– INTERVIEW –
Barry Creyton
Earlier this year, 2021, I had the delightful experience and opportunity to interview Barry Creyton. Barry, of course, well known for his role as a writer and actor in the groundbreaking Mavis Bramston show, now lives in Los Angeles and is still busy working, creating, and doing good things. The following chat was the discussion we had about many things and a great interview. Hope you enjoy it. PODCASTS: www.thelastpostmagazine.com/tlp-interviews
Greg T Ross: And how have you been? Barry Creyton: Very well considering this past surreal year. It’s much more insane here than I think it is in Australia right now. I know that my brother and sister-in-law and their kids and their kids’ kids, they’re all running around without masks now and theatre is resuming in Australia. No such luck here because I think the Trump administration got it so wrong from the very start, that people are still wearing masks, there are still great restrictions. No theatre no movies, no shooting, no nothing. So we’re just waiting. GTR: Hats off for your patience and your sensibilities about it because it’s been a bit COVID light in Australia really. Because actually, I posted something yesterday on social media, Barry, about the joy of theatre resuming here in Australia. BC: Yes, exactly. Not only that, but I read in the news yesterday that Marvel pictures are relocating to Australia for the next five years. They’re taking all of their production out of Atlanta, where they’ve been for a decade now, because of the way they can cut costs in Atlanta, and they’re moving everything to Australia. And I think it’s because of two reasons. I’m a very political animal, as you must remember. It’s because of the politics in Georgia right now, which are very skewed to the far right, which Marvel pictures certainly don’t adhere to, and also because there are fewer restrictions to filming in Australia right now. My old friend Tina Burstall is still on her series, which has never stopped shooting since the... GTR: Tina’s lovely.
BC: Yeah. So, everything’s happening there, very little is happening here. GTR: Yes. And you spoke about the politics too, Barry, and it’s been an incredulous time where, I suppose, here in Australia, the arts have been seemingly downgraded to a position where they don’t even have their own portfolio anymore. And it’s hurt a lot of people. BC: But at least I have friends who are doing... Who are resuming theatre right now in Australia. We haven’t had theatre here for a year. GTR: How have you survived without that? BC: How have I survived? Oh, very easily. I’m okay financially. Also I’m writing still which you can do when you’ve got a mask on or not. GTR: That’s right. You’re looking very young. BC: Well, I do my best. I work like hell at it. GTR: The air must be agreeing with you. Well, you spoke about writing just then too, Barry. And of course, one of the great things about you is you cross many, I guess, can we call it occupations? Or you do a lot of stuff involving the arts. You’re a writer, director, et cetera, et cetera. Where did it all start? BC: Oh God knows. My parents had not the slightest interest in theatre or music or anything to do with the arts. My mother, in fact, was a strangely psychologically disturbed woman who really did her best to prevent me from doing anything I really wanted to do with my life. In spite of that,
28 THE LAST POST – 2021 ANZAC DAY EDITION
being a determined child, I started in amateur theatre in Brisbane in the fifties. That’s all there was in Brisbane. And, very fortunately, my mentor became an extraordinary woman called Babette Stephens. GTR: Babette Stephens? BC: You remember Babette? She was a force, a great force. Knew a great deal about theater and saw something in me that she wanted to encourage. And I owe her an incalculable debt. She took me under her wing and gave me my accent, which I’m stuck with and have been stuck with for the rest of my life. GTR: It’s very un-Brisbane, the accent. BC: Very un-Brisbane. Yes, I know. That’s where I was born. My grandparents were actors on my father’s side of the family. My mother didn’t approve of them. Obviously she didn’t. I think the turning point came when I was about 18 and I dropped out of school when I was 15. I just wasn’t learning what I wanted to learn. So I took a menial job in the treasury building in Brisbane and spent my evenings after work, every evening of the week, in the public library reading. And I think I had, by the time I was 17, I had read practically all of Freud’s introduction to psychoanalysis, which says a lot about the rest of my life actually. But during this period, I auditioned, I remember, in 50 out of 59 for the first year of the National Academy of Dramatic Arts in Australia. And never heard a word. And a year passed and thought, “My God, I’m a failure.” And I simply went about doing amateur theatre again, doing some good roles, thanks to Babette. And I finally discovered that my mother had had a letter from them
