You’ve seen him in film-festival favourite Unfinished Sky, which recently screened at Brisbane cinemas, and now you can see him in the flesh – William McInnes, is appearing at the Brisbane Writers Festival, on Saturday 20 September, to talk about his latest book, That’d Be Right. You can also see him talk as part of a panel about A Life on the Stage and A Bloke's Life, both on Sunday 21 September.
The man hardly needs an introduction, but for newcomers to the William McInnes fan club, here’s some background. Nowadays, McInnes calls Melbourne home, but Redcliffe, an easy 30-minute drive north of Brisbane is where he hails from. He’s a local boy made good – really good – as one of Australia’s most popular stage and screen actors. And with the publication of his memoir, A Man’s Got to Have a Hobby, and his novel Cricket Kings, he has become a much-loved writer too.
And now, joy of joys, he’s given us another book – That’d Be Right.
The same mixture of humour and thoughtfulness that readers loved in A Man’s Got to Have a Hobby is here in abundance, as William McInnes looks back at Australia over the past 30 years.
McInnes brings the world, or at least Australia, into our backyards as he writes about families and sport and politics and life in his familiar style that makes you feel as if he is sitting down talking to you.
Both funny and insightful That’d Be Right is part memoir, part personal history of Australia over the past 30 years. It’s a biographical trip told through sport, and families and William’s own experiences.
Some of these events would be considered momentous, some small and personal. And all are seen through McInnes’s eyes. They range from a day at the Melbourne Cup with his mother where too many champagnes and too few winners were picked; a swimming carnival early in the morning after a gloomy and long federal election the night before; watching truly surreal Grand Final moments in a pub with a group of odd and unknown bar companions. And sailing on a massive yacht during the Sydney Olympics while listening to the conversation of an elderly lady from Texas in the cabin below.
“As with A Man’s Got to Have a Hobby, I weave in and around the events that have held such fascination for this country over the past 30 years or so, connecting them all with the progression of a life,” says McInnes.
He’s delighted to be back in Brisbane, basking in our abundant winter sunshine, and appearing at the Brisbane Writers Festival.
Accolades and other stuff
- In 2006 A Man’s Got to Have a Hobby was selected as one of the Books Alive 50 Great Reads and McInnes was named ‘Australian Newcomer of the Year’ at the Australian Book Industry Awards, and in 2007 Cricket Kings was shortlisted in the ‘Australian General Fiction Book of the Year’ category for these awards.
- McInnes received critical and public acclaim for his leading role in the film Look Both Ways, written and directed by his wife Sarah Watt. His roles in SeaChange and Blue Heelers had already made him a household name.
