Concrete Playground

The cultural divide between Sydney and Melbourne has never felt more like a yawing abyss than when news broke that Joss Whedon would be giving the keynote address at the Melbourne Writers Festival.

Grr, Argh!

That is until we heard that he’d be coming to Sydney ... and addressing the Opera House. Snap!

Whedon's creative genius surely needs no explication here, but if we're going to gush, he will go down in history as the man behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer (in a pre-Twilight world, mind you) not to mention its hunky spin-off Angel. Whedon then went on to masterfully combine cowboys and space in the scandalously short-lived series Firefly, before sticking it to the man with the fan-demanded movie adaptation Serenity. His most recent television venture, Dollhouse, gave the world another kick-ass heroine in Echo — a cypher with identity issues. And as if he didn't already have his fans undying love, he graced the web with Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

Many, many more virtues are there to be extolled (did you say Toy Story? Or what about the ludicrously anticipated Holy Grail of the comic book-verse The Avengers?), but the point is, you can see Joss Whedon at the Opera House! Or, if you’re really quick, you can fork out some extra cash to Popcorn Taxi for premium seats and entry to the exclusive after-party. Shiny!