’t be able to look away.  

Book Online

Standard $35 //Reduced $20 // BLAKTIX $10

Visit website

Roll the dice, make your choice.

Four players take on the role of a fellow community member. As the rest of us watch on, an unnerving and hyperlocal world is created through imagination and play. The streets of North Melbourne become a site of escalating and discomforting choices, where the lines of responsibility between ‘individual’ and ‘community’ blur. 

From shapeshifting Māori storyteller Daley Rangi, Dissent is an irreverent and provocative exploration of everyday resistance. Each roll of the dice and subsequent decision shapes an unfolding story, as we face predicaments that bring us into conflict with forces of authority, and with our own morality. 

With custom-designed game pieces and a supportive and playful host, this is a warm-hearted and immersive tabletop roleplaying encounter of ethical and social dilemma.  

No-one is forced to play, but as the game unfolds, you won’t be able to look away.  

Book Online

Standard $35 //Reduced $20 // BLAKTIX $10

Visit website

For many of us, music is much more than just a form of expression. This sentiment rings true for Australian musician Jay Howie. For him, music offers an unadulterated emotional release; a profound outpouring of one’s soul that fills the proverbial cup of each of Jay’s Blues compositions.

Influenced by an amalgamation of old delta Blues players, as well as the Chicago Blues scene and British Blues of the late '60s and '70s, Jay's approach to the genre is marked by his ability to thread together the emotional fibres of his past, present and future.

His undeniable ability with the guitar is matched only by his raw vocal palette, with his lyrics echoing insightful and heartfelt storytelling abilities. He is currently sitting on a discography containing a full-length album (Tales of Woe and Coincidence), an EP (Dirty Habits), and a single (Leaving Me). His solo material has taken him across Australia, sharing the stage with the likes of Ash Grunwald, Lloyd Spiegel and Dutch Tilders. Today, Jay continues to position himself as a Blues artist to watch in the future.

Poet’s gig guide

Roll the dice, make your choice.

Four players take on the role of a fellow community member. As the rest of us watch on, an unnerving and hyperlocal world is created through imagination and play. The streets of North Melbourne become a site of escalating and discomforting choices, where the lines of responsibility between ‘individual’ and ‘community’ blur. 

From shapeshifting Māori storyteller Daley Rangi, Dissent is an irreverent and provocative exploration of everyday resistance. Each roll of the dice and subsequent decision shapes an unfolding story, as we face predicaments that bring us into conflict with forces of authority, and with our own morality. 

With custom-designed game pieces and a supportive and playful host, this is a warm-hearted and immersive tabletop roleplaying encounter of ethical and social dilemma.  

No-one is forced to play, but as the game unfolds, you won’t be able to look away.  

Book Online

Standard $35 //Reduced $20 // BLAKTIX $10

Visit website

Roll the dice, make your choice.

Four players take on the role of a fellow community member. As the rest of us watch on, an unnerving and hyperlocal world is created through imagination and play. The streets of North Melbourne become a site of escalating and discomforting choices, where the lines of responsibility between ‘individual’ and ‘community’ blur. 

From shapeshifting Māori storyteller Daley Rangi, Dissent is an irreverent and provocative exploration of everyday resistance. Each roll of the dice and subsequent decision shapes an unfolding story, as we face predicaments that bring us into conflict with forces of authority, and with our own morality. 

With custom-designed game pieces and a supportive and playful host, this is a warm-hearted and immersive tabletop roleplaying encounter of ethical and social dilemma.  

No-one is forced to play, but as the game unfolds, you won’t be able to look away.  

Book Online

Standard $35 //Reduced $20 // BLAKTIX $10

Visit website