Van Badham

“Van Badham may have one of the biggest and quickest minds in Australia, but it’s her huge heart that takes the stage” – Nakkiah Lui

Van Badham is a theatre-maker, journalist, critic, dramaturg, activist, author and broadcaster, based in regional Australia. She is currently employed as a political columnist and culture critic for The Guardian, with bylines in The New York Times, The Telegraph (UK), The Age and Bloomberg. She is a regular contributor to ABC radio and TV and co-hosts the award-winning The Week on Wednesday podcast.

As a theatre-maker, Van has had more than 100 international productions of her work, in forms from drama to comedy, music theatre, puppetry, multimedia, classic adaptation, cabaret and standup comedy. She has enjoyed commissions for new plays and new musical theatre with Queensland Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre, Black Swan State Theatre of Western Australia and the State Theatre Company of South Australia. She has also staged work with Griffin Theatre Company, Merrigong Theatre, Hothouse Theatre, Albury and Terrapin National Puppet Theatre.

Resident in Britain for ten years, Van worked with companies there including the Royal Court Theatre, Paines Plough, Theatre503, Theatre Royal Bath, nabokov, LIPA, and the Finborough Theatre, this last also as literary manager. She was the first Australian to win Britain’s Harold Hobson prize for theatre criticism. Van also wrote radio plays for the BBC and has since created radio drama and narrated radio documentaries for the ABC.

Internationally, she has staged work with the New York Summer Play Festival, the Summerworks Theatre Festival Toronto, the Bern Stadtteater and many others, including repeat outings at the Adelaide Fringe, Melbourne Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

In 2024, the Sydney Theatre company premiered her adaptation of Lope De Vega’s La Dama Boba as A FOOL IN LOVE and her new musical (with composer Richard Wise), THE QUESTIONS, was debuted by the State Theatre Company of South Australia at the Adelaide Festival Centre. Her play WEREWOLF was produced at and by Arts Centre Melbourne for Melbourne Fringe in October, 2024.

In 2021, she was Writer-In-Residence at Charles Sturt University Wagga Wagga, creating the musical comedy PARTY BEACH! with her long-term collaborator, composer Jonny Berliner, as the graduation production for CSU’s performance course. Also in 2021, her commissioned adaptation of ANIMAL FARM was staged by Black Swan State Theatre Company of Western Australia. Her 2019 comedy BANGING DENMARK, which sold out its month-long season for the Sydney Theatre Company at the Sydney Opera House, was published as a book by New South Books and was a finalist for a NSW Premiers Literary Award in 2020. It enjoyed a successful London season at the Finborough Theatre in 2024. Van was a Finalist in the 2025 Griffin Award for her play, RAVEN.

Her 2021 non-fiction book, QAnon And On: A Short and Shocking History of Internet Conspiracy Cults was a best-seller and a finalist for a Walkley award for journalism. She is currently writing a second non-fiction book for Hardie Grant as well as being under commission for new work at Melbourne Theatre Company and developing episodic television with Jungle Entertainment.

She is a graduate of a BCA/BA (hons) at the University of Wollongong, studied on exchange at the University of Sheffield (UK) and has a Masters from the VCA.

https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/author/van-badham