When London Calls
The Expatriation of Australian Creative Artists to Britain

This book, first published in 2000, explores the experience of Australian expatriates in London in the creative and performing arts.

Stephen Alomes (Author)

9780521629782, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 October 1999

352 pages, 43 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.47 kg

'… makes a valuable contribution in exploring and contextualising expatriatism'. Australian Book Review

For thousands of young Australians the tearful dockside farewell was a rite of passage as they boarded ships bound for London. For some the journey was an extended holiday, but for many actors, painters, musicians, writers and journalists, leaving Australia seemed to be the only path to personal and professional fulfilment. This book, first published in 2000, is a collective biography of those people who found themselves categorised as expatriates - people such as Leo McKern, Dame Joan Sutherland, Barry Tuckwell, Don Banks, Phillip Knightley, John Pilger, Peter Porter, Richard Neville, Jill Neville and 'megastars' Barry Humphries, Germaine Greer and Clive James. The book tells of choices they made about career and country, yet it is also a cultural history that traces shifts in the complex relationship between Australia and Britain, as the supposed colonial backwater began to develop its own cultural identity.

1. Introduction
Part I. Leaving: 2. An Australian theatre or a career on stage?
3. Sydney or Fleet Street?
4. Musical directions
5. Patterns of discovery: artists and writers
Part II. Climbing: 6. Grander stages
7. Long and winding musical roads
8. The yellow brick road to the land of OZ and beyond
9. Journalists' journeys
10. Crucible to firmament: Barry Humphries, Germaine Greer and Clive James and the expatriate search for fame
Part III. Complicating … Solving: 11. Home and identity.

Subject Areas: Cultural studies [JFC]