Alan Seymour

Alan Seymour (born 6 June 1927 in Perth, Western Australia) is an Australian playwright and author.

In Australia, his best-known play is "The One Day of the Year", which dramatised the growing social divide in Australia and the questioning of old values. In the play, ANZAC Day is critiqued by the central character, Hughie, as a day of drunken debauchery by returned soldiers and as a day when questions of what it means to be loyal to a Nation or Empire must be raised.

Initially it was rejected by a festival governing committee but was first performed in 1961 by an amateur production. The play met with huge controversy on its release, including a bomb threat at its premiere. It was later given government funding, and performed in London, England. Seymour went there to see the performance and began living overseas, returning to live in Australia in 1995, over 30 years later. The play was given a major Australian revival in 2003 in a production directed by David Berthold for Sydney Theatre Company. It is also studied in various school curricula.

Despite the criticisms of ANZAC Day expressed in the play, the term has since been adopted as expressing the importance of Anzac day.Fact|date=March 2007

References

* [http://nla.gov.au/nla.ms-ms9198 Biographical note and bibliography] , National Library of Australia