Brrrr. It's colder than a nun's nasty, so it is. The weather - and its attendent ills - mean Ms TN has been down for the count this week. She's two reviews behind, and is peevishly demanding tissues and cold and flu pills from the depths of her mink stole. But hark! Is that magic tinkle the sound of the embargo lifting on the Melbourne Festival program? Why, yes it is!


Read it and drool. We already know some of the glamour highlights - the Merce Cunningham Residency, for instance, which includes a major retrospective of works from the 1950s to now, including a look at many of his collaborations with artists like Jasper Johns or John Cage, and a consideration of his influence into the present. That program alone will keep you pretty busy. And yes, there's also Peter Brook, Robert Wilson, Barrie Kosky, Laurie Anderson. Jon Rose...

But plenty catches my eye beyond the familiar names. Anyone lucky enough to see Jerome Bel last year will no doubt, like me, be circling the dates of his piece The Show Must Go On (which he referenced in last year's show). My other must-sees include the Teatre Lliure from Barcelona, bringing its European House (a prologue, it seems, to Hamlet); the Dutch company Dood Pard with its versions of Titus Andronicus and Medea, and Sankai Juku (pictured), a Japanese company that combines western and Butoh traditions of dance, with Kagemi: Beyond the Halls of Mirrors (apparently partly based on the Japanese art of flower arranging, Ikebana). And I haven't even mentioned the music and visual arts. Check it out for yourself; me, I'm reaching for the echinacea and getting into training now.