Richard Davey

Richard Innes Davey - in mid scene of "The Ship That Never Was"

Richard Innes Davey (4 November 1938 – 13 March 2013) was an Australian actor, director and writer. He was the founder of the Round Earth Company and advocate for the understanding of the Macquarie Harbour Penal Station on Sarah Island on the West Coast of Tasmania.

Earlier he had been artistic director of the Hole in the Wall theatre in Perth, Western Australia in 1969 -1971 ^[1][2]

Work

Over ten years of the Round Earth Theatre Company at Strahan, and work on Sarah Island as a guide, Davey's work has had significance in helping tourists understand the penal station and its context, where previously there had been scattered and not very accessible research. The Ship that Never Was, written by Davey, is Australia's longest-running play, with over 5,000 performances and continuing to be performed nightly at Strahan; it is about the successful escape of 10 convicts from Sarah Island.^[3]

His book The Sarah Island Conspiracies: Being an account of twelve voyages to Macquarie Harbour and Sarah Island, which was short listed for a major prize in Hobart in 2005, complements the work of Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish. They both use the painting by William Buelow Gould of the Weedy sea dragon on the covers of their books.

A good explanation about Davey and his presence on the West Coast of Tasmania is found in Nicholas Shakespeare's In Tasmania, which also provides a connection of Davey's with a much earlier stage of Tasmanian history.

Davey's long lasting interest in Shakespeare's King Lear^[4] saw production in November 2007 of an adaptation The Madness of King Lear ^[5] in Hobart, Tasmania.

Davey died on 13 March 2013 after a long battle with illness.^[6][7]

See also

• Convicts on the West Coast of Tasmania
• Macquarie Harbour

Audio recordings

• Davey, Richard (2009), Richard Davey interviewed by Rob Willis in the Rob Willis folklore collection, retrieved 17 April 2013 

Plays

• (1982) Tell 'em you're Maoris (Put Your Boots On)
• (1983) Broken Dreams
• (1984) The Ship that never was ^[8]
• (1984) Halleljuah Lady Jane ^[9]
• (1986) Guarding the Perimeter
• (1986) A Cry from the heart
• - Hook's Mountain

Books

• Davey, Richard (1984), Don't park your swan on the grass, Salamanca Theatre Company, retrieved 17 April 2013 
• Davey, Richard; Pigot, Neil; Davey, Anita (1993), A bright and crimson flower, Crimson Flower Project, retrieved 17 April 2013 
• Davey, Richard, (2002) The Sarah Island conspiracies : being an account of twelve voyages made by one G.K. to Macquarie Harbour on the western coast of Van Diemens Land 1822-1833 Strahan, Tas. : Round Earth Co., ISBN 0-9750051-0-3 (Reproduction of a memoir dated 1896 authored by an anonymous clerk G.K. )

References

Further reading

• [Biographical cuttings on Richard Davey, playwright, containing one or more cuttings from newspapers or journals], 1900, retrieved 17 April 2013 
• Shakespeare, Nicholas, In Tasmania Milsons Point, N.S.W. : Random House Australia, 2007. ISBN 978-1-74166-906-0