Isobel Andrews facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Isobel Andrews
Andrews in 1957
Born	Isabella Smith Young (1905-11-02)2 November 1905 Glasgow, Scotland
Died	19 June 1990(1990-06-19) (aged 84) Auckland, New Zealand
Occupation	Playwright short-story writer poet
Years active	1935–74
Notable work	The Willing Horse (1943); The Goldfish (1949)
Spouse(s)	Ernest Stanhope Andrews ​ (m. 1932)​
Children	2

Isobel Andrews (born Isabella Smith Young on November 2, 1905) was a talented writer from New Zealand. She was born in Scotland and moved to New Zealand when she was young. Isobel wrote many different things, like plays, novels, short stories, and poems.

She wrote more than sixty plays, and many of them were published. Isobel was also a big part of the New Zealand branch of the British Drama League. She won their yearly playwriting contest four times! Her plays, especially The Willing Horse, are still performed today.

Growing Up and Family Life

Isobel Andrews was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on November 2, 1905. Her parents were Jeanie Scott and James Young. When she was six years old, in 1911, her family moved to New Zealand.

They first lived in a town called Bulls. Later, they moved to Wellington, where Isobel went to Wellington Girls College. On December 19, 1932, she married Ernest Stanhope Andrews. Ernest worked for the government and later became the first director of New Zealand's National Film Unit in 1941.

Starting Her Writing Journey

Isobel Andrews was one of the people who helped start the New Zealand Women Writers' and Artists' Society. This group began in July 1932. She stayed involved with the society for many years.

In 1933, her short story called "The Romantic" won first prize in a detective story competition. It was published the next year in the New Zealand Railways Magazine. In 1938, she won a radio competition for her play Endeavour.

Her short story "Even If We Are At War" was published in the New Zealand Listener magazine in September 1939. It was one of the first short stories they ever published! A collection of her short stories was released in 1944. It was called Something to Tell. A newspaper review said her stories were "well-told" and felt very "local." In 1947, she joined the main committee of PEN New Zealand, a group for writers.

Writing Plays and Later Works

Isobel started a drama club called the Strathmore Players. She was their main playwright. This club was one of many popular drama groups that were part of the British Drama League in New Zealand.

She wrote over 60 plays. Many of them showed scenes from everyday home life. They often had all-female casts, especially during World War II. This was because there weren't many male actors available then.

Isobel won four of the League's play awards. One of these was for The Willing Horse, which was published in 1943. This play is still her most famous work. It's a funny play with roles for ten women. It takes place in a small country town and talks about marriage and feeling alone in a farming community.

In 1943, The Willing Horse won two important awards: the Dairy Exporter Cup and the Sir Michael Myers Cup. Isobel also wrote plays for the radio. These plays were heard on the New Zealand Broadcasting Service, the Australian Broadcasting Commission, and even the BBC in England!

In 1947, a group called the Wellington Thespians performed Isobel's plays for a whole week. One of these plays was The Goldfish. It won the Dairy Exporter Cup in 1948 for being the best play by a New Zealander. In 1949, The Goldfish was published in a book called The Best One-Act Plays of 1948–49. It was performed many times in other countries after that.

In 1951, Isobel and her family moved to Whangarei. There, she became the president of the Whangarei Repertory Society. From 1958 to 1960, she helped edit a magazine called Northland: A Regional Magazine. She also wrote many short stories and radio reviews for the New Zealand Listener magazine. The editor of the Listener said Isobel could write "a story of exceptional quality." Her thriller play Sunny Afternoon (1957) was her third play to be published in England.

In 1969, she was a main speaker at a writers' conference for PEN New Zealand. The next year, she joined the national committee of the New Zealand Drama Council. In 1961, she and her family moved to Auckland.

In 1967, Isobel received a special Scholarship in Letters. This helped her write her first novel, Return to Marara (1969). She then wrote a sequel, Exit with Emeralds (1971). A newspaper review said Return to Marara was a "well-observed picture of a growing New Zealand town." She also wrote scripts for two documentary films: To Love a Maori (1972) and Matenga – Māori Choreographer (1974).

Isobel Andrews' Lasting Impact

Isobel Andrews' play The Willing Horse is still performed today. The Circa Theatre performed it in 2000. The South Otago Theatrical Society also performed it in 2002. In October 2020, students from Whangarei Girls' High School performed it at the Whangārei Fringe Festival. The students said the play helped them understand what life was like for women in the 1940s. It showed them the limited job choices women had back then.

In 2015, another of Isobel's plays, The Bride from the Hills, was translated into Hindi. It was performed in India as Dulhan Ek Pahad Ki. This play has been performed in many theatre festivals across India in both Hindi and English.

Selected Works

Plays

• Sudden Rain (1935)
• The Best Seller (1937)
• The Willing Horse (1943; reprinted 1962)
• The Real Betrayal (1943)
• When the Rangiora Blows (1944)
• The Goldfish (1949; also in The Best One-Act Plays of 1948–49, 1950)
• A Sunny Afternoon in Spring (1957)
• The Bride from the Hills (1962; published in London, 1963)

Short Stories

• Something to Tell, a collection (1944)

Novels

• Return to Marara (1969)
• Exit with Emeralds (1971)

Documentary Scripts

• To Love a Maori (1972)
• Matenga – Māori Choreographer (1974)