A Voyage Round My Father

A Voyage Round My Father is an autobiographical play by John Mortimer. It was originally a series of sketches transmitted by BBC Radio in 1963, following which it became a television play, with Ian Richardson playing the adult Mortimer and Mark Dignam his blind barrister father. Mortimer then adapted it for the stage. It was first presented at the Greenwich Theatre in 1970 and in a revised version at the Haymarket Theatre in 1971, the latter with Alec Guinness as the father and Jeremy Brett as the son. In 1982 it returned to television, with Laurence Olivier, Alan Bates, Elizabeth Sellars and Jane Asher in the leading roles.

In South Africa it was presented by students of the UCT Drama Department in 1974, first at the Little Theatre in June and then at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in July. Neville Thomas (Father), Leslie Nott (Mother), Bobby Heaney (Son) and Ingrid Falkenberg (Elizabeth) took the leading roles and Jonathan Rands, Clive Metz, Diane Cox, Etienne Puren, Philip Godawa, Alan Dickinson, Trevor Brazil, Peta van Blydenstein, Margi Lewis and Gillian Harris shared the other 31 other roles between them. The play was directed by Robert Mohr, the lighing was by Brian Evans and the costumes by Helen Rooza. In 1984 RAPS staged an amateur production at the Intimate Theatre.