A talking heads program running over three weekends in Kings Cross as part of Vivid Sydney Saturday 27 May to Sunday 11 June

The producers of wildly popular immersive cabaret Hidden Sydney - The Glittering Mile, are bringing back their smash hit show in tandem with a curated season of raw and riveting ‘in conversation events’ featuring Kings Cross luminaries as part of Vivid Sydney.

Rub shoulders with artists, idealists and opportunists and hear fascinating 20th century stories about ‘ungentrified’ Sydney - the heady days of rock’n’roll, free love, corruption, opportunity, sex, greed and politics.

Presented over three weekends from Saturday 27 May 27 to Sunday 11 June, Kings Bloody Cross will engage audiences with thrilling insight into the dirty half mile’s People, Bohemia and Place.

Twelve scintillating sessions, curated by Olivia Ansell, cover everything from Sydney hedonism as photographed by Rennie Ellis (Surface Glitter and Underground Guts), backstage secrets with Les Girls (Queens of the Cross), brothel gentrification and the hangover from free love (Sex and the City), working with crooked detectives (The Underbelly Experience), ripping yarns from the Bourbon & Beefsteak piano man (The Noise Next Door), living in protest (Radical Sydney) and the fading Dirty Half Mile - will we still write about it?

Guests include literary giants Louis Nowra and Mandy Sayer, Richard Clapton, ‘Piccolo Queen’ Vittorio Bianchi and muse Vashti Hughes, iconic rock exhibitionist Jeff Duff, hoofers from Les Girls - Colleen Windsor, Monique Kelly and Maxine Du Barry - former NSW Police Detective and Wood Royal Commission whistleblower Deborah Locke, Underbelly writer/producer Greg Haddrick, Sydney Push luminaries Margaret Fink and Wendy Bacon, song-writer Frankie Davidson OAM, Wayside Chapel’s Reverend Graham Long AM, Striptease artist Elizabeth Burton, The Whitlams’ Ben Fink, sex worker and long-term activist Julie Bates, Will Tregoning from unharm.org and Radical Sydney’s Rowan Cahill.

Hosts include James Valentine, Louis Nowra, Mandy Sayer, Kate McClymont, Mark Kristian, Lesley Hancock, Paris Pompor, Jay Katz and Warren Fahey AM.

Nino Culotta’s 1957 book They’re a Weird Mob, describes a Sydney taxi driver directing his passenger to “Kings Bloody Cross”, an iconic phrase encapsulated in Sydney folklore and Australian social history. Sixty years later, come and hear first hand from the people who came, who saw and who still live to share the tales of Sydney’s most controversial and celebrated neighborhood.

“I grew up hearing people say 'It could only happen in Kings Bloody Cross' and I can't imagine living anywhere else. It's one hell of a place!”, Warren Fahey AM Songwriter, Cultural Historian.

Kings Bloody Cross is produced by Live Ideas and Working Management and curated by Olivia Ansell.

Vivid Sydney is the world’s largest festival of light, music and ideas and returns from 26 May to 17 June, 2017.

Full Program and information
https://www.hiddensydney.com.au/kings-bloody-cross
https://www.vividsydney.com/event/ideas/kings-bloody-cross-9
FACEBOOK - https://www.facebook.com/kingsbloodycross/
@kingsbloodycross
TWITTER – @KingsBloodyX

Venues: The World Bar, 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross
The Wayside Chapel 29 Hughes St Kings Cross
Dates: 27 May – 11 June 2017
Times: Saturdays 11:15am & 12:45pm, Sundays 11:15am, 12:45pm & 3pm
Tickets: $25.00 per session
Bookings: Ticketmaster 136 100 or ticketmaster.com.au