WHENEVER I hear the name of David Branson, my imagination instantaneously fires up.

For the late larger-than-life theatrical and community identity had such an influence on all those around him, that the memories start flooding back – of naked men running around the concessions area of the ANU, outdoor operatic spectacles for Stopera, a fiery Viking funeral on the lake at Weston Park, equally fiery debates in the ANU Arts Centre and intimate stage shows, all bearing the mark of a true Canberra original.

Now a massive 603-page biography of the late Branson is being launched at The Street Theatre precisely 20 years after he met his fate in a car accident – alas, his own fault – on the corner of Anzac Parade while on route to a rehearsal with Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen, who will be also remembering him  this Friday in a concert at The Playhouse.

The book launch at the Street Theatre on Saturday, December 11, the anniversary date of Branson’s death, will feature readings by the book’s author Joel Swadling, Branson’s former partner Louise Morris and his brother Pip, a song written for him by Fred Smith and other tributes.

Swadling, an actor and director with Rebus Theatre, has been working on his book, “If This is the Highway (I’ll Take the Dirt Road)” since at least 2008, but began researching it even earlier when the late Branson’s family offered him access to the papers.

Swadling spent a couple of years of the ACT Heritage Library cataloguing and digitising the collection – an extraordinary thing to me as a trained theatre historian, because in such an ephemeral art form, it is rare for people to leave good documentary evidence of their work.

But Swadling, who interviewed 75 of Canberra’s leading theatre movers and shakers for the book, is adamant that he has not written a hagiography.

Frankly, he says: “David was a womaniser… he loved women and women loved him.”

The book deals with that and with other flaws in his larger-than-life personality and he’s been reflecting on just how Branson would fare in the #Metoo era.

On that question, one section of “If This is the Highway (I’ll Take the Dirt Road)” chronicles a very public spat with a prominent feminist Canberra theatre critic over perceived dominant masculinity in the work of the group he helped found, Splinters Theatre of Spectacle. But Splinters, so full of men, contained many strong women too, who leapt to the company’s defence.

For those immersed in the arts during the 1990s, Swadling’s book evokes golden memories of stunning creativity, for Branson, though not a great actor, was a great enabler and connected with the arts community at both its cutting edge and the more conservative end.

Like his brother Pip, he was a trained violinist who understood the inner life of musicians, hence his involvement with Stopera,  and although his literary taste ran to Bertolt Brecht, Charles Bukowski and Albert Camus, with whom he was to share a tragic fate, Branson loved the classics and took every opportunity to either stage or perform in them.

Swadling has taken on a formidable task in covering what he calls “the formidable encounters of David Branson Esq.,” the title an acknowledgment of the ever-charming Branson’s gentlemanly qualities.

He does so by using the December 14, 2001, funeral, one of the largest ever seen in Canberra, as a frame, beginning and ending with it while in-between traversing the many facets of Branson’s personal and creative life.

His own connection with Branson began in an unexpected way, through the Uniting Church, where Swadling’s father was an ordained minister and Branson’s families were regular members. It gives a uniquely ethical slant to the story of someone many people thought was just Canberra’s amoral wild child, or  the “Godfather” of Canberra’s underbelly.

When a phone call came to our family at dawn on December 12, 2001, from festival director Domenic Mico to say that Branson had died, my schoolboy son said: “We’ll miss him, won’t we, mum?”

Not just us  – everybody whose lives he touched. Swadling’s book celebrates that rare quality.

Launch of “If This is the Highway (I’ll Take the Dirt Road)” at The Street Theatre, 3pm, Sunday, December 11. Free Event: RSVP with name and phone number via rsvp@thestreet.org.au

Mikelangelo & The Black Sea Gentlemen: 20th Anniversary Commemoration of David Branson, The Playhouse, book here or 6275 2700.