Today's commentary perhaps doesn't fit any easy categorisation on Catholica. We're doing a favour for a friend, Tom Lee, who in turn is endeavouring to do a favour for a couple of friends and fellow artists, Barbara Angell and Pat Shaw, who have hit a rough patch with Pat presently facing some serious surgery. They are two people who, as this commentary relates, have brought a heck of a lot of joy to many people over decades.

A Dynamic Feminist Duo

To their friends, Barbara Angell (actor/writer) and Patricia Shaw (actor/artist) are indivisible, although their early lives were very different. Pat was born in England and named Miriam Gaye by her Jewish parents who owned a London suburban pharmacy, which survived the London Blitz. Pat Shaw is her adopted professional name as an actress, and she did quite a bit of work in small roles in British movies, was a favorite stand-in for leading stars, and was the first female stunt driver in British movies.

Barbara Angell

Barbara, perhaps despite her education at Presbyterian Ladies' College, and family adherence to the Baptist Church, began her acting career with Melbourne's Little Theatre in 1955, graduating to work as a dancer-comedian with the Tivoli Circuit from 1955-8, working with such as Buster Fiddess and George Wallace Jr. She also appeared in that city's first live TV variety show Tivoli Party Time (1956-7), writing her own comedy material. Ambition led Barb then to the UK where she performed a solo cabaret act, featuring her comedy sketches, music and lyrics (1959-60) and through a popular cabaret singer on the same bill, was introduced to her sister, Pat.

On returning to Australia, with Pat, Barb formed a Revue company at Melbourne's Arrow Theatre and co-wrote and produced a series of stage shows, and went on to star again for the Tivoli in Lilac Time with John Larsen and in the Wizard of Oz as Glinda the Good Witch opposite Reg Livermore's Wicked Witch. Then, directed by John McCallum, she understudied Jill Perryman in the Williamson production of Carnival and Maggie Fitzgibbon in Noel Coward's Sail Away.

Barb Angell and Gordon Chater in a publicity shot from the Mavis Bramston show.

Roderic and I got to know them when Barb and Pat came to live just round the corner from us in the Sydney harbour-side suburb of Waverton. Barb acted in and wrote a good many sketches for The Mavis Bramston Show (1966-68). The show's title derived from an Australian theatrical joke. It referred to the tall poppy syndrome, by which overseas actors (who were usually second-rate and/or well past their "use-by date") were brought to Australia to star in productions, although there were far superior local performers available. "Nah, you can't encourage them to be uppity". One of the most famous examples of this trend was the discovery of musical star Jill Perryman, who shot to fame in the mid-1960s while understudying a notably less impressive overseas actress in Call Me Madam. The superannuated ex-stars came to be known as "Mavis Bramstons", and the show became so popular in the national capital, Canberra, that local business had to move its late shopping night because it clashed with Mavis.

Following an Australian tour with Madge Ryan for Williamson's in Peter Schaffer's play Black Comedy, Barb returned to England with Pat in 1969, where she spent the next 20 years appearing on stage, in films and TV dramas and comedies. She also rounded up all the expat Aussie performers, forming the Association of Australian Artistes, based at the Australian High Commission in London, generally performing to raise money for worthy causes. She also leased The Arts Theatre in Great Newport Street, WC2, for lunchtime theatre in the 1970s, an innovation for London, and directed a series of plays including some of her own, which Roddy and I appeared in. She wrote TV sketches for Dave Allen and became a script assessor for the BBC's light entertainment department.

In London Barb & Pat lived in a large old apartment across the road from Westminster Cathedral, and both were very encouraging of my one-man show "O Papa! A history of the Papacy in two hours and twenty characters", which premiered at the Vatican-owned Teatro Goldoni in Rome, summer 1975. They both read and advised me on the best material to use from actual letters and memoirs, chosen from a mountain of choices.

When I returned to London I next performed it at Corpus Christi Church, the actor's church in Maiden Lane just off Covent Garden, a performance seen by Cardinal Baum of Washington DC who invited me to come to America and perform it on tour in Washington, Virginia and Maryland, and Barb & Pat were my cheerleaders as Roddy was at that time Entertainment Director of the Mahe Beach Hotel in the Seychelles.

