Growing up tough in East London on a Forest Gate council estate, Ben Drew, aka Plan B, always felt outcast from society.

His punk musician Dad left him and his Mum when he was five months old and he hasn’t had any contact with him since he was six. Expelled from school he wound up in the Tunmarsh Pupil Referral Unit in Plaistow for kids unable to attend mainstream education.

It was here that he started making music and his life took a turn for the better. Under the alias Plan B, Drew has become a multiplatinum selling rapper and singer.

While music has always been his greatest passion in life, film is a close second. He has acted in a slew of films, and he recently penned and directed his own feature film, ‘iLL Manors’. It depicts life on the streets of East London seen through the eyes of several dysfunctional characters and their interwoven lives.

“It’s about all the nasty fucked-up shit that happens in the world that is written about in the newspapers, but there’s never an explanation as to why this stuff happens,” Drew told Time Out London.

“I wanted to show that there’s a cause and effect. There’s a line of dominoes and one’s knocking into the next, affecting the next. When you read this stuff in the paper, you’re reading about the last domino that’s fallen, that’s what you’re reading, but it never explains the dominoes before.

“If a kid stabs another kid, it’s always like, ‘This horrible, disgusting, violent kid stabbed another kid and killed him’. All right, why is this kid horrible and why is he violent? What makes another human being think that it’s okay morally, because we all know it’s against the law to pick up a knife and stab it in someone? What gets a human being to that point? These are the things that I want to know.

"I want to delve deeper into these things, and ‘iLL Manors’ was a chance for me to show why these despicable fucked-up things happen. Why do they happen? Where do they stem from? One of the points I’m trying to get across in the film is that we spend our entire adult lives trying to fix the things that either our parents or somebody else broke inside of us when we were kids.”

‘iLL Manors’ the film follows ‘iLL Manors’ the single, which was inspired by the London riots and is the first track on the accompanying album.

“What happened in Tottenham in some ways I can understand but what happened everywhere else in the country was opportunism. I won’t justify it because I don’t agree with it. In fact it upset me so much I want to change it, so I wrote this song to bring the issue back to the forefront of public conversation. I feel it has been swept under the carpet and forgotten about, and it still needs to be properly addressed.

“Since the riots happened I haven’t heard enough people within the public sector asking the two most important questions: ‘why did it happen and how can we prevent it from happening again?’ I do have a theory as to why and how but first I need to make my point. And I’ve chosen satire to do so,” Drew said in a statement.

“The point being made in my song ‘iLL Manors’ is that society needs to take some responsibility for the cause of these riots. Why are there so many kids in the county that don’t feel they have a future, or care about having a criminal record? I think one of the reasons is that there is a very public prejudice in this country towards the underclass.

"These kids are ridiculed in the press as they aren’t as educated as others, because they talk and dress in a certain way ... but they’re not as stupid as people think. They are aware of the ill feelings towards them and that makes them feel alienated. I know because I felt it myself growing up. These kids have been beaten into apathy. They don’t care about society because society has made it very clear that it doesn’t care about them.”

Full of the violence and drug abuse he grew up surrounded by, ‘iLL Manors’ isn’t a film for the faint hearted.

“I have known a lot of nasty characters. Some get arrested, some die, but they are just replaced,” Drew told The Telegraph. “Either you stay in that circle and get blinded by the madness or you get out, like I did, and that is what the film is about. There is a lot of stuff based on my own experience that I had to take out. I didn’t want to send people away from the cinema with a total feeling of dread and darkness.

"I have lost quite a few childhood friends to heroin and crack; I even tried getting one of my friends clean for 12 months, only for him to throw it back in my face. My experience with heroin addicts, trying to get a person you love off drugs, isn’t a positive one.

“I know a girl who had a crack baby, and I know a whole generation of kids from a village in Essex taking their parents’ cars and money and driving into London to pick up serious drugs. The parents had moved to get away from it, but their kids still go back. Your kids aren’t safe anywhere.

"In my eyes, the reality is even harder and more painful than what we show in the film, but you don’t want to send people home from the cinema feeling like they want to kill themselves. You need to bring some light and some hope to the film, although for me that side of it is the fairy tale, not the reality. People who don’t know this environment wouldn’t believe what really goes on.”

