Arts editor HELEN MUSA takes a look at what’s what and where this week in the Canberra arts scene. 

TEMPO Theatre is taking a break from Agatha Christie to present its eighth annual Christmas radio play, “An Irish Kinda Christmas”. Scripted by Mike Weston and Jo Jones, it’s billed as a fun Irish story set around the background of the horse racing industry, showing how down-and-out trainer Seamus and his family get through Christmas, with the help of leprechauns, songs, Mick and Pat Jokes and a dash of craic! To be broadcast on Christmas Day at 7pm on radio 1RPH and the new year at tempotheatre.org.au

LUMINESCENCE Chamber Singers’ 2023 season features a wide array of singing, ranging from “Rabelaisian examples of Renaissance repertoire” to JS Bach. Sad news is that admired bass singer Jack Stephens will leave the team to concentrate on his role in Sydney as director of music at St Paul’s College. He’ll be replaced by Alasdair Stretch.

GOOD news from Bobby Farquhar at the National Acting School: his student, Liz Creevey from Canberra, has won the World Monologue Games’ amateur open category, the first Australian to do so, although many have been shortlisted.

THE National Film & Sound Archive is screening “The Grinch” on December 17, then one of the most enduring Christmas films of all time, “Miracle on 34th Street” from 1947. Arc Cinema, McCoy Circuit, Acton, 2pm, December 18.

CHRISTMAS in Australia is closely associated with the coming Summer solstice on December 22. A new album, “Sunconscious,” has been released by composer Kim Cunio from the ANU, UK multimedia artist Diana Scarborough and scientist Nigel Meredith from the British Antarctic Survey, which was inspired by the sounds of space from Earth and the sun, and even from beyond our galaxy. “This album conveys the sheer scale of our sun and how completely it permeates our lives,” Cunio says. Available free at the Sounds of Space Project on Bandcamp.