SYDNEY FESTIVAL EXCLUSIVE

4-25 JANUARY 2025

On the night of 9 August 1954, glamour model Shirley Beiger pointed a gun at her bookie’s clerk boyfriend, Arthur Griffith, outside Chequers, one of Sydney’s most exclusive nightclubs. Arthur was there with another woman, despite telling Shirley he was at the dentist. During her trial for his murder, Shirley claimed she didn’t hear the gunshot, but “knew something dreadful must have happened.”

After three months in Long Bay Gaol, Shirley faced what was billed as “the Trial of the Century” at Darlinghurst Courthouse, at the centre of an unprecedented media storm. Glamorously-dressed women clamoured for the best seats at the front of the court; journalists swarmed the hallways for a scoop; the judge struggled to silence the gallery, where onlookers whistled, cheered, and yelled their support for the 22-year-old model, despite the seriousness of the charges against her.

Widely regarded as Australia’s first true “trial by media,” and certainly its most sensational, the murder trial of Shirley Beiger is a shocking, disturbing, and often absurd story. A Model Murder, performed by a cast of 7 inside the very courthouse where the trial took place, presents this tale as it (almost) unfolded.

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★★★★★ "An immersive cabaret-comedy sensation that plucks at the interrelations between hotness, gender and justice."

– Time Out 

★★★★★ "A unique and highly entertaining experience."

– Sydney Arts Guide

★★★★ "... an immersive triumph."

– Limelight

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