Helen Bourne

(19**-) Actress on stage, radio and television.

Training

Studied at the University of Cape Town and at the Royal Academy of Art in London.

Career

She worked in Britain in the theatre and television, including as a member of Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre Company. She has periodically returned to South Africa at the invitation of various companies. In the 1970s she lived in Cape Town for two-and-a-half-years.

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

She performed at The Barn in the 1960’s, The Merchant of Venice at Maynardville in 1963 and in PACT’s productions of Much Ado about Nothing in 1971, Donald Howarth’s A Lily in Little India (1973) and Three Months Gone (1973).

For CAPAB she played leading roles in The Importance of Being Earnest, Romeo and Juliet, Biography, See How They Run, The Misanthrope, Private Lives, A Doll's House (1975), Blithe Spirit (1976), Hamlet and Twelfth Night.

She also played in Pleasure and Repentance (Baxter Theatre), Ring Round the Moon (PACOFS), Saturday, Sunday, Monday (NAPAC), Betrayal.

Then she left for England to make a career for herself on stage, TV and film. In Paradise is Closing Down (Pieter-Dirk Uys, 1978) Edinburgh Festival and London.

In 1980 she returned briefly to star in Leonard Schach’s production of Betrayal for PACT and again in 1991 in Shadowlands (Market Theatre and the Baxter Theatre).

She created the title role in Donald Howarth’s Yin-Yang Cinders, which she subsequently played off-Broadway.

Played Eleanor Lambert in In the Summer of 1918, Nico Theatre, 1990,

In 1997 she was in Kindertransport at the Baxter Theatre.

Awards

She won the Three Leaf Best Actress Award for Nora in Doll's House and again for Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing and Lyuba in Roulette.

Sources

In the Summer of 1918 theatre programme notes, 1990.

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