Classic ep of Australian Playhouse. The best known.
Premise
Miss Collins arrives at a flat to start typing a story for a novelist. The flat is empty but the writer has dictated his murder story on to a tape recorder. As she types Miss Collins realises she resembles the central character in the story.
Cast
- Jennifer Wright as Miss Collins
- Wynn Roberts as the voice of the novelist
Production
It was filmed before Christmas in Melbourne in 1965.
Jennifer Wright was an English actor living in Melbourne
Pat Flower wrote it deliberately to keep costs down.
It was originally written as a two hander but director Henri Safran persuaded Flower to cut it down to a one-person piece.
David Goddard, who produced the series, said the idea came from a lunch he had with Flower. She accused the ABC of wanting plays with one set, one actor and no dialogue because it could not afford anything else. Goddard said he bet she could not write one like that, so Flower did as a challenge. "It's a beauty," said Goddard. "Mind you, she cheated a little by inserting the tape recorder, if you want to get really academic about this. But the leading character never utters a word. And it holds you. The suspense is so great it makes you want to scream at times. It's a superb piece of drama, set in one room, one person and a tape recorder. And it's a beautiful piece of writing."
My thoughts on the script
A stunningly good suspense script about a woman who is typing up a dictated message from a novelist and the message gets very creepy. It's Australia's answer to Sorry Wrong Number and is extremely well done. No wonder it was performed so many times.
Reception
The Sydney Morning Herald critic wrote that "the traditional formula of the short thriller was cleverly used, with never a letup in insidious suspense, and a sharply effective final twist to the story" based on "the alliance between the author's compact, ingenious plot and Henri' Safran's subtle production, which built up a taut, oppressive atmosphere within a single room."
The Age said it "turned into a feat of endurance."
Another reviewer from the same paper said "the language was all very much old time melodrama" but thought "the acting was excellent and the settings were perfect."
The Woman's Weekly said "it kept me right on the edge of my chair."
The Bulletin said it "had its faults" but was "a sight better than many of the mediocre importer series shown during 7pm to 9 pm hours."
The Sunday Herald said that with the show "Australian Playhouse proved conclusively and triumphantly that it is a winner. The only question now is . . . where have all these writers been skulking? Have they been hiding under stones? Working on novels? Doing bits for Mavis? Or chewing their nails until a series like this came along? I may be a bit premature in Jumping for joy, but in scoring two hits in a row Australian Playhouse looks as though it might be more than a grab bag. "Other versions
It was also produced by the BBC in 1967 with Guy Doleman and Suzanne Neve. It was the first BBC production to be broadcast in colour. Drew Goddard, producer of Australian Playhouse, called this "a feather in our cap."
The BBC seem to have filmed it again in 1968 with Tenniele Evins instead of Doleman.
It was later produced for television in Canada, Belgium (in 1972), the US (in 1970) and Italy (in 1975).
It was also adapted for the stage and is arguably Flower's best known work.
There was a stage production in 1972 with Noeline Brown.
 |
| The Age TV Guide 28 April 1966 p3 |
 |
| The Bulletin 3 Dec 1966 p 46 |
 |
| The Age 21 April 1966 TV Guide p 2 |
 |
| The Age TV Guide 10 March 1966 p 2 |
 |
| The Bulletin 7Mau 1966 p 48 |
 |
| AWW 11May 1966 p 15 |
 |
| The Age TV Guide 21 Dec 1967 p 3 |
 |
| The Bulletin 21 Oct 1972 p 52 |
 |
| SMH 17 April 1966 p 98 |
 |
| SMH 22 May 1966 p 82 |
 |
| SMH 1 May 1966 p 88 |
 |
| SMH TV Guide 25 April 1966 |
 |
| SMH 26 April 1966 p 10 |
 |
| SMH 3 July 1966 p 94 |
 |
| SMH 25 April 1966 p 12 |
 |
| Script |
 |
 |
| TV Times |
Forgotten Australian TV Plays: The Tape Recorder
by Stephen Vagg
May 4, 2021
In his latest in a series on forgotten Australian TV plays, Stephen Vagg looks at the 1966 thriller The Tape Recorder.
One of the greatest challenges a screenwriter can set themselves is to try a one-location thriller. The difficulties are obvious – how do you sustain audience interest with one location without making it seem like filmed theatre? But the rewards can be considerable – they’re cheap to make (only one location!) If done well, they can be artistically sublime: look at films like Rope (1948), Buried (2010) and Phone Booth (2002), radio plays like Sorry Wrong Number (1943), and Australian TV plays like The Tape Recorder (1966), which I’m discussing today.
