Australian TV Plays: Lean Liberty (26 June 1962)

British play written (Alan Seymour) and directed (Ray Menmuir) by Australians. The ITV play of the week. Many Australians in the cast including Bruce Stewart, a respected writer.

It was turned down by the ABC.

Premise

Peter Jameson is a brilliant engineer married to Rose. When his employers become aware of his past indiscretions - membership of the Communist Party - it threatens his job and marriage.

Peter is then offered the chance from his old party to work in China.

Cast

* Bruce Stewart as Peter Jameson
* Betty Lucas as Rose Jameson
* Peter Bathurst as Mr. Walker
* Tom Bowman as Mr. Reilly
* Barry Linehan as General manager
* Reg Lye as Mr. Thompson
* Derek Martinus as Greg Ross
* George Roubicek as Mr. Cole
* John Tate as Nick Storey
* Ken Wayne as Mr. Warner

Development

It was commissioned by the ABC "biting the bullet at last". It was based on a true story that happened in Tasmania. Someone who worked on hydro electrical scheme was up for top job and they held his teenage communism against him. Listen to this Seymour piece here.

Seymour says he was also inspired by the defeat of the anti Communism bill see here.

The title was taken from a Dean Swift quote "Lean liberty is better than fat slavery".

In 1961 Peter Cotes took a copy of the script to the UK (along with two other local scripts, Multi Coloured Umbrella and The Defector by Osmar White) hoping to show it - see here.

Ray Menmuir came to Britain “to see how things work.” This will be the first major television drama he has directed in England. His first Job when he arrived a few months ago was to produce “One Day of the Year,” also by Alan Seymour, at Stratford East. “There have been several Australian plays on British television recently but this one has a plot which could be set almost anywhere in the free world,” says Menmuir. “There are no kangaroos or gum trees.”

Apparently it was commissioned by the ABC but they refused to show it because it was too sympathetic to communism. Seymour moved to the UK and sold it to a commercial station for five times the ABC fee. Source is this book here. Also this piece here.

Here is oral history 19.50 Seymour says he was doing quite well in Sydney though he was travelling to London to see One Day of the Year on stage. 20.15 "The ABC had commissioned an original television play, biting the bullet at last, I'd already been commissioned to do one by the commercials, they did it before the ABC, when I wrote this play the director liked it very much the script editor who commissioned it very much and the head of drama was scandalised. He said 'you have an extreme left wing man as your hero'... He was a communist... 22.00 It never went on at the ABC, they never paid me for it. When I went to London I had an agent lined up and he sold it to London television within three weeks of my arrival."

Production

In Ray Menmuir's NFSA oral history he said he insisted on Australians playing it. Cast Betty Lucas. Had “stand up rows” with casting lady Muriel. She said “be it on your own head Menmuir”. But she later said Menmuir was right.

Neil Hutchison gave evidence at the Vincent Committee about how much Seymour was paid. "My friend Allan Seymour, for instance, who wrote “The One Day of the Year” was paid £500 for his first play called “Lean Liberty” in England. I happen to know because he told me. He attracted this higher fee because the E!izahethian Theatre Trust had just produced “The One Day of the Year” in London, so that Seymour was begin-ning to he a name and people were talking about him. He had good reviews for the stage play so when he came to n:gotiate, his agent evidently found that he could get a higher fee, and he got £500 for his first T.V. play in Britain. This was considered to he rather good and I don’t think it happens very often."

Only three of the eleven actors were British - one of those, Barry Linehan was a British actor who had lived in Australia for a time and appeared in TV plays such as The Big Deal. The other two were Derek Martinus and Tom Bowman. See here.

Female lead Betty Lucas was married to Ralph Peterson. She moved to England in 1950 and lived there for a number of years, then went back to Australia, then moved back to England. "I always played English characters in Australia," said Lucas, "the reason being that there were so few Australian plays that we did mostly those by English or American writers."

It went for 90 mins.

Reception

The Daily Telegraph said "the author showed his strength perhaps a little too late to make an entirely satisfactory play. But the dilemma of the man who stubbornly pursues a course down the middle of the road was stressed effectively at the end."