by Stephen Vagg
Next week (17 November 2026) sees Adelaide’s Mercury Theatre host a special Q&A for the indie All My Friends Are Back in Brisbane – the first time the movie has screened in Adelaide. In honour of this, we asked the film’s writer/producer Stephen Vagg to come up with some links between the City of Churches and the River City.
-
They are both one-newspaper towns
Adelaide has The Advertiser and Brisbane has The Courier Mail, both owned by you-know-who, with a corresponding impact on the culture of both cities.
-
They are neighbours. Kind of.
Okay, Adelaide and Brisbane aren’t so much neighbours as Queensland and South Australia – which do share a border. Perhaps the least-used border in the history of Australian statehood because of the desert, but a border nonetheless.
-
Cricket players
Queensland has a long, rich tradition of raiding South Australia for cricket talent: Greg Chappell, Gary Cosier, Ryan Harris, Peter George, Jeff Langley… Mind you, South Australia have pinched players from Queensland: Nathan McSweeney, Brendan Doggett, Peter Anderson. And when Queensland won the Sheffield Shield finally, they beat South Australia.
-
They were both dominated for a long time by gerrymandering premiers
South Australia had Sir Thomas Playford, Queensland had Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Both different types of men but both also old-school conservative political bosses.
-
Adelaide inspired Queensland’s film industry
No kidding. Don Dunstan set up the SAFC in the early 1970s, which had a hit right out of the gate with Sunday Too Far Away. Legend has it, Sir Joh saw pictures of people shearing sheep at the Cannes Film Festival to promote the movie, got very jealous, and arranged for the establishment of the Queensland Film Commission, the forerunner to today’s Screen Queensland.
-
Alan Seymour’s The One Day of the Year
A Sydney play about Anzac Day which was going to be produced by the Adelaide Festival in 1960, but they got cold feet, so an amateur company put it on instead, and it was a great success. Brisbane’s own Stephen Vagg (who wrote All My Friends Are Back in Brisbane) authored a stage play about this event called The First Night (of the One Day of the Year), possibly the first ever Brisbane play entirely set in Adelaide.
-
Toxic relationships with a bigger neighbour
For Adelaide it’s Melbourne, for Brisbane it’s Sydney.
-
Both cities aren’t that popular with the rest of their state
To be fair, which capital city is?
-
Both were on the outskirts of the Brisbane Line
For all those unaware, the Brisbane Line was a World War Two political and military concept concerning the defence of Australia against a potential Japanese invasion. Apparently, everything north of a line stretching from Brisbane to Adelaide would be conceded as too hard to defend. So, we would’ve been on the frontline together while Sydney and Melbourne bludged! Typical! Still better off than poor old Perth.
-
The rivalry for an overland telegraph
In the 19th century, the race was on to build a telegraph line that would connect Australia to the outside world. Brisbane/Queensland thought they had it in the bag, but the Adelaideans won it in 1872 with the Australian Overland Telegraph Line. Ken G. Hall was going to make a movie out of this in the late 1930s. If he had, maybe “Remember the Overland Telegraph!” would have been more of a rallying cry at Adelaide versus Brisbane sports events.
EVENT DETAILS
Film: All My Friends Are Back in Brisbane – Adelaide Premiere
Date: Tuesday 17 November 2026
Time: 7.00pm
Venue: The Mercury, Adelaide
Q&A: Louise Alston, moderated by Jai Koutrae
Runtime: 77 minutes
Classification: MA15+
Tickets: Purchase tickets through The Mercury
