Barry Dickins – August 21 2016

Barry is a playwright, author, poet and artist. Leaving school early he worked in a factory and then as a set-painter for television. He later gained his Diploma of Education at The Melbourne State College. His biography, Lessons in Humility, is the bizarre story of his subsequent life as a teacher. Best known as a playwright, Barry has also written short stories, such as Post Office Restaurant and Other Stories, children’s books, and non-fiction including Black and Whiteley: Barry Dickins in Search of Brett and Guts and Pity: The Hanging That Ended Capital Punishment in Australia which recounts the life of Ronald Ryan and the historical background to his execution in 1967. His other plays include The Great Oscar Wilde Trial, about the trials of Oscar Wilde, The Death of Minnie, about a Polish immigrant living in Melbourne who decides to commit suicide on her 40th birthday, and Insouciance, a family saga about the love that binds a maniacal mother, her anxiety-ridden husband and their long-suffering son.

Remember Ronald Ryan published with his monodrama Ryan
Currency Press, 1994; ISBN 9781925005295
Full length play; 9 female, 25 male
“‘PLEASE ADMIT THE bearer…to the execution of Ronald Joseph Ryan, on 3rd February, 1967.’ This invitation, received by journalists covering the last hanging in Australian history, illustrates a key theme of the play in which the Ryan execution represents a bridge between two different eras. The authorities at Pentridge Prison modelled their procedures – and their invitation – on the ancient traditions of English hangmen. But in the Melbourne of 1967 those traditions seemed, like the execution itself, a grotesque legacy of an earlier age.” – Jeff Sparrow, Griffith Review

Unparalleled Sorrow: Finding My Way Back from Depression
Hardie Grant Books, 2009; ISBN 9781740668033
Written with his inimitable wit, humour and lyricism, this memoir follows Barry’s path to depression – via his salad days in St Kilda and the murder of his housemate – and the road out of it. Suffering from insomnia, he was diagnosed with severe and clinical depression. Checking in to the Albert Road Clinic, he was told he would be there until the joy returned to him, but it eluded him for months, so he stayed, alongside patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorders and other traumas. He took his medication and succumbed to the electroconvulsive therapy, which left him unable to grip a pen and riddled his memory with holes. The experience marked him for good, and is one that more people share than we might like to consider.