Administrative/Biographical History

The following year Harding and Pope collaborated again on 'Point Blank', a cabaret directed by Martin Sherman (who wrote the play 'Bent' produced in 1980). The same year also produced 'The Dear Love of Comrades', a play by Noel Grieg with music by Harding. Harding and Pope’s final collaboration was 'Layers', a musical that had a sell-out season at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) Theatre, London, in 1979. It starred a young Michael Cashman, later Baron Cashman.

In 1980 Harding became a musical director of the Bloolips Theatre Company. During this time he created his alter-ego drag character ‘Dotty’. He performed with the Bloolips for two seasons.

Alex Harding moved to Australia in 1984 and became an Australian citizen in 1985. His first Australian credit was 'Not Quite Sixty Minutes', a cabaret written and performed by him at the 1985 Gay Mardi Gras in Sydney. The following year saw him appear in, and contribute to, 'Love, Sex and Romance', an umbrella event during the Gay Mardi Gras. That same year Harding also contributed to 'Acid ’n’ Tonic', another gay cabaret.

When Harding composed the title song for his musical 'Only Heaven Knows' in 1986, it was Drew Griffiths he was thinking of: ‘His pride and his passion was an inspiration to the original members of the company.’ Harding followed 'Only Heaven Knows' with the play 'Blood and Honour', which opened at the Belvoir Street Theatre on 07 February 1990. Harding’s lover of 15 years, David E. Thompson, died of AIDS five months after the premiere of 'Blood and Honour'. The play was written for him and is dedicated to him. The play went on to win the 1990 UN Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Award for Drama.

In 1991 Harding appeared in a one-man musical, 'Beauty and the Beat', which was part of the 1991 Gay and Lesbian Arts Festival. It was written and directed by Rex Lay, a former Harding collaborator from his Bloolips days, with songs by Harding and Lay. Sydney Theatre Company then commissioned Harding to write the play 'Three'. It was given a full-day workshop and an evening open reading under the auspices of STC’s research and development wing on 13 May 1993. In 1993 Harding also worked as the pianist with a group called Body Tales in a piece called 'The Will'.

In the mid-1990s Harding was commissioned by the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras to write and workshop a two-hander. Called 'Beloved', it was based on the death-cell letters of the bushranger Captain Scott (Moonlite) and his love for another man in the gang.

Two of Harding’s one-act plays, 'The Reunion' and 'Kaleidoscope', were mounted as part of the Queer Fringe by Lookout Theatre, in a program of four plays in February 1996.

On 18 February 1996 Harding premiered his one-man cabaret 'Just One More and Then I’ll Go!' at the Stables Theatre, Sydney. Later in the year Harding teamed with director Mary Haire for a series of Sunday afternoon cabaret shows at the Tilbury Hotel. He followed this with 'Harding in the Soup', a Sunday night gig playing piano at Betty’s Soup Kitchen.

In 1999 Harding’s 'Family Secrets, Sheltered Worlds' was included in a season of three short one-act plays at the Stables Theatre under the title 'Hungry'. 'Walk down the Avenue', a three-character musical, was to be a Sydney Mardi Gras production for 1999, but the cost was too great so it was pulled at the last minute. Several songs from the show appear on Jason Stephenson’s CD 'Found' (2000).

Harding returned to the UK in late 2000, working for a time as Activities Co-Ordinator in an aged care facility outside London.

Alex Harding lived his life as an out and proud gay man. It didn’t worry him that he was labelled a gay or queer writer. ‘There’s nothing that would bore me to tears more than to write for an exclusive heterosexual audience,’ he says. ‘I write for a gay audience because I’m gay. I’m coming from a gay experience, my experience.' 'Only Heaven Knows' is seen as ground-breaking, having put gay life centre stage with honesty, compassion and love. It is considered an Australian classic.

Scope and Content

Scrapbooks, posters, CDs, video cassette tapes, photographs, playscripts, musical scores, correspondence, flyers, publicity materials, press clippings and reviews regarding the life and work of the playwright, composer and performer Alex Harding (1949-2022). Includes material regarding Harding as co-founder of Gay Sweatshop Theatre Company and their shows 'The Jingle Ball' (1976) and 'As Time Goes By' (1977); Harding's musical productions and performances with Alan Pope in revues including 'Double Exposure' (1979), 'Point Blank' (1980) and 'Layers' (1982); his work as a member of Bloolips drag troupe (1983-1984); plays and revues from Harding's years in Australia, including those produced for Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras such as 'Acid 'n' Tonic' (1986), Only Heaven Knows' (written for Australia's bicentennial, 1988), 'Blood and Honour' (1990), 'Beauty and the Beat' (1991) and 'Beloved' (1998). Also material regarding his lover David E Thompson, a theatrical producer and champion of the arts who died of AIDS in 1990; Harding's one-man show 'Just One More and Then I'll Go!' (1996) and his audio CD (with Jason Stephenson) 'Found' (2002), [1960-2006]

Quantity

5 boxes, 1 oversized volume, 23 posters