When asked who ‘iLL Manors’ was for, Drew didn’t hesitate in telling The Guardian that it’s for the kids that are living the life of the characters in the film.

“These kids are angry and fucked up and I am angry and fucked up. But I'm starting to calm down and I'm starting to see the bigger picture. I want to give them some knowledge and wisdom. You might say, ‘Get over yourself, Plan B!’ Whatever, cool. I know that for me to want to teach another human being is not coming from a negative place.

"As human beings, we're compelled to teach and to learn, that's part of the beauty of being human. What the fuck is the point of us being here if we're not going to learn nothing or pass nothing on?”

‘iLL Manors’ is available now. Plan B plays Parklife at the Brisbane Botanical Gardens September 29.

At an open mic night back in 2002, an audience member watched a group of guys from Sydney's northern beaches play songs about surfing, music and girls.

Enjoying their refreshing, low key, acoustic sound, he got a hold of one of their demo tapes and from there their music found its way to Triple J and the ears of Aussies all over the country. That was just the beginning of what has been a crazy and unbelievable ten year ride for The Beautiful Girls.

“It just turned into this thing,” Mat. McHugh, the band’s frontman and chief songwriter, says. “The shows started selling out pretty quickly and it wasn't ever really a plan. The Beautiful Girls as a name was kind of a joke and it all took off without much thought put in place and we just held on the best we could.”

Had you told McHugh he'd be where he is today, playing his music to thousands of fans around the world who know every word to the songs he's written in his bedroom, he wouldn't have believed you. He hasn't let the success change him and says he's still the same person who grew up on the northern beaches of Sydney.

“I had no intention to ever make it my career,” he says. “I've always played music since I was a little kid and I just love it. I almost didn't want to do it as a career 'cause often if you're not careful if you make a career out of the things you really love you can end up hating them.”

There wouldn't be many bands in the past ten years that have toured as much as The Beautiful Girls. However, the decade long road trip is set to end where it all began, and the band will play their last ever tour at 26 stops around Australia.

While it may be the end of The Beautiful Girls as you know them, McHugh is on the same road he's always been on. Now he's just doing it under his own name.

“It's going to be really enjoyable, we're all in a good headspace and we're all positive, there's no animosity in the band. I'm sure we're all going to keep continuing to play music together in some shape or form ... we're all great mates and we'll all keep playing, and that's the thing we want everyone to know. It's just time to move forward into the present day.”

The band’s Facebook page has been inundated with fans posting stories about parts of their lives and adventures they've had that have involved The Beautiful Girls, and while McHugh thinks all these memories are cool, he has a different slant on it.

“I'm flattered that we're able to be involved in people's lives and all be in this crazy journey over the last ten years together, but at the same time I'm not entirely a nostalgic person. I want to celebrate ten years of amazing fun and opportunity and the gift of a life that I've been given. I'm sure there's nostalgia in there, but I'm looking more forward to the future than sad about the past. The past is done, it's gone.”

As McHugh evolved so too did his music and under the guise of The Beautiful Girls he touched on many genres. Their final shows will embody this and will be split into two parts, beginning with an acoustic set and returning plugged in and electric. Whatever the song, McHugh hopes you'll sing along with him.

“The songs really come to life when people are in the crowd and they're getting involved and they're singing and they're dancing. Our whole approach is that it needs to be a communal thing and the stage doesn't make any huge difference … it's just a room and we're all in here together. Historically our crowds have been amazing in that respect and it's been a blessing to be in a room with everyone.”

To all The Beautiful Girls fans out there, this isn't the end of the music, just the end of a name, and McHugh has this to say to everyone who has supported The Beautiful Girls over the past ten years: “Firstly, thank you, it can't be expressed how much gratitude all of us have for everybody that's enabled this to happen...

"We're as happy and amazed by the whole thing as anyone. Secondly, the main thing that people know is it's not the end of anything; it's just changing to my name. The name ‘The Beautiful Girls’... I feel like I've outgrown it and that's all. So the relationships between all of us that play the music are not ending, the music's not ending, nothing. It's just the next step in the journey and I for one am excited to see what happens.”

