Ronald Duncan: Poetry, Plays, Opera and Exploding Pigs - a life in Devon

Free public event - advance booking essential. To reserve your seat, tel: 01392 725879 or email: artsandculture@exeter.ac.uk

Ronald Duncan lived at Welcombe on the north Devon coast from the mid-1930s until 1982. He was a writer who was also a farmer and a landowner. During that time his visitors included composer Benjamin Britten and singer Kathleen Ferrier, Lord Harewood, and the glamorous actresses Virginia Maskell and Anna Proclemer. During the Second World War he set up a pacifist community working land between Hartland and Welcombe. After the war he wrote plays that made him prominent on the London stage. He established the Devon Festival in the 1950s, and later founded the Royal Court Theatre in London. His tangled personal life is described in his autobiographies. He died in Bideford hospital.

In this lecture, Dr Alan Munton draws on Duncan’s books about Devon life, and the writer’s extensive literary archive at Exeter University, to describe a fascinating experiment in culture and rural living.

This lecture is part of the University of Exeter lecture series for Wordquest Devon, supported by Burton Art Gallery & Museum.