Credits
23 poems [by] John Croyston [and] Julian Woods - 1953
Mary Rose - U Syd, play - actor - June 1956
Trojan Women / The Critic - U Syd, play - actor - Sept 1956
The Fire on the Snow / The Hungerers, play - U Syd - director 1956
Titus Andronicus - U Syd, play - director 1958
Fire on the Snow - theatre, director - Apr 1958
THE POET’S TONGUE Poetry of Thomas Campion - radio - June 1958
My husband’s wife - radio play, director - Aug 1958 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1447070883
A Matter of Life - rain play director Sept 1958 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1447225077
The Gioconda Smile - radio play director Nov 1958 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1449288387
The Witch’s Brew - radio play, director - Dec 1958 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1449976440
THE POET’S TONGUE Edmund Blunden - radio feature, writer - Dec 1958
Drive a Hard Bargain, ABC Radio - director - Dec 1958 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1448821703
Seawife - radio play, director 1958 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1527269032
One Evening in Late Autumn - radio play, director March 1959 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1537193008
Dead Men Walking - play, U Syd - director July 1959
THE POET’S TONGUE Judith Wright
By John Croyston - Aug 1959
THE POET’S TONGUE David Rowbotham By John Croyston - radio - Sept 1959
The Last Ship, ABC Radio, - director - Nov 1960
Blake’s Pocket, ABC Radio, - director - Dec 1960
A Taste of Honey, Palace Theatre, Sydney - lyrics - Feb 1961
Naked island, ABC Radio - director v- April 1961
Noah - play - director - 1962
Reconciliation - poem, writer - Feb 1962
Autumn in the Garden - poem, writer - July 1962
Those Who Have Travelled Far - poem, writer - May 1963
Hyde Park - poem, writer - Jan 1965
Quiet Season - TV play, director Jun 1965
Absent Friend - poe, Oct 1965 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-702226373
The Mature Reflection - poem, writer - Aug 1965
Getting Along with the Government - TV play, director - May 1966
The Runaway - writer - September 1966
The Man Who Saw It - director - 18 October 1966
Waking is Easy - poem, author - Oct 1966
Touch of Gold - TV play, director - July 1967
Casualty - TV play, writer - Aug 1967
Sg Musgrave’s Dance- TV play director - Sept 1967
The Schoolmistress - TV play director 1967
O’Flaherty VC - TV play - Sept 1967
Construction - TV play, writer - Oct 1967
Intersection - TV play, director - Oct 1967
Gallows Humour, AMP Theatrette - director - 1968
The Cell - director July 1968
Queens Bishop - TV play, director - 1968
Vulpine - TV play - director 1968
Contrabandits - TV series, 1968
Tilley Landed On Our Shores - TV play, director - 1969
Voyage Out - writer, director Nov 1969
Chimes At Midnight - TV play, writer - July 1970
Lane End - TV series, director - 1970
Behind the Legend: Bligh - director - 1972
Over There - TV series, director - 17273
Lysistrata, The University of NSW, Parade Theatre - translator - 13 July 1973
Certain Women - TV series, director - 1972-73
The Hills Shall Fly (10.15) written by John Croyston - radio play, writer - Mar 1974
Behind the Legend - Big - TV play, director Jan 1974
I’m here darlings - writer, TV movie - 1974
Spoiled - TV play, director - Oct 1974
Behindthe Legend - Marcus Clark - tTV play director Jan 1975
Behind the Legend - George Coppin - TV play director Feb 1975
Behind the Legend - S. T. Gill - writer Feb 1975
Seven Ages: Slipper’d Pantaloon - TV play, director - Aug 1975
The broken tower: a study of the poetry of Hart Crane - radio doco - writer - 1976
Moynihan - TV series 1976-77 - producer
Past the near meadows, over the still stream : a story of Amy Sherwin - writer - 1977
Oct 1978. ABC staff commissioner - whinge against govt http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article110914666
Family Man, Nimrod Downstairs - writer (directed by Neil Armfield) - October 1979
Ride on Strangers - TV mini series - script editor 1979
Same Luck - TV sereies- head of children’s programming 1980 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55827347
Menotti - TV series 1980-81
A Step in the Right Direction - TV movie - producer - 1981
he emperor’s new clothes / John Croyston. - 1984
Studio 86 - TV - producer - 1984
Poet, poems / Julian Woods, John Croyston ; edited by Justin Anderson. - 1997
The Tasmanian nightingale : the story of Amy Sherwin - doco - writer - 2005
The poetical works of John Croyston - 2020
Papers - here
Obit here
At his best in a fiery debate
OHN CROYSTON'S curiosity about life and ideas was detected early, at about three years of age. His father was a baker and when his mother went to help in the downstairs bakery in the middle of the night, John was inclined to climb from his cot. His parents decided that the only answer was to tie him down.
