Cultural depictions of Tom Wills
Cricketer and Australian rules football pioneer Tom Wills is the subject of a growing body of works in art and popular culture.
Visual arts
[edit]Painted by William Handcock in 1870, a full-length portrait of Wills in his cricket flannels is held at the National Sports Museum. Another painting of Wills wearing a football guernsey is in possession of the Geelong Football Club and held at Kardinia Park.
A monument to Wills was erected at Moyston in 1998. In 1988, the Melbourne Cricket Club erected bronze doors, designed by Robert Ingpen, outside the club's entrance, depicting Wills holding a football. A statue of Wills umpiring an 1858 football match was erected outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 2002.
Wills is the subject of a series of paintings by Archibald Prize nominee Martin Tighe.
Literature
[edit]Martin Flanagan's 1998 historical novel The Call is a semi-fictional account of Wills' life. In it, Wills is cast as a tragic sporting genius,[1] and the dingo is used to symbolise his identity as an "ambiguous creature" caught between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia.[2] In The Paddock That Grew, released that same year, Keith Dunstan imagines Wills as a ghost touring modern Melbourne.
Music
[edit]Wills has inspired numerous songs including "Tom Wills" (2002) by Mick Thomas of Weddings Parties Anything fame; "Tom Wills Would" (2004) by the Warumpi Band's Neil Murray;[3] "The Ten Rules" (2010) by folk rock band The Holy Sea;[4] and "Tom Wills" by Goanna frontman Shane Howard, written and performed exclusively for The Marngrook Footy Show.
Film and television
[edit]Plans for a feature film about Wills were made in 1989 but later abandoned.
A docudrama on Wills' life, shot in 2008, had its premier at the Arts Centre Melbourne in 2014, and was subsequently shown on Australian television.[5] Portions of the docudrama also form part of an exhibit on Wills' life at the International Cricket Hall of Fame. Wills is portrayed by Nathan Phillips.[6]
Wills and the origins of Australian rules football are the subject of an episode of Australia: The Story of Us (2015), produced by Yahoo!7.
Theatre
[edit]In 2004, Bruce Myles adapted Flanagan's novel The Call into a play of the same name for the Malthouse Theatre.
References
[edit]- ^ Flanagan, Martin (6 November 1998). "The Summer Game". The Sports Factor (Interview). Interviewed by Amanda Smith. ABC Radio National. Archived from the original on 22 July 2012. Retrieved 29 August 2013.
- ^ Judd, Barry (2007). Australian Game, Australian Identity: (Post) Colonial Identity in Football (PhD). Melbourne, Vic.: Monash University. pp. 154–156, 336. Archived from the original on 17 June 2013.
- ^ Flanagan, Martin (23 May 2003). "Songs of a defiant heart", The Age. Retrieved 18 October 2013.
- ^ Schaefer, René (5 October 2010)."The Holy Sea – Ghosts of the Horizon", Mess+Noise. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
- ^ Flanagan, Martin (5 August 2016). "Tom Wills one hell of a story", The Age. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
- ^ Morreti, Daniel (1 December 2010). "Short Film Big On Action" Archived 2012-03-28 at the Wayback Machine, Film Ink. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
