Concrete Playground

I'm pretty sure we could just run the title to this event and a link to tickets and it would sell out in a heartbeat, but the very occasion of director, writer and raconteur John Waters (aka the man who brought the term 'teabagging' to mainstream lexicon) appearing at the Sydney Opera House deserves a little more than that.

With his trademark pencil-thin moustache and dry Baltimore accent, the "pope of trash", the "king of filth", the, let's face it, genius behind such classic tales of subversive film fantasy as Hairspray, Cry-Baby, Pink Flamingos and (my favourite) Polyester, John Waters is heading to Sydney. For Mardi Gras! John Waters! All hail.

Accurately titled, This Filthy World promises to be a spoken-word vaudeville act, based on a documentary of the same name with new material as penned by Waters. Live, his monologues are dirty, pithy, and more often than not, sidesplitting. He's more than happy to delve into personal territory, revealing tales of those who negatively affected his life, his Dreamland allies, his interests in true crime and the perennial favourite topic: otters, cubs and bears. See? Something for everyone.

And for those who want to ask him for the millionth time, did he really get Cookie Mueller to have sex with a chicken and make Divine eat dog faeces for his movies, there'll be a Q&A session afterwards.