Percy Baneshik

Percy Baneshik (1915-1999) was an influential critic, author, broadcast producer and playwright.

Biography

Born Percival Leon Baneshik, on 6th November, 1915, he was an auto-didact, wjho would go on to become one of the most esteemed, articulate and influential music, film and theatre critics in the country.

The African Broadcasting Company (ABC) started broadcasting on 1st of July 1924. During the 1930s, Baneshik was appointed Assistant News Editor with the station and, known as "Uncle Percy", started the Children's Hour. When the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) was established by an Act of Parliament as the new public service broadcaster in 1936, he continued in the same position with them.

He also worked for a number of Johannesburg newspapers, notably The Star and became the chief columnist for the Rand Daily Mail from 1962 till 1964 and an Executive member of the SA PEN Centre. He was an Assistant Editor in charge of the Arts and Entertainments section and dramatic critic, of the Sunday Chronicle in Johannesburg. Between 1947-48 he served as a Radio Officer with the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations in Washington DC, USA.

Des Lindberg said of him: "Percy Baneshik was physically a small man, cruelly challenged by the disability that polio had inflicted on him. But his intellect matched and even dwarfed the finest scholars, broadcasters, racconteurs , orators and scribes of our land. His wit was legendary, an urbane and cultured gentleman, whose very presence at an opening night lent stature to the event. His opinion was important to the Theatre. He provided respected and reliable benchmarks for excellence, courage, talent, and endeavour."

He received the Thomas Pringle Award for journalism in 1974.

Baneshik passed away in 1999.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

Baneshik also wrote a number of one-act plays, many of them performed at the FATSSA play festivals by the East Rand Theatre Club, including Elizabeth Wears a Wig (1945, published 1947) and The Garden at the Threshold (the Van Riebeeck Festival play) (1951, published 1965) and Hole in the Heart, a radio presentation about a heart operation which was broadcast all over the world. Full-lenth plays include Mr. Midas (Library Theatre, 1945) and the musical Eureka (with music by Bertha Egnos, produced at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre, 1968). Baneshik is also the author of radio features entitled Fugue for South African Voices (1952) and Portrait of Sammy Marks (1958).

Also wrote an ode to the Johannesburg REPS which was read by Muriel Alexander during the inaugural ceremony of the new Johannesburg REPS Theatre which opened in Johannesburg on the 7th of November 1951.

As a scriptwriter he wrote many features for radio.

Sources

Diane de Beer. 1995.

Gideon Jacobus Joubert, 1974. Rigtings en figure in die toneelkritiek van Suid-Afrika, 1963-1972. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Pretoria: University of Pretoria.

Joyce, 1999, Tucker, 1997.

http://esaach.org.za/index.php?title=Baneshik,_Percy

South African Jewry, Edited by Leon Feldberg, 1965.

"Tribute - Percy Baneshik" https://www.artlink.co.za/news_article.htm?contentID=11892

Various entries in the NELM catalogue.

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