Season Preview: Your guide to the arts in 2021

Bell Shakespeare has announced its 2021 season, which will open in March with the company’s founder John Bell taking the stage at the Sydney Opera House for a one-man performance. One Man In His Time: John Bell and Shakespeare was to be part of the 2020 season, celebrating Bell Shakespeare’s 30th anniversary, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

John Bell will share his love of Shakespeare to Sydney audiences before presenting the show in Canberra in April. “He bounces around politics and love and language and various themes that have fixated him – and still fixate him – about Shakespeare and his work,” says Artistic Director Peter Evans. “And it’s very personal – it’s not John talking about his life, or the productions, so much, it’s him talking about what the works mean to him.”

Audiences have been offered a taste of the show through the Sydney Opera House’s digital season, From our House to Yours, which is available to view now.

“John recorded about 20 minutes of it straight to the camera in the Joan Sutherland,” Evans says. “I found it very...