Nick Darke


Nick Darke born Nicholas Temperley Watson Darke was a Cornish playwright and writer, poet, lobster fisherman, environmentalist, beachcomber, politician, broadcaster, film-maker and chairman of St Eval Parish Council.

Life and writings

Nick Darke was born in Wadebridge in Cornwall and lived most of his life in Porthcothan where his family have lived for four generations after moving there from Padstow. His grandfather was a sea-captain who spent his life at sea and was wrecked twice at the Cape of Good Hope. His father T. O. Darke, was a chicken farmer, fisherman and a distinguished ornithologist. His mother was the actress Betty Cowan. He was educated at St Merryn Primary School and Truro Cathedral School, from where he was expelled for getting drunk on sports day. He then attended Newquay Grammar School and subsequently trained as an actor at the Rose Bruford College in Kent. After making his professional début in repertory at the Lyric, Belfast, he went on to learn his craft at the Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent, England, where he acted in over eighty plays and directed Man Is Man, The Miser, Absurd Person Singular, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and A Cuckoo in the Nest, 1977–79. At Stoke he wrote his first full-length play, Never Say Rabbit in a Boat in 1977. He gave up acting to write full-time in 1978. Over the next twenty-eight years, he wrote twenty-seven plays which have been performed in theatres all over the world. He also wrote for radio, television and film.
Many of his plays reflect Cornish society and culture such as the tin mining, countryside, fishermen and the quirky nature of country living. During the later part of his career he worked regularly with the theatre company Kneehigh Theatre. One of his last works, the documentary The Wrecking Season which he wrote and narrated, charts the lives of Cornish beachcombers, of which he himself was one having moved permanently back home to Porthcothan in 1990. He married the painter Jane Spurway in 1993 and is the father of film-maker Henry and stepfather of Jim, a marine scientist. He was made a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedd in 1996 taking the Bardic name Scryfer Gwaryow.
While recovering from a stroke that he suffered in January 2001, Nick Darke was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died, aged 56, in June 2005. A unique beach funeral ceremony was followed by burial in St Eval churchyard. His son Henry and wife Jane Darke continued his legacy in film. The Art of Catching Lobsters, written and directed by Jane Darke, is a moving account of her husband's death and the grieving process. Premiered on BBC Four on 27 September 2007. it was subsequently shown at the 2007 Cornwall Film Festival A film version of his first play Never Say Rabbit in a Boat is in pre-production and will be made by APT Films. His son Henry Darke has made a film version of Danger My Ally.
In 2009 the Cornwall Youth Theatre Company began Darke Visions, an eighteen-month festival running from Spring 2009 to Summer 2010 celebrating the life and work of Cornwall's foremost playwright, with the performance of Hells' Mouth ; The Body ; and Ting Tang Mine. These plays went on tour in Cornwall during March/April 2009. In 2011 the theatre group o-region toured small-scale venues with a new show One Darke Night which also celebrated Nick Darke's rich legacy. Combining specially commissioned film and a small cast of players, the play fused extracts from lesser-known works with firm audience favourites such as The King of Prussia and extracts from Nick's other writings. Compiled by Simon Harvey who had worked with Nick on the production of his final play Laughing Gas in 2006, the production provided fresh insight into the remarkable range and diversity of Nick's catalogue of work.

Nick Darke's literary voice is very distinctive and although many of his characters, plots and settings are rooted in the Cornish past, his themes are often of relevance to the Cornwall of today. As one of his earliest reviews, in The Financial Times stated: "Darke gives shape to a Cornish idenitity that feels vital and real and has nothing to do with clay pipes and clotted cream". Although he made a vital contribution to the culture of Cornwall in the last quarter of the 20th century, he himself claimed only that his greatest achievement was convincing North Cornwall District Council not to mechanically rake the beaches in their area that was damaging the natural eco-structure.

The Nick Darke Award

The Nick Darke Award has been developed by Nick Darke’s widow, with the support of Nick Darke’s family and Falmouth University. Funded by the university, the annual award is a financial prize aimed at writers, giving them time to write, and offer some support through the writing process. Submissions can be in any of the genres that Nick Darke himself excelled - stage, screen or radio. See the official Nick Darke website for details.

Plays

Nick Darke also appeared on the Radio 4 programme "Nature". BBC Radio commemorated the 10th anniversary of his death by rebroadcasting several of Darke's radio plays in June 2015.

Other projects