Book review / “If This is the Highway (I’ll Take the Dirt Road): the formidable encounters of David Branson Esq” (Xlibris), by Joel Swadling. Reviewed by HELEN MUSA.

IT’S 21 years today (December 11) since actor, entrepreneur, and Canberra theatrical personality David Branson died shockingly in a car accident en route to a rehearsal with Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen.

What remains behind is his extraordinary legacy of a personality not easily forgotten and his gifts to the theatre community of a vibrant and dynamic approach to the arts.

Considering the ephemeral nature of theatre as an art form, his was an extraordinary contribution.

Joel Swadling’s exhaustive analysis of the life and times of David Branson is now available on Kindle, vastly increasing its accessibility.

Swadling’s a massive 603-page biography brings back to life an eccentric but ethically-charged man, exemplifying the best in our arts and the subtitle bears witness to the gentlemanly qualities of his subject.

He begins with a striking parallel, Albert Camus’ death in 1960 in a similar manner. Like Branson, he was not wearing a seat belt and by coincidence Branson had before his death just directed an adaption of the French Nobel laureate’s play, “Possessed”.

Swadling’s chronological approach is based on his own observations, years in the ACT Heritage Library and interviews with 75 of Canberra’s arts community members, including me.

He bookends his narrative with the funeral on December 14, 2001, but the story really begins with Branson’s birth into a deeply religious family. Known as a Christian activist while at Dickson College, his Christian values were to inform even his most radical work.

Struggling as an outsider when growing up, the author found a kindred soul in Branson, to whom he could look for inspiration and encouragement – he was not the only one to do so.

The story telling is rich, full of hilarious, improbable anecdotes, laugher, tears, successes and failures as it covers Branson’s days at Dickson College, his violin-playing, early studies and theatrical experiments, his 12 years with Splinters Theatre of Spectacle, his time in music theatre with Stopera and his final years with his partner Louise Morris in their provocatively-named CIA – Canberra Independent Artists or Culturally, Innovative Arts, as one wished.

Branson charmed everyone he met. He was not one to shy away from criticising the critics and engaging in frank debate, but he did so with style and swagger and Canberrans, fed on a surfeit of cant, couldn’t get enough of it.

The book does not shy away from his faults. Loquacious to a fault and  an extrovert male who was  perennially in love, he was an inveterate womaniser who, Swadling, speculates, might not have fared well in the #Metoo era.

Amidst the smoke, fire, blood and thunder, there is a touch of reality. Straight acting was not Branson’s forte, seen when he essayed Stanley Kowalski in “A Streetcar Named Desire” and Macheath in “The Threepenny Opera.”

But when Branson died, the crowd overflowed into the gardens at the Holy Cross Church in Hackett in a show of public mourning for somebody who had reached into the hearts of people right across the arts community and beyond.

All this Swadling chronicles faithfully and frankly in a feast of memories.

But at 603 pages, it is far too long, with rambling quotations that clutter the narrative, although it could be quick read if you skim over those quotations, which are set in italics.

At random you can find examples of such excessive quoting, nowhere is it so obvious as in the coverage of a public spat in 1991 about sexism in Splinters, where no stone is left unturned in revealing the antagonist’s inner thoughts.

Swadling needed a professional editor and, given the importance of this book as a powerful insight into a face of Canberra not often seen or written about, the work could and should be republished in a revised version.