The Beautiful Girls play the Coolum Civic Centre Friday August 10, The Tivoli Saturday August 11, The Great Northern Thursday September 27 and Saturday September 29 and Coolangatta Hotel Friday September 28.

After five years in Melbourne, Jessi Lewis is happy to return to his hometown of Brisbane for his latest multidisciplinary work ‘Return’.

“[Audiences] can expect something really visual. It’s really stylised, there’s elements of film woven in between, something like 38 prop cues. There’s amazing lighting, I’m operating the lighting myself as well, so basically they’re walking into a studio space but walking into a world which is really, really idiosyncratic and centralised around the pivotal scenes. There’s dance, physical theatre, you name it — it’s all interwoven into one, and electro, there is a lot of electro,” Lewis says.

Written between Melbourne and Brisbane, the work is inspired by late nights in Melbourne but also draws upon childhood memories of Brisbane at night, the EKKA Ferris Wheel, and fireworks on the river. “It was lots of late nights in Melbourne and having to walk home seedy as fuck. Something about the night time, nightclubs, just getting wasted and going out, but then having to deal with the next morning when you feel like shit. Then from those sort of like moments, really drawing upon them and those emotions to build something I think a lot of people could relate to,” he says.

“It’s all about personal reflection but it’s a double entendre of story lines whereby there’s a double metaphor played out on stage so it’s really quite interesting. It’s conceptual more than narrative-driven piece and it’s very dynamic, it’s epic, it’s huge.”

Lewis hopes that through the show he can offer a brief moment of pause from the pressure everyone’s going through at the moment. “It’s my first work back in Brisbane after five years in Melbourne and I’m really happy to be back and just exploring it, and also at a time where there are so many issues with government which is forcing a lot of social change and arts reform. I think this show, and the company Metamorphis Theatre Co., are all about creating art out of times of challenge and adversity so this is our response to what’s happening up here at the moment.”

‘Return’ runs from Friday July 13 to Saturday July 14 at The Judith Wright Centre.

‘Home’ is the latest work from Australian independent theatre collective The Nest Ensemble, written by Margi Brown Ash and co-devised with Leah Mercer.

“It’s about how we re-story our lives and by re-story I mean look at our pasts in a different light. So something might have happened and you look back and think, ‘oh my God I wish that didn’t happen’, and then you look back again and you see that there was actually some really good things that came out of that experience,” says Brown Ash.

With four young adolescents at home, this theatre-maker of 40 years decided to become a therapist and from this the basis of the show developed. “The idea of re-storying or finding new ways of seeing the stories of your life, that’s the way I counsel and coach so I thought this is a really interesting approach to storytelling,” she says.

The Nest Ensemble will also provide a workshop halfway through the season to give participants the opportunity to grow their own stories using different artforms, which will be weaved into the play the following week. “We wanted a community piece. We wanted a piece so when people come to this particular play, it’s not just about being entertained but about being provided a container where you can reflect on your own stories and see the wonderful experiences that you’ve had and to build on them, so it’s very uplifting,” she says.

Together Brown Ash and Mercer travelled to Israel, Mexico and the USA developing the show, as well as performing versions of it, and are yet to have anyone leave not changed in some way. “I had one response from a young women, she was in her mid 20s, and she said to me, ‘I left home at 14 and you’ve made me turn around and reassess that so thank you’. After the experience of watching the show and having talked afterwards, she is now going to go back and see her parents, and that’s not a isolated example,” Brown Ash says.

“I am, of course, nervous because these stories come out of my life and my life is very ordinary. It’s just a regular life and that’s the point of the whole thing — that we embody our ordinary stories and out of that, find the extraordinariness of our stories.”

‘Home’ premieres at La Boite Indie from July 18 to July 28.

Inspired by the annual Alice Springs Beanie Festival, ‘Head Full Of Love’ is the story of a white woman and an indigenous woman, played by Colette Mann and Roxanne McDonald.

“It’s a play about reconciliation, two women and how they meet, how they have great differences but eventually how they find that they’re really just the same person,” Mann says.

