Preparatory School in England. He played Felix Drinkwater in George Bernard
Shaw’s “Captain Brassbound’s Conversion” and can clearly remember his first
line: “Afternoon, Mr Rankin, your honour’s health.”
“It was the most exciting thing,” Gavin says – “I had never been so excited in my
entire life.” His taste for the dramatic was clear even at an earlier age when he
was in kindergarten at the Bermuda High School for Girls. The children were
encouraged to relate news narratives but eventually Gavin was forbidden to tell
any more stories because he frightened the children. He would tell them his
parents had been eaten by bears during the night.
While at Adelphi University in Long Island, Gavin took advantage of its
“wonderful” drama department which, as he explains, during the 1960s was
known for its experimental theatre with writers such as Berthold Brecht and
Edward Albee being the popular playwrights of the day. Later, Gavin went into
broadcasting and joined the BBC radio and television studios in London. He
worked in different departments and recalls working on the Morecombe and
Wise Show. After qualifying as a producer and director, he joined Cable TV
Company in Canada.
Gavin’s long involvement with the Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society (BMDS)
goes back to the era when the Society was based in Cavendish. He played the part
of a Gestapo villain in a Second World War play about the Resistance, “The Sky is
Overcast”, which was directed by Carol Hill with Alec Foster and Pamela Hallet in
the other lead roles. “I was 19 at the time,” he says, “and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I’ve always liked doing accents.”
In 1976 Gavin began his regular participation in BMDS productions by acting in
“Wait Until Dark” written by Frederick Knott and directed by Phyllis Ruskin. It was
at this time he fell in love with the Society and met people he had never met
before, many of whom would become lifelong friends – they included Ken
Morgan, John Instone and Nigel Kermode. Since then he has acted in numerous
productions, such as the “Caine Mutiny Court Marshall” in 1985 (“My role of
Lieutenant Barney Greenwald was very challenging,” he says, “because I never
left the stage.”), the Bermuda Festival production“ART” in which he played Yvan
in 2002 and “The Producers” in which he played the flamboyant Roger De Bris
singing the role of Adolph Hitler, in 2012.
From his earliest years one of Gavin’s biggest joys has been to make people laugh.
It’s no wonder, then, he has long been a much appreciated Dame in numerous
BMDS pantomimes ever since 1995 when he took on the role in “Robin Hood and
Babes in the Wood”, directed by Jonathon Owen, one of the top two Dames in
Britain at the time. “I learned more from Jonathon than anyone else,” Gavin says.
He went on to play the Dame in other BMDS pantomimes, including “Aladdin”
and “Mother Goose”.
As a boy, Gavin had always enjoyed performances by the Somerset Lot during the
1950s. “I’d be in the audience rolling around. I really wanted to be on the stage
with them, to be a part of it.”
As an adult he had his wish when he started participating in the Um Um shows as
Jaded Ribbons in 1979.
However, perhaps Gavin is best known for his role as Mark Twain, which he first
played in 1995 at the Bermuda National Gallery. Since then, thanks to Gavin’s
script based on Twain’s writings and his brilliant impersonation, Mark Twain has
been regularly still alive and well and staying in various parts of Bermuda – at the
National Gallery for example, and at Verdmont. Gavin has also played the role
abroad, at an Arts Festival in the Cotswalds, UK, at the Rollins Theatre in Tampa,
Florida, and at the Avalon Theatre in Easton, Maryland.
But Gavin has also become a bit of a ventriloquist. After the funeral of a wellknown
St David’s Islander, Gavin was inspired to create the muppet character of
Aloysius “Lockjaw” Fox who appears regularly in Bermuda, along with Gavin and
Chris Broadhurst in the show “Suck Rocks and Molly Millers” and has become
famous, or rather notorious, for his outrageous language and opinions.
In 2002 Gavin received a Best of Bermuda Award for his participation in the ART
production.
When Gavin looks back on his life in the theatre, he values all the help and
support he has received from directors, crew and fellow performers. “You are so
dependent on each other, there is always a level of intimacy,” he says. ‘You
develop long lasting relationships. There is no such thing as a one man show,” he
adds, even when I am alone on the stage as Mark Twain.” He thanks his wife,
Linda, and his friends for their honest criticism and continual support.
