Adelaide Festival Writers’ Week has helped shape South Australia’s cultural identity since 1960. Its cancellation is a major blow – financially, reputationally, and culturally.

The cancellation of Adelaide Festival Writers’ Week caused turmoil in the literary world, not just in Australia but also internationally.

Does it matter? Evidently it is a blow to South Australia, financially and reputationally. It is more than that. The Adelaide Festival and in particular Writers’ Week has been a core part of the identity of the state since it began in 1960.

Adelaide in the 1950s was a byword for conservative politics, churches and the six o’clock swill – the last drink before pubs closed. It was mocked by the Eastern States for its Protestant parsimony - and lack of style. Then came the Festival.

Professor John Bishop, a music academic at the University of Adelaide, returned from England in 1957 inspired by the Edinburgh Festival. At the same time, Sir Lloyd Dumas, the editor of the Adelaide establishment newspaper, The Advertiser, had been investigating the possibility of an Edinburgh style festival. He knew that the city of Edinburgh offered some £60,000 of support for their Festival. He asked John Bishop to estimate the subsidy that would be necessary for a Festival in Adelaide. Bishop estimated £15,000. Dumas then undertook to bring together the great and good of Adelaide with the Lord Mayor, and sought a guarantee of that amount. Further funds were gathered by subscription. Dumas rang Ian Hunter, the Artistic Director of the Edinburgh Festival in London and offered to bring him to Adelaide (‘at tourist rates’) to advise on the Festival.

Serious planning began in June 1959, and the first Festival was launched in March 1960, with the Queen Mother as patron, and John Bishop as Artistic Director. There were concerts with Australian symphony orchestras and international guests including the Janáček Quartet and Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Group; art works by JMW Turner from London and Rivera and Orozco from Mexico; Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral.

From the very beginning, Writers’ Week was deeply embedded in the Festival. Flags bedecked the town with a large logo of AA (for Adelaide Arts, not Alcoholics Anonymous). It was immensely successful. The bill, including the visit of the artistic director from Edinburgh was ‘just a fraction over £15,000’.

Adelaide seemed uniquely suited to such a festival. The autumn weather of early March is generally balmy. The inner grid of the city designed by William Light, the square mile set with regular squares and surrounded by parklands, created the framework. The Town Hall and the cultural hub of North Terrace with the Library, the Museums and Art Gallery and the Elder Hall at the University, became the focus. The annual Flower Day when Adelaide matrons decorated the town and in particular the War Memorial was incorporated.

It was not plain sailing. Patrick White’s play The Ham Funeral was rejected by the Governors as a formal part of the Festival in 1962. In 1964, Robert Helpman directed the Festival, in the wake of the untimely death of John Bishop. His own erotic choreography in The Display shocked and delighted Adelaide. The Governors again refused to include Patrick White’s new play Night on Bald Mountain on the official programme.

The great star of the 1966 Festival was Yevgeny Yevtushenko the Russian poet, invited by Geoffrey Dutton, one of the central figures of Adelaide literary life. Yevtushenko spoke electrifyingly, ‘humanising and animating a sea of petrified Adelaide faces’, in Max Harris’ words. A great womaniser, he cut a swathe through the ladies.

There were stresses between traditional Adelaide probity and artistic exuberance; the facilities were not adequate; Adelaide’s licensing laws were still highly restricted. Not only did pubs close at 6pm, but licenses for restaurants and cafés were limited. It was only in 1967 that those restrictions were eased, under the leadership of Don Dunstan. He was culturally aware and committed to the Festival and ensured the development of the Festival Centre on the banks of the Torrens.

Through the 1970s the Adelaide Festival grew in scope and success. Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti were invited and to the surprise of the organisers agreed to come from California for the 1972 Writers’ Week . Numbers grew so greatly that Writers’ Week was moved from the Library and University grounds to the Parade Ground behind Government House. It was held in winged pavilions in first one, then two and now three pavilions as well as a tent used for book sales and another for food and drink. The events remain free, except for special lectures, and attracted great crowds.

One genteel element of the early festivals, Flower Day, did not survive. In 1974, Anthony Steel, an English artistic director, was hand-picked by Don Dunstan to lead the Adelaide Festival and Festival Centre. Flower Day had been inherited from a celebration of the centennial of the establishment of Adelaide in 1936. It had become a feature of the Festival. It attracted huge crowds but was expensive to run and caused traffic hazards on North Terrace. After his first festival, Steel decreed that Flower Day ‘had no merits’. He later said,

“Generally speaking, if I had annoyed and outraged the audiences, I was most happy. Because I was all the time attempting to bring them along on a journey – and succeeded in doing so.”

Over the decades Writers’ Week has grown and become the heart of the Festival. Under Louise Adler’s leadership it became a space for genuine debate, where opinions are discussed, differences allowed. Let us hope that it will prove more durable than Flower Day.