They meet on a bench in Alice Springs and realise that despite their differences in language, surroundings and upbringing they aren’t so different underneath it all. “I play a woman who comes from Sydney and she’s running away,” Mann says. “She’s running away from her life in Sydney and she’s a bit broken mentally and Tilly, the other character, is a bit broken physically and they both have family problems that they’re dealing with. This woman finds herself in the middle of Australia and doesn’t actually know why she’s there or why she went there in the first place and is just trying to find her way through the rest of her life.”

“Tilly is physically ill, she has kidney disease and she’s going through dialysis,” McDonald says. “She’s a sick woman, I mean sick physically, so she’s having to deal with a lot of cultural family things which she tells Colette’s character. There’s lots of talking about family, talking about life and struggles, all those things.”

As the two women crochet their beanies, they develop a relationship based on shared secrets, struggles and successes. “I think the main message is that people sometimes have preconceived ideas about a culture, especially with regards to kidney disease and aboriginal people. There are these misconceptions about how it must be because they’re all alcoholics and that’s why they get this disease when in actual fact it’s not, it’s due to a lot of other things,” McDonald says.

They’ve previously opened the show in Darwin for the Darwin Festival and it was well received by the community. “A lot of the community people came out and there was excitement around the production, lots of beanie making and people coming in from around Darwin. I’m really enjoying this second run of the play, we’ve done the piece before so I feel like we’re finding our characters more and it’s sitting in our bodies better. I’m feeling more confident with it,” says McDonald.

Written by Alana Valentine, the play shows that people need to look beneath the surface, not judge a book by its cover and that we’re all the same underneath no matter what colour our skin is. “It’s a beautifully written play by Alana. It’s something different ... it’s actually got a message,” Mann says.

“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll learn something and hopefully people will recognise something in the characters. Then also see that even though we have differences culturally, we are very similar as human beings and as women. I think everyone will relate to a lot of things in the production,” McDonald says.

‘Head Full Of Love’ runs July 7 to August 11 at the Cremorne Theatre QPAC.

Sydney band The Strides will be bringing their mix of reggae, Afrobeat, jazz and hip hop to Brisbane in support of local band Kingfisha’s debut album launch.

“We're really looking forward to it, we love Kingfisha's music, they're a great band and it's a privilege to be supporting them at their album launch,” Nick Garbett, who plays trumpet for The Strides, says.

They’ll be joined by Kooii, Bullhorn, Integer and Selector Watson as part of an impressive supporting line-up. “It's a great line-up of music, so it's going to be quality reggae music and groove music. I haven't personally seen Kooii play before but I've heard amazing things, they're a great band so I look forward to seeing them,” Garbett says.

The Strides began as five friends from Wollongong who started an instrumental group as an excuse to play reggae and Afrobeat. From humble beginnings it soon grew into something much bigger than that. “We introduced singers into the line-up, we were lucky to get Ras Roni and Little Jesus on board and that's when the band really started to develop our sound.”

The band features a lot of improvisation in their shows and love the unknown factor that comes with playing live. “I think we have a different sound to other bands, it's a mix of reggae and Afrobeat music — you don't hear that a lot. I think music involves a lot of improvisation … come and hear it,” he laughs.

“I think that everything in music is playing live. You get the most joy out of playing music [by] playing live and it’s always different, the crowd's always different, the music's always different depending on how everyone's feeling in the band. So it's the unknown, you don't know what's going to happen.”

With a couple of albums already to their name, The Strides are focused on penning new material for release later this year. “We toured the album [‘Reclamation’] in November last year, we did about 20 shows around Australia. We got great support and sort of developed audiences in places we hadn't played before. It's been really good and we're in the process of writing a new album at the moment.”

The Strides support Kingfisha the Hi-Fi Friday June 22.

You may know her from ‘All Saints’ or ‘Winners and Losers’ but Virginia Gay has a talent other than acting — turning pretty songs dirty and dirty songs pretty.

“I heard Mondo Rock’s ‘Come Said the Boy’ for the first time, I never actually heard it until I was 24, and I was like, ‘excuse me, these lyrics are crassy’. I thought if it was true of one song then maybe it would be true of others. Pop is like a wonderful conduit to get tremendous filth out into the world so I started looking and then I found all of these amazing songs. And then conversely, I also started listening to a lot of hard rock and found some beautiful poetry in it — some extraordinary, heartbreaking poetry — so I thought I would sing the pretty songs really dirty and the dirty songs really pretty,” she says.

