The Australian Women's Register

MS 8864 comprises correspondence, diaries, notebooks, production files, scripts, sheet music, business papers, teaching notes, scrapbooks, press cuttings, theatre programs, magazines, ephemera and a sound recording. Correspondents include Ron Blair, Jennifer Compton, Barry Dickins, Bob Ellis, Nick Enright, Louis Nowra, Richard Wherret and David Williamson (23 boxes, 3 fol. Boxes). The Acc09.208 instalment comprises theatre programmes for Nimrod Theatre Company and Bell Shakespeare Company performances, some signed; 21 photographs, including John Bell in costume as Oedipus in 1958, Richard III in 1962 and ca. 1992, Hamlet in 1963 and William Wills in 1972; a studio portrait of Bell aged 18; and, photographs of Bell receiving his honorary doctorate from Newcastle University in 1994. There is a letter from Tony Gilbert to John Bell dated 13 June 1963 reviewing Bell’s performance of Hamlet. Also included are speeches given by Bell on various occasions, 1996-2006. There is a scrapbook compiled by Joy Bell, John Bell’s mother, containing press clippings, concert and theatre programmes, elocution test results, telegrams, letters, prize certificates and awards, photographs, children’s artwork and other Bell family ephemera. The collection also includes personal letters from John Bell to his sister Carmel Leonard. Three audio cassette tapes of interviews with Bell, including an interview with Glen Menzies about The comedy of errors in 1978 are included. Serials, including the Nimrod banner and theatrical advocate, the Nimrod banner, Theatre Australia, Theatre Australia supplement for Cyrano de Bergerac (1980) and the Australian magazine. There are also press clippings relating to John Bell, 1961-2007 (1 box, 1 fol. Box).