Âustralian Playhouse shot in Brisbane.
Plot
Joe is a city building caretaker with an ail-too attractive wife. In the course of trying to throw out one of her admirers, Cec, the two get trapped in the lift. When fire breaks out they sink their personal difference in frantic attempts to call for help. Eventually, the firemen (Stanley Smith) turns up, averts danger, but makes little effort to free the prisoners when he finds the wife alone in the apartment.
Cast
- John Gray as Joe
- David Yorston as Cec
- Stanley Smith as fireman
- Peter Hitchener as young man
Production
Written by Ruth Fenner, with Storry Walton as a consulting producer. It was shot in Brisbane.
According to ABC records it was filmed on 12 May 1966.
Writer - Ruth Fenner. Technical supervisor - Noel King. Lighting - Frank Rogers. Design - Laurie Johnson. Director - Wilf Buckler.
Thoughts of Storry Walton:
The acronym BAPH did not refer specifically to any period, phase or sub-set of ABC drama production. It was used as shorthand for the entire ABC Territory and operations outside the main national production centres of Melbourne and Sydney. It may even have preceded the introduction of television, but was certainly used routinely from 1956 through the 1960s and beyond. It was meant to be a neutral term, but it often had a connotation of places beyond the black stump.
Its casual use however probably jogged the mind of ABC Management about the vast national audience it served. In the case of Drama, the challenge to produce a regular stream of television plays outside Sydney and Melbourne was a big one. The big studios needed for drama sets, the production resources and skills, and the main body of actors and screenwriters were all in Melbourne and Sydney. Nevertheless, Neil Hutchison, Head of Drama and Features initiated the production of tele-plays in the so-called BAPH States through his State Drama and Features Supervisors. I do not know the number made, but I remember there were always some shown nationally each year.
As part of this BAPH program and as an experienced drama producer/director at the ABC Drama head office, I went to Brisbane at Hutchison’s direction, to support Wilf Buckler in his production of The Monkey Cage. I needn’t have bothered. He was totally capable dramatically and technically for the job and my presence seemed rather patronising.
Looking at the production after 58 years, I am struck by the seamless competence of its direction. The subject and content of the play is very much of its time, but Wilf devised a very clever set with a camera ‘upstairs’ on what must have been a high camera platform. The camera-work and vision mixing (live-to-air editing) is precise and pacey - all all hard to achieve in continuous mode. It is very polished.
The play is a saucy comedy in which a middle aged man contends with a wife (unseen) who is ‘visited ‘ by a succession of men including a fireman called to extinguish a fire in the lift. The audience might therefore have been surprised to see that the screenwriter was Ruth Fenner, famous and beloved by the nation and 100,000 children as the inaugural presenter of the ABC’s Kindergarten of the Air!
Reception
The Sydney Morning Herald called it "a slight but entertaining piece admirably suited to its medium... The situation is treated with humour, the dialogue contains some good lines and the players and producer... all combine to give a lighthearted half-hour's amusement."
The Age said "it had one attractive feature, the acting of John Gray, who deserved a better vehicle."
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| SMH 21 June 1966 p 11 |
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| The Age 25 June 1966 p 23 |
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| SMH TV Guide 20 June 1966 |
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| The Age TV Guide 14 June 1966 |
Ruth Fenner obit is here for the Sydney Morning Herald
July 20, 2002 — 10.00am
Ruth Plummer nee Fenner, Broadcaster, writer, 1917-2002
Miss Ruth Fenner, or “Roofenner”, as she became known to her listeners, was the inaugural presenter of one of Australian broadcasting’s most loved institutions, the ABC’s pioneering national radio program Kindergarten of the Air.
“The girl with the personality in her voice” kept over 100,000 listeners in Australia - and those in the United States, South Africa and Britain, which broadcast the program - glued to the wireless at the same time every day.
Ruth was born in Toowoomba, Queensland, the second of three daughters born to Joseph and Gladys Felicita Fenner, who had emigrated from London in 1916. As a child she sang, danced and play-acted and endeared herself by amusing people. As she matured, she was distinguished from her two beautiful sisters as “the funny one”, although she was herself quite striking.
