John Alden 1908-1962

After Melbourne, the marathon continued to Adelaide, Brisbane, Toowoomba, Canberra, Perth, Launceston and Hobart, where the tour ended in November, 1952.

The tour had been promoted as a highlight of the Commonwealth’s Jubilee celebrations and accordingly had received some modest government financial support. Sir Charles Moses hailed it as ‘the beginning of a true national theatre’ and Alden and his business manager, Elsie Beyer, approached the Commonwealth for annual funding. In spite of Prime Minister Menzies’ enthusiasm when the company visited the national capital, the hoped-for government backing was not forthcoming, due largely to Alden’s reluctance to relinquish total control and submit to the dictates of a governing board.

Of all the cities visited by the Alden Company, Perth had been the most welcoming. Alden returned there in November 1953 with a non-Shakespeare repertoire including Misalliance, Uncle Harry, The Holly and the Ivy and Tobias and the Angel. His company included Anthony Ward, Phillip Edgley, Dinah Shearing and Harvey Adams.

In 1955 Alden was featured in a couple of episodes of the television series The Adventures of Long John Silver, a spin-off from the 1954 feature film with Robert Newton, while on stage he played Felix Ducotel in J.C. Williamson’s production of the Spewacks’ comedy My Three Angels in Sydney and Melbourne. Alden had hoped that his Company could have formed the nucleus of a national drama company under the wing of the newly-formed Australian Elizabethan Trust, but the Trust thought otherwise. Nevertheless he was cast in Medea, the Trust’s inaugural production; Judith Anderson took the title role, with Doris Fitton as the Nurse and Alden as Creon. The tour opened at the Albert Hall in Canberra in October 1955, but on the first night in Melbourne, Alden suffered a heart attack and was forced to leave the company.

By 1957 he was sufficiently recovered to return to direct at the Independent: Tobias and the Angel and The Merchant of Venice (1957), and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1959). In 1958 he directed and starred in the rarely staged Titus Andronicus (1958) and was seen on ABC television in the plays Murder Story, Harlequinade and Sixty Point Bold.