CHRISTCHURCH WRITERS FESTIVAL 2008

A STAR TURN
AN EVENING WITH DAME NGAIO MARSH

Dr, Joanne Drayton is a veritable ball of energy and enthusiasm, an entertaining speaker, and a fine biographer and last evening she lit up this Festival with a commanding performance on the stage of the Great Hall at the Christchurch Arts Centre, which decades ago was the city campus of the University of Canterbury and, appropriately, the scene of many of Ngaio Marsh’s theatre triumphs.

Skilfully lead by veteran theatre director, and former student of Ngaio Marsh, Elric Hooper, Joanne Drayton gave the capacity audience tantalizing glimpses into the life of a woman who called Christchurch home and who in her day was one of the best-selling crime fiction writers in the world.

Elric Hooper opened the evening by recalling that it was in 1953 in this Great Hall that Ngaio March produced a superb production of Julius Ceasar. He went on to talk about the loops in Ngaio Marsh’s life – art, literature, theatre, and her personal life – and congratulated Joanne Drayton on how well she had captured these various parts of her life and on the courageous structure the author had employed in her outstanding biograhy. He mentioned the absence of a strict chronological account, using instead précis of her novels and major events in her life. He told the author and audience “it had come off wonderfully well".

Then the evening was given over to a relaxed conversation between Hooper and Drayton which proved illuminating and most interesting. Asked why she thought another biography was necessary (there was a previous bio written by Margaret Lewis) Drayton explained that she wrote her book to provide a NZ viewpoint as the earlier one was written very much from a British perspective . She also wanted to explore areas not dealt with in Lewis’ book which she was able to do because much new material has come to hand including the “discovery” at the Turnbull Library of Lady Doris Mackintosh’s letters.

There was discussion about Marsh’s practice of systematically destroying her own private correspondence and papers; the snobbery that exists around crime fiction, and her sexuality.

This was a triumphant event and the punters went out into the cold Canterbury evening, many clutching a signed copy of Ngaio Marsh:Her Life in Crime, all feeling satisfied at having attended a special event.
I have had the opportunity of reading the book already and it is a very fine piece of biographical writing.

Tomorrow my interview with Joanne Drayton will appear in the Sunday Star Times.