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Alan Seymour Alan Seymour i(A25039 works by)
Also writes as: A. Seymour
Born: Established: 6 Jun 1927 Fremantle, Fremantle area, South West Perth, Perth, Western Australia, ; Died: Ceased: 23 Mar 2015 Sydney, New South Wales,
Gender: Male
Expatriate assertion Departed from Australia: 1961
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BiographyHistory

Alan Seymour is best known in Australia for his play The One Day of the Year that explored the way ANZAC Day is commemorated. First produced in 1961, the play ignited passionate debate. The play was also produced in London, England, in 1961 and Seymour attended the production. He was away from Australia for the next three decades writing plays, screenplays, television scripts and adapting novels for film and television.

Seymour was educated in Perth, Western Australia, at Perth Modern School. After failing the Junior Certificate examination at fifteen, he left school and worked as an announcer, copy-writer and freelance writer and film critic for various commercial radio stations in Perth and in Sydney as well as for ABC radio and later television. While working for the Perth commercial radio station 6PM in the early 1940s, he wrote short radio plays which were broadcast live. From 1953 to 1957 he was theatrical director for the Sydney Opera Group. His first play, Swamp Creatures, premiered by the Canberra Repertory Society, was a finalist in the London Observer play competition in 1957.

From the 1960s Seymour worked in London for the BBC and was the theatre critic for the London Magazine, 1963 to 1965. From 1966 to 1971 Seymour lived in Turkey where he continued to write stage plays as well as novels and magazine articles. From 1974 he was a script editor and occasional producer with the BBC returning to freelance writing in 1981. 'Eustace and Hilda', dramatised by Seymour from the trilogy by L.P. Hartley, won a Royal TV Society Special Creativity Award in1979 and 'Box of Delights' (BBC TV, 1984), dramatised by Seymour from the novel by John Masefield, won a BAFTA Award in 1984. Seymour returned to live in Australia in January 1995.

Alan Seymour was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Western Australia in April 2002. He is the uncle of Clem Gorman.

Source: National Library of Australia, 'Finding Aid', Papers of Alan Seymour (1927- ), MS 9198.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

2015 recipient AWGIE Awards Dorothy Crawford Award For outstanding contribution to the profession (posthumous award).
2007 Order of Australia Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) For service to the arts as a playwright and writer of screenplays, television scripts and novel adaptations.

Awards for Works

form y separately published work icon The Potato Factory ( dir. Robert Marchand ) Australia : Screentime Golden Square Pictures , 2000 Z829450 2000 single work film/TV

'The story [of] Ikey Soloman (the inspiration for Charles Dicken's Fagin in Oliver Twist), his mistress Mary Abacus and Ikey's wife Hannah. Set in London and Van Dieman's [sic] Land (Tasmania) in the mid-19th century'.

Source: NFSA. (Sighted: 11/11/2013)

2001 nominated Logie Awards Most Outstanding Miniseries or Telemovie
form y separately published work icon The Silver Chair ( dir. Alex Kirby ) United Kingdom (UK) : British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) , 1990 6576234 1990 series - publisher film/TV children's fantasy

The third in the BBC's adaptations of C.S. Lewis's novels.

1991 nominated British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards Best Children's Programme: Entertainment / Drama
form y separately published work icon Prince Caspian / Voyage of the Dawn Treader ( dir. Alex Kirby ) United Kingdom (UK) : British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) , 1989 6578140 1989 series - publisher film/TV fantasy children's

Presented as a single series of the BBC's Chronicles of Narnia, this was a dual adaptation of Prince Caspian (episodes 1 and 2) and Voyage of the Dawn Treader (episodes 3 to 6). The two sections were titled separately but otherwise presented as a single coherent series.

1990 nominated British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards Best Children's Program: Entertainment / Drama

Known archival holdings

Albinski 202
State Library of New South Wales State Library of NSW (NSW)
National Library of Australia (ACT)
Last amended 3 Oct 2023 15:12:13
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