BILL MARSHALL is the recipient of several awards, both at home and abroad, for his creative pursuits both as a writer and a producer.
After his studies in the UK, he joined the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation-Television as a producer. From GBC-TV he joined Lintas Ghana for four years before establishing Studio Africain, of which he was the Managing Director.
He was appointed Director of the National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI), a post he held for twelve years before retiring.

Bill Marshall is a fellow of the Ghana Association of Writers (GAW) and the Pan African Writers Association (PAWA). Over the decades, his writings have been wide and diverse spanning film and television, radio, the press and books.

His published works include three plays: Shadow of an Eagle. Stranger to Innocence and The Son of Umbele and Bukom, a novel.

  • The Son of Umbele: A Play in Three Acts

    “…the contents of the play revealed a brilliant mind at work in an attempt to deal with some basic ambiguities of human existence,” wrote Julius S. Scott Jnr. of Spelma College-Atlanta, when he saw an American production of The Son of Umbele.

    Indeed, this Ghana National Book Award winner has endeared itself to theatre enthusiasts as well as scholars since its premier at the Ghana Drama studio in 1972.

    Bill Marshall’s sensitivity to realities of the human existence and the conflicts of the mind is eloquently manifest in his writing, be it a novel, a TV Drama or a Stage play.

    The author appeared on the Ghanaian Arts scene in 1966 when he joined GBC-TV and helped to establish the Drama Department of the Television Station. He worked with the Corporation for several years, writing, production and directing plays for Television, He subsequently left for the private sector, working for Lintas Ghana Limited and in his own company, Studio Africain. In 1984, he was appointed the Director of the National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI) in Ghana.

    Other published works by the author are Novels: Bukom, Brother Man, The Oyster Man, Uncle Blanko’s Chair; Plays: Shadows of an Eagle, Stranger to Innocence Asana, The Crows and Other plays.

  • Stranger to Innocence – A Play

    Stranger to Innocence is an intriguing short play, which treats the daily motions, frustrations, joys and aspirations of an African priestly family. This is the house where a stranger, Tawa, who has been fleeing from his own sins, seeks to find refuge. In the end, lessons of remorse and forgiveness are yet to be fully understood especially by young minds like Alaba, daughter of the priest.

    The play exhibits the author’s artistic simplicity in the use of dramatic language, which has endeared this play to wide theatre audiences.

    It is not surprising that it is popular among many drama groups and schools in the country.

    Stranger to Innocence is one of Bill Marshall’s early plays, from which a lot of inspiration is drawn.

  • Shadow of An Eagle – A Play

    “Hope and Desire alone have no virtue. It is the fulfilment of our aspirations that brings satisfaction.”

    This quote from the play, Shadow of An Eagle, evidently reveals Bill Marshall’s depth as a playwright.

    The play depicts the lifestyle of an African family in peculiar circumstances in a rural setting. It explores the tension and feeble frustrations, which can occur in a family.

    Being one of the earlier plays of Bill Marshall, which were widely patronized by schools and colleges and broadcast on the BBC African Theatre, Shadow of An Eagle uses the symbolism of the eagle in Ghanaian mythology to highlight the need for the youth to aspire to higher heights.

    Just like the hero who refuses to relapse into degeneration, which he finds at home on his return from his foreign exploits, Bimpo hopes that members of his family would shed their past frustrations, brace themselves up and take to the sky like eagles.

  • Uncle Blanko’s Chair

    Age Range: 9 – 12 years

    The story of Uncle Blanko’s Chair takes the reader through a series of dramatic episodes involving young Kobi and the “magic chair” of his good Uncle Blanko. The disappearance of the chair and the frantic search for it help the different people of Sogawe to know and appreciate each other better.

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