Victor Melleney

Victor Melleney (19*-) British actor, director and production manager who arrived in South Africa in 1958.

Biography

Career

Worked for the National Theatre Organisation (NTO) from 1959-1962, and as actor. Later worked for the Performing Arts Councils, Pieter Toerien and others. Like most professionals, he also directed for amateur companies, such as the Bloemfontein Reps.

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

To be edited:

Performed in There Goes the Bride, Rosebloom, Who Killed Agatha Christie (at the Academy Theatre), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas ( as “Ed Earl Dodd” at His Majesty's Theatre), Hello, Dolly! (as “Horace van der Gelder”), My Fair Lady (as “Alfred Doolittle”).

He starred in Brian Brooke’s Any Wednesday with Helen Cotterill and Vivienne Drummond in 1973. He starred in Michael Pertwee’s Birds of Paradise at the Alhambra Theatre in 1992.

Produced Mornings at Seven (1959), An Oak Fell (at the Baxter Theatre), Send for Dolly (at the Academy Theatre).

Directing credits include John M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World for PACT at the Civic Theatre in 1963. He directed Lokval Vir 'n Man Alleen (Trap for a Lonely Man) for TRUK in 1963. He directed an adaptation of War and Peace at the Alexander Theatre for PACT in 1966.

To be edited: Don't tell father : presented by The Brian Brooke Company at the Brooke Theatre, directed by Victor Melleney and Brian Brooke, 1962 The Skinflint : presented by Leslie Enterprises at the Adam Leslie Theatre, directed by Victor Melleney, 1969

Photographs of John McKelvey, Marijke Haakman, Victor Melleney and Philip Birkinshaw in `The Complaisant Lover'.

Seven Against the Sun: poster advertising National Theatre production produced by Victor Melleney.

Theatre programme for the PACT [Performing Arts Council Transvaal] production of War and Peace directed by Victor Melleney

The Mask and the face (PACT)

The Caucasian chalk circle (PACT) directed by VM

Another sip of jerepigo: an entertainment based on the works of Herman Charles Bosman, dir VM

Sources

SACD 1974, 1979/80, 1980/81, 1981/82.

Tucker, 1997.

Mornings at Seven (NTO) theatre programme, 1959.

Various entries in NELM catalogue.

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