Using the same lyrics and melody, she puts the song into a different musical context letting you hear some of your favourite songs in ways you’ve never heard them before. “I’ll put a Barry White bassline underneath a Guy Sebastian song, for example. I’ll put something that lets you hear the music in a different context. Like Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is just a beautiful, terrifying lullaby. I really like Lady Gaga and I like what we’ve done with Gaga. I think Gaga’s underrated as a genius. I think she’s the most aware of this crazy idiotic celebrity culture that she’s in and she’s just running it. I love it,” she says.

Performing to sell out audiences, the show has already been met with rave reviews. Gay misses being in front of a crowd and says this is her way of getting back into a room full of people and working with them to create something special. “When I did it in Melbourne I had a pack of ‘All Saints’ fans who took up the two front rows. I don’t think they knew what they were getting themselves in for but they adored it. They stuck around afterwards and were like, ‘we thought you were just this nurse but goodness you’re not’,” she says.

Having always dreamt of becoming an actor, Gay fell into television after catching a lucky break with the role of Gabrielle Jaeger on ‘All Saints’. “I’ve always wanted to be an actor and a singer, and a dancer really but I haven’t got the legs for it,” she laughs. “My father was an opera singer and so there was always singing around the house so that’s been a great introduction to the world of song.” She pauses and interrupts herself, “the world of song, who says that? Am I living in a 1950s movie? I think they’re two sides of the same coin. In my head you can’t separate them. They’re the same impulse; they’re the same thing, the desire to entertain and the request to come with me on a journey. One of them requires slightly more breath control, that’s the only difference I think.”

She’ll be lighting up your TV screens again soon when ‘Winners and Losers’ returns and will be taking ‘Dirty Pretty Songs’ over to Edinburgh for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival later in the year. “I’m going to Edinburgh with ‘Dirty Pretty Songs’ and that’s going to be amazing, probably going to be the highlight of my life. And then hopefully ‘Winners and Losers’ will come back on air sometime soon and hopefully they’ll want another series of that. We’ll have to wait for Australia to decide. Call in now and vote for your favourite Australian television drama,” she laughs.

‘Dirty Pretty Songs’ is on for two nights only from Wednesday June 20 to Thursday June 21 at the Judith Wright Centre.

Maundz fans haven’t heard much out of the Melbourne MC since his debut LP, ‘Mr Nobody’, in 2010. But since then, he’s kept busy working on his second release, ‘Zero’.

“It's about 20 tracks deep and I put a lot of work into it so hopefully it all comes to fruition now,” he says.

'Zero' is the first release of 2012 from hip hop collective Crate Cartel. Produced by Wik, the album features an impressive list of contributors including US rapper Action Bronson, plus locals like Drapht, Brad Strut, Bias B, Vents, Sesta and, of course, Crate Cartel.

“It feels excellent, personally speaking,” Maundz says about being a part of Crate Cartel. “I'm sure anyone would say this about their crew but I think we're one of the strongest crews in the country hands down. They're all a bunch of talented dudes so, you know, it’s good to be working with guys that have such a great worth ethic.”

With an impressive list of artists he’s already worked with, Maundz says he'd love to collaborate with Wu-Tang Clan’s Ghostface Killah. “Man I'd love to do something with Ghostface Killah — I'll see how that goes. But you know, anyone who's down to make good music really. I don't care about names just as long as the track comes out nice, that's all I'm worried about,” he says.

The release of 'Zero' heralds the beginning of a busy period for Maundz and the Crate Cartel. “I'll be touring this album, no doubt. We're bringing out a 12” later on in the year, so we'll be keeping busy. There are more film clips on the way; the next film clip is for 'Maundzilla', which will be created by the Full Clip dudes. We'll just be promoting this as much as we can,” Maundz says.

“I think the Australian hip hop scene has come pretty far along over the years, so seeing my peers go out and get theirs has sort of pushed me to get some of what they're getting. I just want to be the best that I can be.”

‘Zero’ is out now through Crate Cartel and Obese Records.

It was almost three years ago that Sven Swenson’s controversial football drama took to the stage. He’s now bringing ‘The Truth About Kookaburras’ back to Brisbane “reshaped and ripped” as the season opener for La Boite Indie 2012.

