Cirrus@Austlit

Actor, director, broadcaster and writer, Sandy McCutcheon lived mainly in Australia from the early 1970s with periods overseas in Africa, Asia and Europe. In 1992 he settled in Brisbane, Queensland.

Many of his over 20 plays were toured by the Illusion Circus Theatre Company, a company based at the Illusion Farm Community, a Buddhist centre in Tasmania founded by McCutcheon.

McCutcheon worked in both commercial and public radio and produced radio documentaries in many countries. His work on radio won awards in Australia and at the New York Radio Festival Awards. In Finland he worked with the Finnish National Broadcaster. In Australia he hosted radio programmes for ABC Radio National including 'Australia Talks Back' and 'Australia Talks Books'.

In the early 1990s McCutcheon was awarded the International Kalevala Medal, for services to Finnish culture, by the Finnish Government for his play based on an epic Finnish poem, Kalevala. Included with the award was a scholarship to Finland where he lived for two years and wrote an unpublished novel Talvi Maja (Winter Cottage) and his first published novel, In Wolf's Clothing (1997).

Adopted as a small boy, McCutcheon's search for his own identity resulted in his memoir The Magician's Son, published in 2005.