Having completed her education at Fairholme Presbyterian Ladies College, Ruth moved to Sydney in 1937 to attend the Kindergarten Training College at Waverley and graduated soon after the outbreak of World War II. Her first teaching position was with a private school in Vaucluse run by a Miss Nan Hall, who became a lifelong friend. Nan later said that she gave Ruth the job because of her spectacular frock and hat. “How could I deprive the children of such a grand influence?”
Because of the war and the fear that the Australian mainland might be bombed, all kindergartens were closed. It was decided to provide an alternative education for preschool children via the radio. Ruth was chosen unseen, by voice audition only, from many applicants, and Kindergarten of the Air was launched on Sunday, May 2, 1943, in a joint broadcast with Lady Gowrie,wife of the then governor-general.
Kindergarten of the Air rapidly gained popularity not only among children, but with parents and servicemen. Ruth was acclaimed for her innovative programs and appealing voice. Reaching an audience of more than 100,000 daily, she was inundated with fan mail and became a popular figure with the press. One of her little fans, the current Prime Minister, John Howard, was thrilled to meet her years later.
From July 1943 the show was recorded for broadcast in Britain, South Africa and the US, and Ruth later travelled to several countries, including Britain, the US, Canada and Norway, to advise them on establishing similar programs.
Kindergarten of the Air had some unexpected results. In March 1944 a five-year-old girl suffering from spastic paralysis responded positively to the program, convincing her mother that her mind was working although she was unable to express her thoughts. This led to her parents establishing what has became known as The Spastic Centre. The publicity from this was far-reaching and led to children in all kinds of institutions becoming listeners.
When Ruth was interviewed by Woman’s Day in 1987 she recalled the program’s early days in the 1940s. “It was our very special war effort and we were pioneers not only in Australia but for the whole world. Our program actually changed broadcasting for all children.”
Indeed, Kindergarten of the Air was recently acknowledged by ABC radio as Australia’s only original contribution to world broadcasting. About 1000 of Ruth’s original scripts for Kindergarten of the Air are now held by the Mitchell Library, with Ruth’s collection of books and records.
In 1950 Miss Fenner married Bruce Plummer at St Swithins, Pymble, in front of 120 guests and hundreds of small children waiting outside for a glimpse of their beloved Roofenner. The Herald reported the wedding and a letter from one small boy asking whether she would be wearing “the green dress and the hat with the hole in the top” in which he had seen her two years earlier.
Ruth continued broadcasting after the birth of her first child, Ian, in 1951. Philips approached her to make long-playing children’s records, which she did so successfully that they were sold in almost every country in the world. She was still collecting royalties into the 1970s. Favourite characters from this period include Letty the Hen, Charlie the Concrete Mixer and The Little Engine that Could.
She then became children’s editor at Angus & Robertson and wrote her own children’s books, of which The Story House was the best seller. In 1959-60 Ruth and Bruce together produced, with the DOI Film Unit, now known as Film Australia, a 30-minute road safety film using magnetic puppets for use in schools around Australia. They produced another film with the ABC using the same technique.
Ruth’s second child, Julie, was born in 1962, when Ruth was 45. Ruth’s public career gave way to domesticity, child-rearing and the development of their newly acquired property. She and Bruce also travelled widely.
Ruth was a generous hostess, an accomplished seamstress, knitter and bridge player, and a voracious reader, most especially of biographies and autobiographies. She was an active member of the Anglican and Uniting churches, and utilised her vocal training by singing in the choir for a long period, as well as being involved in Bible study. Throughout her life she loved children. And she was always “the funny one”, with an outstanding wit and theatrical sense of humour.
Ruth is survived by her husband Bruce, their children Ian and Julie, and two grandchildren, Ben and Nicholas.
At her funeral Ian said of her: “I know that she is now running the big kindergarten in the sky, and I’m sure she is doing an extremely good job of it.”
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Her grandson Nicholas recalled the times they would go for picnics in their local park and play cricket.
“Even till the end Grandma would still take part in these cricket games, even if she sat on a folding chair in the outfields acting as the third man. She wasn’t the best of fielders, but she sure was a great grandmother.”
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For a generation of other Australians, and their parents, she will be remembered as the friend they listened for daily when they heard the theme “Girls and boys come out to play”.
Julie Norton
Julie is Ruth Plummer’s daughter.
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