“It’s essentially a contemporary murder mystery which is set in a football dressing shed, where a bunch of AFL players (the Gold Coast Kookaburras) are holding a bucks night for one of the players. Early on it’s revealed that someone has died in this situation, however, the victim and the killer are not revealed until far later in the piece,” Christos Mourtzakis says, who plays Showbag, one of the AFL players.

In preparation for a return season of the show, Swenson sought advice from triple Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright Edward Albee, writer of ‘Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf’ and ‘The Goat’. “He’s added more characters to flesh out the football team. He has really, really tightened up some of the writing. Not by cutting pieces, but just by getting his point across more clearly in certain aspects of the show,” Mourtzakis says.

If you didn’t manage to catch it back in 2009, when you see it this time around, you can expect to be confronted initially. But then taken on a journey that goes from light-hearted, jovial and funny to some of the darker aspects of the male psyche and humanity in general.

Perhaps one of the most confronting parts of the show is the nudity. The show opens with most of the actors stark naked. While most people would be nervous about letting it all hang out in front of a live audience, Mourtzakis says he’s grown comfortable with it. “The nudity at first was a confronting aspect of the show; however, it took no time at all to become completely comfortable with it. And it’s a fundamentally necessary part of the show for the entire emotional journey of it, for the audience and the actors,” he says.

Mourtzakis started acting from an early age and was involved in school productions throughout primary and high school. It wasn’t until the later years of high school that he decided it was something he wanted to pursue as a career, and is taking his first steps into the professional acting scene. “It’s quite an amazing opportunity and experience for me as a young, emerging actor. I was given the opportunity out of somebody dropping out of the show. I was offered an audition, got the part, and it’s been a life- changing experience that’s for sure,” he says.

Swenson has been dubbed ‘The Bard of Brisbane’ and Mourtzakis says working with him has been “absolutely incredible. To date I have not worked with a more brilliant or respected director and writer. His writing is incredible, I have not yet read one of his scripts that hasn’t touched me or moved me on a very deep level, and I’ve read a few now. His directing is excellent — it’s detailed and accurate, and he really knows how to get an emotional response from an actor. It’s been an amazing opportunity to get to work with Sven Swenson,” he says.

After satisfying Brisbane’s demand for a return season, Swenson hopes to take the show to Sydney. “There are tentative rumblings of perhaps another show later in the year to be performed at Metro Arts,” Mourtzakis says.

‘The Truth About Kookaburras’ runs from June 6 to 23 at La Boite, Roundhouse Theatre.

Lily Unsub has spent six years creating music under a number of different aliases across a range of genres.

But major surgery last year almost left the New Zealand dubstep producer deaf permanently. Now known as Unsub, Lily will be in Brisbane this weekend to support UK dubstep artist Crissy Criss.

How did you decide on Unsub and are you sticking to this, or can we expect to see you under a different aliases in the future?

Different aliases have represented different parts of who I am and different times in my life. Unsub came about as a result of experiences I had where I needed to be unsubmissive and also have a level of anonymity with what I was doing. It’s possible I'll do more work under other aliases in future, but probably not openly like I have been with Alexis K and (now) Unsub.

After the surgery that left you deaf for three months, how did it feel to not be able to listen to music for that period of time?

It was uniquely horrible. I had defined myself solely on the music I made so not knowing if I was going to ever have hearing again meant I had to redefine who I was outside of it. I did make half a track while I was deaf which is on my Soundcloud, but I probably won’t finish it. 

You have said that music saved your life, how so?

It gave me a connection that I couldn't find with the people around me at the time. It gave me a reason to keep going through the tough shit.

The short film you did sound and music for, ‘Blindside’, was selected for the Cannes Film Festival... you have to be excited with that?

That was actually a pretty big surprise as it was the first short film I've done all the sound and music for. Mostly it’s a lot of Unsub tracks.

You’ve also written three of your own short films; what attracts you to film?

Besides making the music and being part of shaping the feel of it, I actually really love being on shoots and the collaborative process behind getting a shot to work. I've always loved filmmaking and will probably get more into film again next year once the album’s out.

Unsub supports Crissy Criss at the Arena Friday May 25.