Virginia Lovett. Photo: Ponch Hawkes
Virginia Lovett. Photo: Ponch Hawkes
MTC Recommendations

MTC Recommendations with Virginia Lovett

Each week during lockdown we’ll share a range of recommendations from a team member at MTC. This week, we asked Executive Director & Co-CEO Virginia Lovett what she's watching, reading, cooking and listening to.

Hello, it is wonderful to be connecting with you all through our new MTC NOW platform. It has been such a challenging time for all of us at MTC over the past few weeks, but all the wonderful messages of support and love from our subscribers, our donors and our artistic community have kept our spirits buoyed and nourished. Rest assured we are working tirelessly to ensure we get through these tough times and we will be ready to come together, raise the curtain and once again present MTC’s world-class productions for you to enjoy – hopefully not before too long.

In meantime here is what I have been doing to wind down.

RECIPE: Fish Curry

I love spending time in the kitchen and cooking for friends. Unfortunately at the moment we can’t have anyone over so we have been having Zoom dinner parties. This is where you connect with friends and eat together – virtually, via the computer. It’s not quite the same as dining in person but while we are in lockdown, it is a great way to catch up, especially with family and friends living on their own. Last week I cooked this fish curry, which is super easy and very tasty.

FILM and TV: Schitt’s Creek/A Very English Scandal

The Guardian’s list of Top 100 films of the 21st century is my Everest for this period of hibernation. I haven’t started yet but I am looking forward to mixing it up from Paddington 2 to Roma to The Souvenir.

I love TV – it always helps me relax and I can be a real binge watcher. Some of favourite series lately have been Schitt’s Creek, Stateless and A Very English Scandal.

BOOK: Actress by Anne Enright

Enright’s Actress would be of interest to those of us in the theatre world. Many of the characters were so familiar – flawed, charismatic and deeply entertaining. Watching this world unfold through the eyes of the daughter of a famous actress was enlightening and sobering. The novel loses a little bit of puff at the end with one too many endings but it’s worth a read all the same.

I am going to tackle Dickens’ Bleak House next. When Miriam Margolyes was here last year for Lady in the Van she read some passages over dinner and it so was marvellous. It reignited my interest in reading the book again.

MUSIC/PODCAST: ABC

Like many, I’m sure, I have been overloaded with the news cycles. So I have now turned instead to waking up to ABC’s Classic FM. Between it and Radio National, the radio rarely leaves the ABC at my house. As a child I grew up around the studios of ABC Melbourne when they were down in William Street, as my father was Chief of Staff of ABC Radio News, so I have been indoctrinated from a young age. In these times you understand how valuable a national broadcaster is.

VIDEO: University of Melbourne Virtual Campus

The University has gone virtual and this is their new website. The section Nourish Your Mind takes you across all parts of the University campus, exploring their cultural assets. MTC is obviously one of those assets but there are many more to discover here – from symphony orchestras at the Conservatorium and voice coaching at VCA to the new Science Gallery.

Published on 8 April 2020

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