Michael Gow

Michael Gow is an Australian playwright and director most famed for his 1986 work Away.

As a student at Sydney University, Gow acted and directed with the Dramatic Society from 1973-1976. After graduation, Gow went on to act with Nimrod, Thalia and Sydney Theatre Companies.

He was the Artistic Director at the Queensland Theatre Company from 1999 until 2010. Productions he directed for the company include: Private Fears in Public Places, John Gabriel Borkman, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (2007); The Importance of Being Earnest, Anatomy Titus Fall of Rome: A Shakespeare Commentary, I Am My Own Wife, (2008); The School of Arts and The Crucible (2009).

Away is the story of three Australian families who go on holiday "up the coast" for Christmas 1967 as a remedy to personal crises, whose story threads eventually interconnect. The families cross the class and social divides: one is in a smart hotel, another is at the local caravan park; another is in the throes of possible divorce. These factors are woven into a story of love and loss that allows a young boy and girl to taste first love and the pain of death while their parents cope, more or less, with the consequences. It remains a landmark of Australian contemporary drama and the best of Gow's earlier work.

Michael Gow (British Army officer)

General Sir James Michael Gow GCB (3 June 1924 – 26 March 2013) was a British Army officer who reached high office in the 1980s.

Military career

Educated at Winchester College, Gow was commissioned into the Scots Guards during World War II. He was one of the first British officers into Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945.

He became Commanding Officer of 2nd Bn Scots Guards in 1964 and Commander of 4th Guards Brigade in 1967 before becoming a Brigadier on the General Staff of Headquarters British Army of the Rhine in 1971. He was appointed General Officer Commanding 4th Division in 1973 and Director of Army Training in 1975.

He then moved on to be General Officer Commanding Scotland and Governor of Edinburgh Castle in 1979 and Commander-in-Chief of British Army of the Rhine and Northern Army Group in 1980. He was appointed Commandant of the Royal College of Defence Studies in 1984 and retired in 1986. He was Aide-de-Camp General to the Queen from 1981 to 1984. He died on 26 March 2013.