John West Collection

John West will be well known to most radio listeners from the 1960s to the 1990s as “The Showman”, who took over that long-running weekly ABC Radio program in 1964, and presented it to a national radio audience for the next twenty-five years until 1989. During this period, he also inherited the program “Sentimental Journey”, which had commenced in August 1971, and presented it on Saturday evenings on Australia-wide relay from Radio Station 2BL in Sydney, from June 1977 until December 1995. Both programs were a comprised a mix of news, reviews, interviews, and excerpts from the current and forthcoming theatrical and musical productions around Australia and overseas.

About the collection

A substantial portion of the voluminous John West Collection comprises research notes, newspaper clippings and correspondence related to the writing of his book Theatre in Australia, published in 1978. A further extensive series of clippings, collected for his radio programs, are arranged chronologically from 1959 to 1997 and subdivided by venue or production company. This sequence of news cuttings provides a remarkable concepectus of Australia Theatre History for almost 40 years. John West’s collection of more than 4,300 theatre programs is also preserved in the Foundation’s Archives.

Access Conditions

The John West Collection is available for on-site research. A finding aid has been prepared for internal use. To become an approved researcher to access the document please contact the Foundation’s archivist on 612 99555444 or archivist@sbwfoundation.com