Ah, the roar of the greasepaint – the smell of the crowd! Who doesn’t love the theatre? Or at least the idea of the theatre. Not the fact of the theatre – spending a fortune on a ticket, getting dressed up and going into town, either hungry or with too early a dinner inside you, trying to suspend enough disbelief to engage with Actors doing Big Acting in front of you when you’re too used to Small Acting watched from the sofa in front of a streaming platform. Then home too late to recover properly before bed.

It’s not just me. I know it isn’t.

But I defy even my fellow philistines not to fall in love, even if just a little bit, with American Classic, a new light comedy created and written by Michael Hoffman and Bob Martin. It follows the return of Richard Bean (Kevin Kline), once considered the future of American theatre (and now the subject of viral footage showing him drunkenly lambasting the New York Times critic for a bad review of his current performance in and as King Lear), to his small home town of Millersburg after his mother’s unexpected death. His brother Jon (Jon Tenney) broke the news about his mum. “Did she read the review?” replied Richard. Fortunately, Jon knows his brother is an actor and one suspects long ago made the decision to love him anyway.

Jon has stayed in Millersburg with his wife, Kristen (Laura Linney), taking care of the boys’ father Linus (Len Cariou), who is now in the early-plus stages of dementia. Together, they also look after the other remaining member of the family – the Millersburg Festival Theater, established by the Beans and where Richard learned the fundamentals of his craft. The modern small-town economy being what it is, however, means – Richard is horrified to learn – that it now stages dinner theatre rather than original production. Jon is the chef, daughter Miranda is a waitress (though dreaming, naturally, of becoming an actor in New York), and Kristen is everything else. She is also mayor of the town (which includes the adjudication of the Concerned Parents’ Bookburning Summit) because a Laura Linney character’s work is almost never done.

Richard packs his bags in disgust, planning to leave even before the funeral, until his agent Alvy (Tony Shalhoub, having the time of his life, as all actors do when allowed to play an agent) reminds him that he’s “still a meme” and needs to keep his head down. So he pivots to planning the funeral at the theatre instead. The rehearsals become extravagant. Jon points out the ludicrousness. “I’m sacrificing everything for cheap spectacle,” realises Richard. “I’m not trusting the material.”

The line is pure Richard, the underlying truth pure beauty. You may not have fog machines and a lighting rig to play with, but who hasn’t got caught up in the fervent need, born of grief, to make everyone know how much a person meant and meant to you? And what do you have to do in the end but trust the material – trust the memories, trust the love in the room, trust the common humanity of everyone.

This is what American Classic is really all about. Richard (because he remains himself, though Kline always tempers his narcissism with enough – eventual – self-awareness to keep us on side) announces at the end of the eulogy that he is going to restore the theatre’s fortunes by “producing, directing … possibly even starring in” Thornton Wilder’s classic Our Town. Beneath the comedy of small-town manners, Hoffman/Martin’s show becomes a meditation on … God, it’s going to make me say it, I think … the power of art. Not a laboured one – the story and the people and the jokes come first, especially once casting starts – but a sweet and moving one. It’s made all the more touching by the authentic belief in that power, which suffuses the series, stacked as it (presumably deliberately) is with actors known at least as much in their native US for their stage work as for their film and television careers.

American Classic’s combination of charm, wit and tenderness – and especially the encouragement to forgive ordinary human frailties – is reminiscent of Ted Lasso and Schitt’s Creek. Its retro-tropes can take us all the way back to plucky young Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland putting the show on right here. Just as those endeavours took audiences’ minds off the pandemic, Trump #1 and World War #2 respectively, American Classic will doubtless offer its own comfort now.

You could object, as you could with Lasso and the Creek, to the fact that there is nothing wildly new here, but that would be to miss the point. Recombinant delights are how we know ourselves, how a society remains bound. The only duty is to recombine things well, to keep them fresh and funny as well as comforting, and it’s fully discharged here over eight swift, sure and never-too-schmaltzy episodes.

Goddammit. Maybe the play is the thing.

RMIT University has dropped a misconduct case against a student who accused the institution of being “complicit in genocide” in Gaza, because of its defence and aerospace research centre’s ties to weapons companies.

Guardian Australia this week revealed the student, Gemma Seymour, faced potential suspension over a social media video calling for the university’s Sir Lawrence Wackett Defence and Aerospace Centre to be shut down.

RMIT argued the video, recorded in a corridor of the centre, publicly identified its location which is not published online, thereby risking the safety of its facility, staff and students.

But in an email to Seymour on Wednesday afternoon, RMIT’s student conduct team said the case had been dropped.

“We want to inform you that, upon review, the Senior Officer’s Student Conduct notice of hearing scheduled for 22 April 2026 is to be withdrawn and will not be proceeding,” the email, viewed by Guardian Australia said.

Seymour, a fine arts student, said with the withdrawal of the case was a “win for the right to criticise war and genocide and the role our institutions play in the military supply chain.”

“This proves that students and staff will not be intimidated by the university and we will continue to fight against RMIT’s militarism,” she said.

“Freedom of speech and protest is a right to be used especially at times when our universities are complicit in genocide.”

Asked why the university dropped the case, RMIT provided the following statement.

“RMIT takes all matters relating to student conduct seriously and investigates each case in accordance with the University’s core values and policies,” an RMIT spokesperson said.

“Upon review of this case, the Student Conduct notice of hearing has been withdrawn.”

“RMIT supports the exercise of freedom of speech, debate and discourse among students that is lawful and free from any form of discrimination, and adheres with the University’s student policies.”.

In the video, posted on the RMIT Students for Palestine’s Instagram profile in August, Seymour stands outside RMIT’s Sir Lawrence Wackett Defence and Aero Centre at its Melbourne city campus.

“No more excuses RMIT. There is blood on your hands and we will not rest until you cut ties with all weapons companies,” Seymour said in the video.

The caption of the video reads: “The Sir Lawrence Wackett Defence and Aerospace centre should be shut down. Our university should not be complicit in genocide.”

In a student conduct report sent to Seymour and viewed by Guardian Australia, RMIT said there was a risk to the safety and security of staff if its research locations were posted publicly on social media.

The report said RMIT considered Seymour may have breached its regulations, policies, procedures and rules through behaviour or actions that “constitute misconduct”.

It also pointed to the potential for unwanted attention, harassment or threats against RMIT’s research facilities, staff and students.

RMIT received an anonymous complaint from an external person about the video, the report said.

The Sir Lawrence Wackett Defence and Aero Centre is an interdisciplinary research group that focuses on Australia’s defence and aerospace sectors.

It lists the Australian Defence Forces, the US Department of Defence and Boeing as its partners and collaborators. Amnesty International has found weapons made by Boeing were used in Israeli airstrikes that killed civilians in Gaza, including children.

In 2024, a wave of encampments at universities swept across the country calling for the tertiary education sector to cut its ties with weapons manufacturers and condemn Israel’s war in Gaza.