Edmund Piers Barclay
Edmund Piers Barclay (2 May 1898 – 26 August 1961) was an English-Australian writer known for his work in radio drama. Radio historian Richard Lane called him "Australian radio's first great writer and, many would say, Australian radio's greatest playwright ever."[1]
Biography
Barclay claimed to have been born on 2 May 1898 at Dinapore, India, the son of Major Edmund Compston-Buckleigh, from Middlesex, England. He also maintained that he was educated at Stonyhurst College, joined the Middlesex Regiment on 11 August 1914, and won the Military Cross and Croix de Guerre while serving with the Royal Flying Corps. However, there is no record of anyone with the surname Barclay or Compston-Buckleigh having attended Stonyhurst or served with the Royal Flying Corps. He claimed that after WWI he worked as a journalist in Fleet Street, London, until sacked for costing his employers £2000 in a libel suit; he then reputedly ran his own short-lived, weekly newspaper.[2]
Arriving in Australia in August 1926, he was determined to show the world that "he was the world's greatest novelist". He worked as a journalist, wrote film scripts (The Silence of Dean Maitland, 1934), short stories, plays, newspaper articles and verse. On 17 December 1933 he was employed by the Australian Broadcasting Commission as a dramatist. The first radio play Barclay wrote was An Antarctic Epic. Barclay wrote very little for the stage. In 1934 he collaborated with Varney Monk as composer to write The Cedar Tree, a musical romance produced by F. W. Thring in Melbourne. Barclay's wife Helene was the lyricist.[2]
Family
His relationship with his wife Helene, who wrote plays for the ABC, was desperately unhappy. Survived by his daughter and son, Barclay died of a coronary occlusion on 26 August 1961 at Gosford, New South Wales. He was interred in Point Clare cemetery with Catholic rites.
Selected credits
- The Three Musketeers (1934) - radio version of the famous story
- Return of the Three Musketeers (1934) - radio play
- An Antarctic Epic : The Story of Captain Scott's Tragic Journey to the South Pole (1934) - radio play
- The Silence of Dean Maitland (1934) - co-screenplay
- The Cedar Tree (1935) - book
- Lawrence of Arabia (1935) - radio play
- Khyber (1935) - radio play - starred James Raglan
- A Cavalcade of Australian History (1935) - radio play
- Khyber and Beyond (1936) - radio play, sequel to Khyber
- Khyber (1936) - novel, based on his 1935 radio play
- Shanghai (1936) - radio play
- Dead or Alive (1936) - radio play
- Lovers and Luggers (1937) - co-screenplay
- Shanghai (1937) - novel, based on his radio play
- Murder in the Silo (1937) - radio play
- Neath Southern Skies(1938) - radio play
- As Ye Sow : An Australian Saga (1937–38) - radio play
- Into the Light (1938) - radio play
- The Girl with the Tattered Glove (1938) - radio play
- Singapore Spy (1939) - radio play
- Valley of the Sky (1939) - radio play
- Madame Curie (1939) - radio play - starred Peter Finch
- With Wings as Eagles (1943) - radio play (co-written with Joy Hollyer)
- The Bolero Murder (1940s) - radio play
- The Man Who Liked Eclairs (1940s) - radio play
- The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (1950) radio play, adapting the novel
References
- ↑ Richard Lane, The Golden Age of Australian Radio Drama 1923-1960, Melbourne University Press, 1994, p. 27
- 1 2 Edmund Piers Barclay profile at the Australian Dictionary of Biography
External links
- Edmund Barclay profile at IMDb
- Edmund Barclay profile at the National Library of Australia
- Edmund Barclay Australian theatre credits at Ausstage
- Edmund Barclay at Austlit (subscription required)
- Edmund Barclay papers at the State Library of New South Wales