On Shifting Sandshoes

Paul M Davies is an award winning screenwriter, script editor and playwright who sharpened his quill on over a hundred episodes of television series from Crawford classics such as Homicide (1974-5), The Box (1975-76) and The Sullivans (1976-78) to Skyways (1979), Rafferty's Rules (1985), Blue Heelers (1997), Pacific Drive (1996), Stingers (1998-2003), Something in the Air (1999-2001) and Headland (2005). He also helped spark the site-specific performance revolution in Melbourne in the 1980s with TheatreWorks' production of his first play Storming Mont Albert By Tram (1982). What became known as The Tram Show played across a dozen years to packed trams in both Melbourne and Adelaide, travelling a total distance that would have taken the show halfway round the world. Its success lead to an outbreak of 'location theatre' in Melbourne throughout the 1980s including three other plays in real places: Breaking Up In Balwyn (1983, on a riverboat), Living Rooms (1986, in an historic mansion) and Full House/No Vacancies (1989, in a boarding house). These works became the subject of his book Really Moving Drama. Both The Tram Show and On Shifting Sandshoes (1988) were awarded AWGIES, along with Return of The Prodigal (2000) an episode of Something In The Air (ABC). Paul co-wrote the feature Neil Lynn with David Baker in 1984, and the docu-fiction Exits (1980) with Pat Laughren and Carolyn Howard. His novel, 33 Postcards From Heaven was published by Gondwana Press in 2005. Numerous articles, reviews, stories and interviews have been published in Metro, Cinema Papers, Cantrill's Filmnotes, Australasian Drama Studies, Community Theatre In Australia, The Macquarie Companion to the Australian Media and Theatre Research International (Cambridge University). He has also given courses in literature and creative writing at various colleges and universities including: Southern Cross, James Cook and Melbourne State.