Local leader column with Leonie Napier | June 2022

The much-anticipated melodrama Bloodshed at the Banquet is poised to finally make its debut on July 9 2022.

Bloodshed at the Banquet cast and crew continue to work tirelessly, learning lines, immersing themselves in history, murder, and a little bit of mayhem.

This amateur production promises overacting with unrestrained melodrama that invites the audience to step into another era, boo the villain, cheer the hero and solve this dastardly mystery.

Leeton Shire Council's Cultural Services team are working furiously to ensure events and experiences continue to claim the Australian Art Deco Festival as a signature drawcard for Leeton.

Investment into our arts, history and culture is foundational in developing Leeton and District as a preferred tourism destination.

Events and displays are purposefully linked creating an authentic immersive experience of history.

Bloodshed at the Banquet was inspired by the novelist Agatha Christie, Queen of Murder Mystery, who stayed one night at the Historic Hydro Hotel Leeton in 1922.

Vintage planes on display at the Festival are evidence of the technological innovation that saw Sir Charles Kingsford Smith complete the world's first trans-Pacific flight in 1928 as well as the establishment of the Royal Flying Doctor Service by Reverend Dr John Flynn.

IN OTHER NEWS:

The early 1920's erupted with celebration having overcome WW1 and the Spanish Flu pandemic.

It was a time of development and change as the new modern woman emerged wearing dropped waist dresses and fringed frocks with scandalous knee-high hemlines.

Women demanded a voice and to move from the domestic sphere that had contained them.

Edith Cowan became the first female parliamentarian when elected in Western Australia in 1921 and the McDonagh sisters certainly made headway as the first women to own and operate a film making company in Sydney.

An assertion for freedom and equality for all had strengthened yet the road was still arduous for many.

So catch a ride on the vintage clipper, get your posh frocks ready, don your wingtip shoes, pin stripped suits and tip your Fedora to a wonderful explosion of entertainment on 8 to 10 July 2022.

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