When I got back from America, Barb proposed that she approach the administrator of Westminster Cathedral re my show. Cardinal Heenan had just died, Cardinal Hume hadn't been appointed, and Monsignor Francis Bartlett was the man to see. He liked the idea and even proposed some ideas to improve it, leading to a cathedral performance.

Barb's TV play Some Day Man won a nationwide competition in the UK and was produced for Yorkshire television in 1987, and a bursary from the Arts Council of Great Britain enabled Barb to study Arts Administration at the Polytechnic of Central London, a few doors from the BBC.

Books...

Barb's first book The Entertainment Machine was published in 1972 (Horwitz), her second, Voyage To Port Phillip, 1803 was published in 1983 (Nepean Historical Society). Her third book A Woman's War was launched in 2003 (New Holland Publishers), telling the story of Wilma Oram Young, Australian Army nurse and survivor of Japanese POW camps in Sumatra 1942 to 1945 – working for the rest of her life to relieve suffering, especially post traumatic stress disorder in war veterans. She was the first female president of an RSL and worked tirelessly to raise money for the Nurses' memorial unveiled in Canberra on October 2, 1999, and was, until her death, Patron of the Vietnam Civilian Nurses group. The biography was printed with the aid of a grant from the Department of Veteran's Affairs and is a great read about a remarkable woman.

Coral Browne and Vincent Price. Click pic to read SMH review of Barb Angell's book.

Despite forays into history, most of Barb's writing career has been for television and the stage. Her latest book The Coral Browne Story: Theatrical Life and Times of a Lustrous Australian was published in Sydney in May 2007 by her own company Angell Productions Pty Ltd. Barb traveled to Britain to interview many folk who'd known or worked with Melbourne-born Coral, who was ultimately the wife of Vincent Price, and a distinctly unconventional convert to Catholicism, causing many a raised eyebrow at the London Oratory. Her uninhibited language was often volatile enough to embarrass a navvy. For anyone interested in Australian and British showbiz 1930s to 90s it is a must read, giving you a sneak peak behind the scenes.

Barb's community work has largely centred on Alzheimer's, as her mother was a sufferer. She served on the Council of the Alzheimer's Disease Society in UK and Australia (now known as Alzheimer's Australia), was President of the NSW (1991-3) and National chapters (1993-4). She also wrote and directed a docu-drama Poppy's Head, available on DVD, about Alzheimer's and aimed at children to teach them about dementia and to foster patience and compassion toward sufferers. When Barb and Pat stayed with us for a vacation here in Phoenix Arizona nine years ago we introduced them to the Local Alzheimer's Association, and Barb promptly sold them a copy of Poppy.

Barb & Pat's website has several helpful entrees to other sites such as Brave Women of Oceania and The Women's Studies Webring. There's also a fascinating genealogy of Barb's family that could spark others to explore their own forbears history.

Through it all, Pat has been Barb's indefatigable back stop, both encourager and gentle but discerning critic. Encouraged by Pat, Barb went back to school some time ago. In April 2009 she reaped the reward for all the hard work she's put in. She's now Dr Angell. She completed her professional research doctorate in Visual and Performing Arts with Charles Sturt University, her major paper being Another Coral Browne Story: analysis of the continuing export of Australia's performing arts talent (yet to be published). She continues to teach and write, but with a heavy burden. Pat was too ill to attend her graduation. Victim of an aggressive and recurrent cancer, she is presently in an induced coma, awaiting another surgery. A very fine painter in oils in recent years, Pat is a very popular member of the Hornsby Arts Council. Barb and Pat's home is at Brooklyn on the Hawkesbury River. Both these warm and spirited ladies love fishing. More spiritual than religious, they draw from each others' traditions and have followed the golden rule far more effectively than many a careerist priest.

I would urge you all to explore Barb & Pat's extensive website, with its many fascinating avenues. www.angellpro.com.au from which you may wish to buy one of the books or just peruse many pages of info on screenwriting and multiple other interests.

Here are some links: Barbara Angell's website: www.angellpro.com.au Information on A WOMAN'S WAR is at www.angellpro.com.au/oram.htm. And the CORAL BROWNE STORY is at www.angellpro.com.au/coralbrowne.htm. SMH review of the CORAL BROWNE STORY can be found HERE. Barbara Angell wrote or edited 500 episodes of the popular television series NEIGHBOURS. Read an interview she gave in 2003 HERE. For a full listing of Barb Angell's credits see HERE.

Tom Lee

©2009 Tom Lee

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