Postponed QLF show a major success

LITERARY festival attendees packed out the Queenscliff Town Hall to see playwright Hannie Rayson and ABC broadcaster Michael Cathcart present a literary journey through Queenscliff’s past and present.

The rescheduled show was part of May’s Queenscliffe Literary Festival (QLF) and aimed to provide and entertain viewers with a wonderful and wide-ranging account of Queenscliff through the eyes of writers and storytellers.

Sunday’s event was eagerly anticipated by the audience with many retaining their tickets to the show due to the original date in May being postponed because of both Rayson and Cathcart coming down with COVID-19.

The session began with the first storytellers, the Wadawurrung people, then moved onto a fascinating account of William Buckley’s story as told to a Tasmanian journalist some years after Buckley’s return to white society and followed his 30 years of living with the Wadawurrung.

Hannie and Michael thoroughly entertained and amused the audience with readings and dramatizations of selected writings including Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher and Lea Sharelle’s Wounded Souls and also showcased the works of local authors Dorothy Johnson, Barry Hill, Marion Lennox, and Beverley Farmer.

Stories gathered from local fishermen, pilots and residents formed the ‘Truth’ while ‘Fiction’ revealed Queenscliff in many varied guises.

Queenscliffe Literary Festival Committee President Pauline Nunan said that the event was worth the wait, with a huge crowd filling out the show.

“It was great, and I think the audience was absolutely delighted with it, it was largely full and a fair percentage who had bought tickets in May actually retained them,” she said.

“[Hannie and Michael] basically researched all they could about what people had written over the years about Queenscliff, it started with the William Buckley story in the 1860’s and went right through to more recent fiction.

“They trawled through and searched out references that represented Queenscliff, it was almost like a little performance.

“They ended up dramatizing some of the readings from the book and it was a great success.”

After a stellar 2022 program, the QLF team is now preparing for the 2023 Festival to be held over three weekends from May 12 to May 28.

For more information, go to www.queenscliffeliteraryfestival.com.au