About
Alex NICOL – Author & PlAYWRIGHT
An Interesting life, that’s one way to describe it.
Alex Nicol says he can still remember the smell of the brewer’s yeast, food for the Clydesdales who pulled the Resches drays to the pubs around Sydney. It’s a small boy’s memory of Sunday night visits to a great aunt and uncle in Surrey Hills.
Put to it, he can still give you a ‘wake the dead call’ of Sun or the Daily Mirror Paapaaah! And remind you that on Saturday night there were three editions. Final, Late Final and Late Final Extra… having the results of the last at Randwick meant an extra sale… another halfpenny towards his first bike.
It’s an unlikely step from the streets of Sydney to the rails of a stockyard, but as a jackeroo with a successful stock dealer as a boss, it’s where he learned some of the tougher lessons of life and met the love of his life Diana.
That experience stood him in good stead as a Livestock Officer with the NSW Dept of Agriculture, managing a stud, lecturing at an Agricultural College, and then to the ABC as a rural journalist… even for a time to Parliament House, where he watched and reported on Gough Whitlam’s government.
‘Aunty’ ABC gave him the chance to see Australia and meet some of her most colourful citizens. ‘She’ gave him control of three and a half hours of National Airtime with a show called Always On Sundays. Here was a chance to talk to the last of the World War 1 Soldier Settlers, an old time ‘Afghan’ camel driver, the man who found smuggled Chinese gold in outback Queensland, and the last, the very last of the real Cobb and Co drivers, living history.
All the time he was writing, for the stage initially… a great uncle was property master for JC Williamson, and as a kid he was allowed to wander backstage. Some of that work made the stage in Sydney, Melbourne, London, even off, off Broadway and he got to visit the Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester to pick up an international award. He did a bit of acting, amateur at first but once he’d retired, a little professional work.
An interesting life, and he’s still writing. Old Days Old Ways was a memory of some of those radio days. His latest work, Pickle Bottle Hill, is a yarn about our liquorice-all-sorts relationship with China… gold back to China from the gold rush years, gold back to Australia as an investment haven in the nineties.
There’s more to come. He’s not finished yet. He’s had an interesting life.
OLD DAYS, OLD WAYS
Former ABC Radio presenter Alex Nicol brings back to life the voices and stories of regional Australia before television and the internet.
Alex Nicol takes us back to the old days in the bush, when booking into a country pub was likely to turn into an adventure, and when radio was the glue that held far flung communities together.
Full of colourful characters and making do with what’s at hand, these stories are classically Australian. There are the wartime mates who helped each other build farms on their soldier settler blocks, and the' “Adelady” keeping the farm running after her husband died. There is the young woman who ran down water buffalo in the Northern Territory, and Possum, the legendary bush hermit who lived off the land on his own for 60 years, quietly doing jobs for farmers without being asked. There is the neighbour caught “fishing” in the chookyard with a long line and a small hook baited with bread, and the little girl who swallowed a sapphire she found on the side of the road.
With a bush yarn, it’s all about the way you tell it. As the voice of rural Australia for over two decades on ABC radio, Alex Nicol can tell a yarn with a punchline that will keep you grinning for the rest of the day.
“Alex Nicol’s “Old Days, Old Ways” evokes and celebrates those unmistakeable national qualities that set us apart and that reside in the common man and woman.” ”
“I rarely read short stories by I’m glad I read these vignettes, they have a simple richness. ”
PICKLE BOTTLE HILL
1874. FAR NORTH QUEENSLAND. PALMER RIVER GOLDFIELD.
The Palmer River goldfield is roaring and Chinese miners flood in, indentured labourers working for a tong, panning gold to honor a family debt.
They won’t see the spoils of their work.
Their gold will go home to China.
Young Fou Yei, a pretty Eurasian girl, is in the service of brothel owner Miss Kate. That is until George Colley steps in and buys her bond for two hundred ounces of gold. Fou Yei belongs to George until she can repay the debt and an uneasy relationship develops between the pair.
1955. MODERN AUSTRALIA
One hundred and twenty years later, Chinese gold returns to Australia with the fabulously wealth Ophelia Lau, a successful businesswoman. She vows to have the stories of Chinese humiliation on the goldfields, like that of Fou Yei, erased from the history books.
In modern Australia, Chinese money talks, and Ophelia sets out to find willing Australian allies…
Alex Nicol is a master storyteller and wordsmith. From the opening paragraphs of PICKLE BOTTLE HILL, he seamlessly moves the narrative forward with an economy of words with surprising beauty, gentleness, brutality and humour. …
This is the story of the Gold Rush and the characters - individuals and groups, Western and Chinese, and the search for wealth. The environmental destruction, the abandonment of human decency and bloody-minded opportunism associated with the lure of gold. The human cost of the difference of working for and with gold to basically striking it rich by simply finding gold…..
PICKLE BOTTLE HILL is a love story. As we journey through the narrative, it is complicated by misunderstanding, ghosts, dead grandmothers, greed, exploitation, extortion and the strictures of economic and social hierarchies, entitlement gained through the power and manipulation of wealth…..
