AP#1.11 - Anonymous (27 June 1966)

 An Australian Playhouse from Pat Flower. Directed by Oscar Whitbread.

Premise

In a moment of tragic irony, a harassed and henpecked businessman, Walter, faces death alone when he has a heart attack.

Cast

• Peter O'Shaughnessy as Walter
• Shirley O'Shaughnessy as Ethel
• Helen Harper as Vera
  
• Elspeth Ballantyne as Margaret
  

Production

Writer - Pat Flower. Music - Frank Smith. Technical producer - Robert Forster. Lighting - Ronald Cromb. V/T editing - Noel Quirk, David Hull. Designer - Alan Clarke. Producer and director - Oscar Whitbread.

 Reception

The Sydney Morning Herald critic said that "Despite the occasional relevance of Miss Flower's observations, ironic or start... my natural inclination would have been to switch off as soon as I discovered that the play was in fact saying nothing remarkable, while seemingly seeking by every means to produce alarming discomfort for its own sake. Echo chambers, stills, superimposed wavering images, muffled heart throbs, crooked angled shots, the satanic voice of the narrator, were all piled on thickly enough to produce a severe malaise in the viewer, heavily underlining Peter O'Shaugnessy's virtuoso job with protracted death agonies. Again like so many of the snippets of Playhouse, a worthwhile subject for sensitive treatment went astray with verbose dialogue and over stated production."

The Age critic said "it was probably the worst play I have ever seen. It is thin, wretched and witless. Artistically, dramatically and aesthetically it had nothing to commend it. More than all else, it was just unspeakably revolting."

The Sunday Sydney Morning Herald called it "chilling" where "Flower consolidated her position as the TV playwright of the year... [a] winner... O'Shaugnessy pulls out all stops."

 

Canberra Times 25 June 1966 p 12

the Age TV Guide 21 July 1966 p 2

SMH 3 July 1966 p 94

SMH TV Guide 27 Jun 1966

SMH 28 June 1966 p 11

The Age 27 June 1966 p 12

The Age 2 July 1966

Anonymous (1966) by Pat Flower

At one stage, novelist Pat Flower was an even more prolific Australian TV writer than Colin Free (Susan Lever devotes a section to both in her history of Australian screenwriting). Indeed, Flower was responsible for so many scripts of Australian Playhouse that wags dabbed it “The Pat Flower Playhouse”. She wrote the best-known instalment of that series, The Tape Recorder, along with  Anonymous (which I’m discussing today), The Lace Counter, The Prowler, Marleen, Done Away With, The Empty Day, VIPP, Easy Terms, The Heat’s On and Caught Napping – that’s over a fifth of the whole series. Her later TV credits included Fiends of the Family (1969), based on one of her many novels, and Tilley Landed On Our Shores (1969).

Anonymous is about a middle aged family man, Walter (Peter O’Shaughnessy) who has died of a heart attack. The action starts after his funeral, where his wife and daughters (Sheila O’Shaughnessy, Helen Harper, Elspeth Ballantyne) are talking about Walter, then we flashback to the events immediately leading up to the fatal attack.

It’s quite a grim piece of work – Walter has a heart attack at home alone, is aware he’s dying, thinks back unflatteringly on his family and then he… well, dies, in pain and alone. Pat Flower later committed suicide (in 1977) and in hindsight Anonymous isn’t the sort of thing written by a happy-go-lucky scribe. It’s harrowing, bold and quite remarkable, with Oscar Whitbread’s direction and Peter O’Shaughnessy’s performance serving the material superbly.

The play prompted a hysterical attack from “Monitor”, the TV critic for The Age who called it “probably the worst play I have ever seen. It is thin, wretched and witless… just unspeakably revolting”.  I think maybe Monitor had a heart issue and this hit too close to home. Seriously, TV critics can get stuffed – this was a good play. Incidentally, Sydney’s Sunday Herald called it a “winner”.

Flower was busy in TV until the early ‘70s, after which her credits dried up – how much of a say she had in that I am unsure; I’m inclined to think it was involuntary but she had her novels, which she continued to produce regularly until her death. Flower was a tremendous and still far-too-unappreciated talent. Of what I have read and seen, I like her stuff a lot more than Colin Free’s, but I have to admit that I’ve only accessed a small proportion of both writers’ outputs.