The Weekly Times

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

A Laugh At The World's Vanities

Seeing The Funny Side: Trentham Playwright Darren Brealey

Written by: Genevieve Barlow

Darren Brealey got an early start on the stage - he was six when he first played a teddy bear.

But it was through Scouts that he got his real start - at the age of 10 - at St Kilda's Palais Theatre in The Gang Show, a Scouts-run voluntary theatrical movement.

Today the 37-year-old playwright and actor lives in Trentham, about 20km from Kyneton, where as a child he roamed his grandparents' farm and spent "delicious" hours with his mother and four aunts Jessica, Margaret, Cathy and Helen.

"Jessica played the piano while my mother washed and cleaned, " Darren says. "The five girls grew up on Pipers Creek Rd; that's where I got a lot of my craziness from. I love them all to bits." ...more