By Darren Gray here https://www.atvtoday.co.uk/84269-60years/
BBC Television employed Australian talent both behind and in front of the camera from its earliest days, and also showcased Australian stories. Short films from Australia were regularly transmitted by the BBC, starting with Australia – Harvest in 1936. In 1937, as part of the Artists and Their Work series, the BBC produced John Graham Convict in which Robert Gibbings told the story of a convict during the early days of the colony, illustrated by his own wood engravings.
The BBC produced several plays which were set in Australia, including some which were written specifically for television by Henry Colbert James including The Bunyip in 1947 starring Joy Nichols, and Crock of Gold (1948) which was set in the outback and starred Reg Varney. In 1953 the Children’s Television Department produced a series called Seven Little Australians, based on the best-selling books by Ethel S. Turner, and in 1954 adult viewers enjoyed a live adaptation of the Australian play Stand Still Time by Dymphna Cusack.
For Empire Day 1954, viewers were treated to a screening of John Heyer’s Australian documentary, The Back of Beyond, which followed an outback postman as he made his deliveries along the notorious Birdsville Track. The BBC would continue to tell Australian stories over the decades including Day of the Drongo (1964) which was directed by my late friend Eric Tayler, and of course commercial television would do the same with drama series such as The Flying Doctor (1959) which came to life in no small part due to the success of the BBC Radio series of the same name.
Once the
Australian Broadcasting Commission (now Corporation) had launched the
BBC began taking product from the fledgling public service broadcaster.
One early acquisition was Woman’s World in 1958, a programme specially telerecorded for showing in Britain about the life of women on the other side of the globe.
No comments:
Post a Comment