Hill is a great read. It is only 296 pages long, so you should take the time to listen to the words, woven in the tradition of an epic poem and magic realism in the Australian bush. A little gold ingot with the tong chop. How to translate the mark. “There’s a subtlety in Chinese characters that can be translated in many different ways. They say different things to different people.” Gordon Beattie
the pebble
Revel with Nymphs, Gods, heroes, and fools in this delicious bit of nonsense. Slide back through the mists of time to the glades of ancient Greece when the Gods walked the earth brushing shoulders with mere mortals.
We’re in the court of Sisyphus, king of Corinth, and the world’s greatest conman who’s about to find himself pushing a boulder uphill for all eternity.
See the ancient river god turn into a statue of himself.
Watch as the king pulls of the con of all time and pays the consequences.
Learn what happens when death gets tied in knots and cheer when the queen eventually gets to rule… or does she?
Cast: Two female, five males. Doubling of some male roles possible and recommended.
HORRIE the WOG DOG
A family play about a little dog in a war.
A nondescript terrier pup who wandered into camp, Horrie proved to be loyal and intelligent and was quickly accepted by the battalion as much more than a mascot. In an unauthorised move he was smuggled with the battalion when it moved into action in Greece where he came under fire on many occasions and where he used his acute sense of hearing to warn the troops of impending attack by enemy aircraft. He saved hundreds of lives and was rewarded by being presented with his own ‘official’ dog tag. He became EX1.
Evacuated with the troops to Crete he was sunk, wounded, and survived to carry messages when radio communications were scarce and difficult. Again, he was smuggled out with the retreating troops.
To smuggle Horrie back to Australia when the battalion was repatriated before being sent to New Guinea would have breached quarantine regulations and an elaborate plan was needed to successfully bring him home under the noses of officialdom.
He ‘retired’ in Australia while the battalion fought in New Guinea but in 1945 a book detailing his exploits was published. His cover was broken and though he had been in Australia for three years quarantine officials demanded that he be put down.
To all intents and purposes Horrie was shot in March 1945 and all hell let loose. Newspaper editorials attacked the decision and questions were asked in Parliament. But perhaps the diggers had the final laugh there’s the suggestion that a look-alike was substitute for Horrie at the last minute.
Saved or not Horrie’s unofficial boss sums up the situation when he says… ‘sending blokes off overseas to fight for the big right things and putting up with little wrong things at home doesn’t make any sense.’
Cast: One female multiple roles. One teenager either male or female. Two males twenties to thirty years of age.
TWO MONTHS THREE WEEKS FOUR DAYS
Two months, three weeks, four days ‘til the end of exams, the end of school, and life can start in earnest.
For sixteen-year-old Em that means Melbourne, Uni, a law degree and men.
Her friend Stacka is headed for Uni too… she should be doing medicine, she’s bright enough, but there’s Andy to consider. She’d do anything for Andy and for him the choice is Phys Ed or to stay and play football… he could get a chance at the big-time.
Then there’s Repo, the dropout’s dropout and young Simon intelligent and autistic who plays in his own Doctor Who world.
Frustration with life in a small-town, boils into action when mysterious daubs…something like Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream appear all over town, even on the war memorial.
Every protest has its consequences and what was a tight knit group of mates is torn apart as the blame game turns nasty..
Cast: Five teenagers two female, three male between the ages of 14 and 16. Two female adults
three toe scratch
A group of un-skilled women from different backgrounds is forced into a fragile alliance by their work in a poultry slaughterhouse.
When the owner announces the closure of the plant, they opt to let all the birds out as a childish prank to register their protest. They reason that there are laws against cruelty to animals, but none against cruelty to workers.
If they can force the owner to continue feeding his birds, why not his workers?
The owner retaliates by sending security guards in at night to kill all the fowls.
Humiliated, the workers are left with a choice between meek surrender or a real fight for self-esteem. They fight but the battle opens old wounds, divides the group, and ends in a violent death that marks them all for ever.
Awards: Short listed for the Patrick White Award Sydney Theatre Co.
Cast: 6 females of mixed ages one of Asian heritage.
NASTY OR NICE?
Four shorts to choose. Each ten to twelve minutes, each with a small cast.
The Day The Train Stopped
Three young people coming home from a skiing holiday on the Euro Star Express when the train stops mid-way through the Channel Tunnel. Have the lights gone out all over the world? Is there a man with a Kalashnikov in the next carriage?
Cast: One male, two females
The Little Black Dress
Thirty something Kay’s shopping expedition for something specialish for a birthday celebration….’Daryl’s into Red Lacey’ goes horribly wrong when she meets Margaret the lady with the little black dress for sale in the shop that knows all about you.
Cast: One senior female, one thirtyish female, one walk-on male
Pigeons In The Park
Selected for the Beast Festival at New York’s Triangle Theatre. An elderly woman spreads her blanket in the park and feeds the pigeons. She attracts a crowd.
Cast of five: Senior woman, young woman. A youth either sex, A park ranger, and a tour guide.
SIMPLY ADD WATER
Will it never rain? Chris and Christine are waiting for baby and for the rain. Christine worries about the sun and Chris wonders what happened to baby.
Cast: Young woman, young man
