Gryphon Gallery: A Local Thespian of Great Repute

February 11, 2022

Alumni

Stuart Brambley, Archivist Stuart Brambley, Archivist photo

Colin Skinner was a teacher at GNS (Glenlyon Preparatory School) from 1968 to 1975. For more than 30 years he entertained and educated audiences young and old from the stage and from the front of a classroom.

In the Victoria community, Colin was best known for his numerous performances at the MacPherson and Royal Theatres in an amazing repertoire of farces, musicals, operettas and pantomimes as an actor, writer and director. His career even included appearances in film and television. He starred in The Hound of London, a Sherlock Holmes crime/mystery alongside Patrick McNee of Avengers fame; in the comedy Ups & Downs with a former student protege, Andrew Sabiston; and in The Outer Limits, a science fiction horror show.

Colin was also a remarkable teacher. He introduced the idea that Gilbert and Sullivan was perfect material for an all-boys school. He wrote and directed innumerable short plays for his students to act in, particularly at the annual Greater Victoria Schools Drama Festival, and nurtured the talents of such Glenlyon student success stories as the internationally acclaimed director, Atom Egoyan and actor, Matt Frewer.

What the Victoria community may not know about Colin was that he had a serious hearing loss and read the lips of other actors and watched their actions to get his cue to speak; also he was a down-to-earth ‘mucker’ who spent many hours with fellow staff, David Auld and Murray MacAlpine, converting the Boat House from a gymnasium into an Art Room; and he was a first-class photographer and his collection of negatives are held in the school’s archives. When he left in 1975 he donated the Colin Skinner Drama Award shield, presented every year for theatrical talent at GNS and at the recently constructed Atom Egoyan Theatre on the Beach Drive Campus, Colin shares a place of recognition with Dougal Fraser as two Drama teachers held in high regard by Egoyan.

This is the ninth instalment of a series of articles entitled “Gryphon Gallery” created by our School Archivist that provide snapshots that celebrate the achievements of a variety of alumni and staff from throughout the history of GNS.