A year or so later, he disappeared from the family home at Woolloomooloo and eventually turned up in Katoomba. He was reading widely by then and wrote a "book" - on South Africa - at five. When he was 14, an aunt suggested that his mother take him to a psychiatrist: "He's spending all his time writing - poetry!"
His readiness to take a stand also appeared early in life. He witnessed, at eight years, the savage caning of a fellow student at their Catholic school. Outraged, he strode from the class, collected his younger brother from another room and left that school forever.
He was never afraid of argument, a trait which sometimes brought trouble - at the ABC where he worked in drama and features for much of his life, or in the pub. According to a story told at his funeral, Croyston's passionate defence of wharf labourers' opposition to the Vietnam War was so misunderstood in the Gladstone pub on William Street that a drinker called him a "commie bastard" and flattened him. A dazed Croyston staggered to his feet, offering: "I'm sorry, mate. Can I get you a drink?"
John Frederick Croyston, who has died from prostate cancer at 74, was one of five children born to Fred and his wife, formerly Rita Holdaway. During World War II, Fred took his family from inner Sydney to live by the Georges River, believing it safer there.
Croyston went to Hurlstone Agricultural High School, where he was part of the debating team and played in the cricket and rugby firsts. Invited back as a distinguished old boy, he was described by the headmaster as "the most argumentative boy". He leapt to his feet, shouting: "I am not."
At Sydney University, he was a follower of John Anderson, the philosophy professor whose freethinking views could scandalise, and was familiar with the debating-drinking group the Push, although he was much closer to social democracy than to the anarchy that some Push members pushed.
Croyston became active in politics. The Communist Party of Australia refused his membership application; the reason given was his fondness for women and alcohol, two characteristics often welcomed by political parties. He read Greek and took to translating Greek dramatists, a practice he pursued for most of his life. And he threw himself into theatre, producing Titus Andronicus and Lysistrata, and working with Douglas Stewart's The Fire on the Snow.
Croyston was a schoolteacher for a few years, at Beecroft. About this time, 1954, he began writing letters to the Herald, about such diverse matters as slums in Sydney and the recognition of what was known as Red China, which he supported nearly 20 years before Australia followed.
Recently, he questioned why Australian singers adopted US accents, complained of inadequate funding for the ABC and asked about asylum seekers: "If Iraq is so fiendish a country as to deserve our military assaults, how can we not honour and harbour those of its terrorised citizens whose perilous plight we claim as moral justification for our righteousness?"
He would write poetry on the steps of the State Library, off Macquarie Street, smoking his pipe. Storry Walton, a colleague, says his style at the time was romantic, with Shelley, Yeats and Auden among his heroes.
Later the Herald published his poetic tribute to the rugby league hero Graeme Langlands. (Croyston loved sport, sometimes blaming his heart attack in 1974 on watching Doug Walters hit a six off a day's last ball to reach 100.) In 1988, the bicentenary year, his 26th: Visit of the Fleets was an eloquent tribute to the first Australians.
At the ABC Croyston wrote, and produced with Walton, 10 years of weekly programs for The Poet's Tongue on Radio National and, under Ivan Smith, the Quarterly of Australian Verse. He wrote for Quality Street, a weekly program of the arts, letters and philosophy, three TV screenplays - Construction, Casualty and The Runaway - and wrote, produced, directed and edited other productions for the ABC and SBS.
He was a risk taker, some thought a curmudgeon, with wit, passion and intellectual rigour. ABC staff went on strike in 1978 when management banned an interview with Croyston, then president of the staff association, over the Fraser government's decision not to allow for a staff-elected commissioner.
He was a conservationist before conservation was fashionable. He re-used tea bags because he liked weak tea, but thought water shortages would endanger the world. When his wife, Janet Brown, grew tired of cooking in the dark, a friend suggested she wear a miner's helmet.
In retirement, they lived for periods in Greece, Spain and Ireland. He is survived by Janet, his wife of 36 years, his children Sean and Abigail, and hers, Amanda and Dugald, from previous marriages for both.
He demands more money here:
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| NAA Paul O'Loughlin |
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