Draft:Paul David Adkin

  1. Home
  2. Wiki

Paul David Adkin (born 1958) is a British-born Australian and Spanish playwright and theatre director.

Early life and education

[edit]

Paul David Adkin was born in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, England, in 1958. He spent his early childhood in nearby Sandiacre. In 1965 his family emigrated to Australia, settling in Nunawading, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria.

He studied drama and literature at Rusden College (now part of Deakin University), where he began writing plays while supporting himself with part-time work.

Theatre career

[edit]

Theatre in Australia

[edit]

Adkin’s first play was Afterbirth (subtitled A Play of Abuse), which premiered at the backstage of the Pram Factory Theatre in Carlton, Melbourne, in May 1980,[1][2] before moving to La Mama Theatre for an extended season.[3] Directed by Wanda Dopierala and Wayne Macauley, with sound and lighting by Carmelina Di Guglielmo,[4] the production marked Di Guglielmo’s introduction to stage technician work, which she later recalled in La Mama: 50 Years in 100 Stories.[5] The Pram Factory season was among the last productions staged there before its permanent closure.

This was followed by The Jack and Jill Story, written and directed by Adkin at La Mama Theatre in April 1981. The play was well-received in the Melbourne press, with The Melbourne Times describing it as “an entertaining, amusing and rather original play” that balanced “precariously on the delicate and tenuous line between logic and insanity.”[6] Sunday Press critic John Larkin praised the inventive language and improvisation, singling out Carmelina Di Guglielmo’s performance.[7]

In September 1981, The Jack and Jill Story was restaged at the Australian Nouveau Theatre's Anthill space. Jessica de Siso described the production as “a childhood dream by Magritte.”[8] A.N.T. also published the play.[9] The work was later produced by students at Brisbane University's Cement Box Theatre (directed by Anna McCrossin, 1982), at Leeds University’s Raven Theatre in the UK (directed by Ali Morland, 1992).[10]

In 1982, Adkin was appointed Playwright-in-Residence at the Anthill Theatre while its director Jean-Pierre Mignon was on leave in France.[11] During this time, he premiered his play Schadenfreude, a large-scale production featuring 14 actors, a guitarist, and a violinist-saxophonist, performed on a sand-covered stage.[12][13][14] Helen Garner described it as “an Australian version of the collapse of civilisation as we know it,”[15] noting its surreal atmosphere and physical staging.

La Mama Theatre also staged his work The Rabid Cow Murders, which Sunday Observer critic John Hindle described as “a long perhaps prolix black joke” with “bizarre style and elements of parody.”[16]

He also worked with the Mill Theatre of Geelong’s Woolly Jumpers Theatre in Education team and with Handspan Theatre, co-writing and acting in the play Prime Time about media manipulation along with Steve Kearney, Janet Shaw, and Carmelina Di Guglielmo. Dita Jevons, writing in a Geelong newspaper, highlighted the slapstick comic style of Adkin’s contribution to the Woolly Jumpers’ production True Confashions (1982).[17]

Adkin was later offered a position as playwright-in-residence at La Boite Theatre in Brisbane, but chose instead to take a teaching position in Japan. He left Australia in 1983 and did not return to professional theatre there.

Theatre in Spain

[edit]

After a year in Japan and several years in London, Adkin relocated to Spain in 1986, where he founded three theatre companies: Big Bang and Ñu Accents, specialising in English-language theatre-in-education, and Ñu Teatro, dedicated to staging his own scripts in Spanish.[18]

Ñu Teatro’s first production was Kaspar Hauser, staged in Madrid in 2006 at Sala TIS before transferring to Sala Youkali in Vallecas.[19][20] The company later staged Yo, Cónsul (2007),[21] La reina que no pudo reinar (2007),[22] and Hamlet rex at Teatro Lagrada in 2008.[23]

In 2008, Ñu Teatro also premiered 1808: El juego de las sillas, a multidisciplinary piece about the Spanish War of Independence, first performed in the Plaza de Toros of Navalcarnero before touring venues in the Madrid region.[24]

In July 2014, as part of the Festival Internacional de Teatro Clásico de Almagro’s *Barroco Infantil* program, Ñu Accents premiered a bilingual adaptation of Ben Jonson’s *Noticias del nuevo mundo descubierto en la luna*, directed by Adkin, at the Teatro Municipal.[25]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Afterbirth – Work entry". AusStage – The Australian Live Performance Database. Retrieved 17 August 2025.
  2. ^ "Paul Adkin – Contract with Pram Factory backstage (May 1980)". Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved 12 August 2025.
  3. ^ "Afterbirth — La Mama, Carlton (1980)". AusStage – The Australian Live Performance Database. Retrieved 17 August 2025.
  4. ^ "Afterbirth — La Mama, Carlton (1980)". AusStage – The Australian Live Performance Database. Retrieved 17 August 2025.
  5. ^ Fitzpatrick, Peter (2017). La Mama: 50 Years in 100 Stories. Monash University Publishing. pp. 174–175. ISBN 9781925495478.
  6. ^ "Review of The Jack and Jill Story". The Melbourne Times. April 1981.
  7. ^ Larkin, John (April 1981). "Review of The Jack and Jill Story". Sunday Press.
  8. ^ de Siso, Jessica (2 September 1981). "Review of The Jack and Jill Story at Anthill Theatre". The Melbourne Times.
  9. ^ Adkin, Paul (1981). The Jack and Jill Story. Melbourne: Anthill Theatre Company. ISBN 0-9594040-1-5.
  10. ^ "The Jack and Jill Story — Balcony Theatre, Adelaide Festival (1982)". AusStage. Retrieved 17 August 2025.
  11. ^ Meyrick, Julian (2002). See How It Runs: Nimrod and the New Wave. Currency Press. p. 118. ISBN 9780868196676. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)
  12. ^ Garner, Helen (12 June 1982). "The Final Destruction". The National Times.
  13. ^ Radic, Leonard (14 June 1982). "Groping in the Sandpit". The Age.
  14. ^ Cloonan, Daryl (1982). "And the Off-Beat goes on ... and on ... and on". The Melbourne Times.
  15. ^ Meyrick, Julian (2002). See How It Runs: Nimrod and the New Wave. Currency Press. p. 118. ISBN 9780868196676. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)
  16. ^ Hindle, John (10 October 1982). "Review of The Rabid Cow Murders". Sunday Observer.
  17. ^ Jevons, Dita (1982). "On our world of theatre". [Geelong News].
  18. ^ "Ñu Teatro – ficha de compañía". Redescena (in Spanish). Retrieved 12 August 2025.
  19. ^ "Kaspar Hauser dossier (2006)" (PDF). Wikimedia Commons (in Spanish). Ñu Teatro. 2006. Retrieved 16 August 2025.
  20. ^ "Un enigma y una reflexión". Guía del Ocio (in Spanish). Madrid. 13 November 2006.
  21. ^ "CV – Ángela del Salto" (PDF). angeladelsalto.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 16 August 2025.
  22. ^ "La Reina que No pudo Reinar". Redescena (in Spanish). Retrieved 16 August 2025.
  23. ^ Sánchez, L. L. (2008). "Las salas alternativas de Madrid". Assaig de Teatre (in Spanish): 342.
  24. ^ "1808, El juego de las sillas – ficha". Redescena (in Spanish). Retrieved 12 August 2025.
  25. ^ "Paul Adkin descubre para los niños el barroco inglés". La Tribuna de Ciudad Real (in Spanish). 12 July 2014. Retrieved 12 August 2025.
[edit]