Barbara Angell

Barbara Angell – also known as Barb Angell and sometimes wrongly credited as Barbara Angel – was Australia's first female television comedy writer-entertainer. She was born in Melbourne on 6 March 1935 and educated at Presbyterian Ladies' College.

She began as an actress with Melbourne's Little Theatre (later St Martins) under Brett Randall and Irene Mitchell, for whom she debuted in their 1955 production of The Guinea Pig. She worked as a dancer-comedian with the Tivoli Circuit from 1955–8, and in comedy sketches. She was in Melbourne's first TV variety show, a live weekly program called Tivoli Party Time (1956–7), as one of the nuclear cast that featured her with Buster Fiddess, Iris Shand and Don Williams. In this show she wrote her own comedy material.

She visited the UK in 1959–60 where she performed a solo cabaret act, further featuring her comedy sketches, music and lyrics [1]. On returning to Australia she formed a Revue company with Jon Finlayson at Melbourne's Arrow Theatre and co-wrote and produced a series of productions there including Slings 'n' Arrows and Outrageous Fortune – the titles both from the one line in Shakespeare! (see Harmer, Wendy: [2] It's a Joke, Joyce, Pan Books 1989). On stage she starred again for the Tivoli in Lilac Time with John Larsen and in The Wizard of Oz as Glinda the Good Witch opposite Reg Livermore's Wicked Witch. Under the guidance of John McCallum at J.C. Williamsons, she understudied Jill Perryman in Carnival and Maggie Fitzgibbon in Noël Coward's Sail Away. She wrote TV sketches, music and lyrics for the satirical The Mavis Bramston Show from Episode 1 throughout its 4-year run and starred in it with Ron Frazer during its last 2 years [3].

...
Wikipedia