The Tape Recorder was the second episode of Australian Playhouse (1966-67), an anthology series for the ABC. Not many people remember Australian Playhouse today, but it was a landmark, in a way: the most ambitious attempt until that date to support Australian TV writing.
The series was the brainchild of British expat Drew Goddard, a former BBC employee who had become director of drama at the ABC. Goddard took inspiration from British anthology shows like Armchair Theatre and Saturday Playhouse, and wanted to create an Australian one. There had been a number of local attempts along these lines – The General Motors Hour, Shell Presents, Wednesday Theatre – but Australian Playhouse would be the first one to use nothing but local scripts. Goddard declared the series would “all be written by Australians and produced in Australia. And because they are written by Australians and aimed at television audiences primarily in Australia, they will reflect, comment on, or observe in a fictional way life in this country, as those writers see fit, know it, or have experienced it. In a word, it will be Australian drama.”
The Tape Recorder was written by Pat Flower, a Sydney novelist who mostly specialised in crime and comedy, and who had penned a number of TV scripts for the ABC. According to Goddard, The Tape Recorder had its genesis from a lunch he took with Flower: she accused the ABC of wanting plays with one set, one actor and no dialogue because they would not pay for anything else; Goddard challenged her to write something along those lines, and Flower took the bait.
The Tape Recorder wasn’t the first one-location thriller produced for Australian television. There had been a 1958 production of the “granddaddy” of the genre: Lucille Fletcher’s American classic Sorry Wrong Number (I strongly recommend reading this play, or listening to one of its many radio versions… it’s a marvel). There was also Box of One (1958) starring Robert Helpmann, based on a British script by legendary theatre director Peter Brook. However, The Tape Recorder was the first Australian one-location TV thriller from a local writer.
It takes place in real time at a city apartment late at night. Only one character appears on screen – a young woman, Miss Collins, who arrives to take dictation from a tape recorder left behind by an author who lives in the apartment but who is not present (or so it seems). Miss Collins doesn’t say a word throughout the whole script…. All the dialogue comes from the tape recorded voice of the author who, it gradually becomes apparent, is unhealthily obsessed with Miss Collins and possibly has murderous intentions towards her.
The production was filmed at the ABC’s Melbourne studios under the direction of Henri (Storm Boy) Safran. Jennifer Wright played Miss Collins and Wynn Roberts provided the voice of the unnamed author.
I was lucky enough to recently see a copy of The Tape Recorder. It’s an excellent piece of television, only 30 minutes long, with Safran’s direction extracting every amount of tension and creepiness from Flower’s strong script. While the technology used has dated, the violent misogyny displayed by the author character has not – his hatred towards Miss Collins, a woman he desires and wants to punish, is extremely well done, and all too familiar behaviour today. The camera work and sets are first-rate and Wynn Roberts provides a superbly creepy author’s voice.
The production was well received. Pat Flower’s script was bought by the BBC who filmed it in England in 1967 with Aussie/Kiwi expat Guy Doleman playing the part of the author; it was also produced for television in Canada, Belgium, the US and Italy, and was adapted for the stage (like I said earlier: one location thrillers can be lucrative because they’re cheap to make.) It is arguably Flower’s best known work. I’m surprised some enterprising film producer never expanded the story into a feature – such things are possible even when adapting short films that seem to have inherently short running times (eg. When a Stranger Calls).
The Tape Recorder helped get Australian Playhouse off to an excellent start. However, in hindsight, David Goddard was probably overly-ambitious with his show. Reportedly, in its first year, 39 plays were filmed, of which only 30 were aired (many written by Flower). It’s hard to keep the quality consistently high on an anthology, when you can’t rely on recurring characters or situations. Val Marshall, one of the most sympathetic TV critics of the time towards Australian writing, estimated 10% of Australian Playhouse’s episodes were excellent, 40% fair, and the rest “good tries”. The series was renewed for a second season, but that lasted only 13 episodes before being wrapped up. Critical response, initially enthusiastic, turned venomous (unfairly) and Australian Playhouse remains little remembered today.
But in the long run, Goddard’s boldness reaped great rewards: by the late 1960s the concept of Australian drama written by Australians became the norm. I would argue that Australian Playhouse played a not insignificant part in normalising the concept of a purely locally written show. It definitely helped produce one mini-masterpiece in The Tape Recorder.
No comments:
Post a Comment