Australian TV Plays: SP#10 - Pardon Miss Westcott (12 Dec 1959)

SP#10 - Pardon Miss Westcott (12 Dec 1959)

Australia's first television musical comedy.

Plot

It is 1809 and Britain sends its convicts to the penal colony of New South Wales. On a convict ship travelling to Sydney, the convicts, notably three men, Mansfield, Harbutt, and Snark, sing "He-ho, you'll never go back".

Elizabeth Westcott is being transported after being given a five year sentence for killing a pig and serving it to a pompous magistrate at her father's inn. On the boat over she meets Richard Soames, an army officer being transferred to the NSW Corps. Elizabeth befriends Mansfield, Harbutt, and Snark after she refuses to report them for theft; they sing "Send for Me" together.

The ship arrives in Sydney. Richard meets the new, temporary Governor, Colonel Paterson, who has taken over from Governer Bligh (the Rum Rebellion has just taken place). Paterson complains about the lack of decent servants and Richard recommends Elizabeth but Paterson is reluctant to employ a former convict.

Elizabeth arrives to track down Richard and impresses Paterson, who offers her the job of managing Government House. She persuades Richard to let Mansfield, Harbutt, and Snark join her as servants. Richard sings "You Walk By" to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth runs the house with great success but this causes the Governor's wife, Lydia, to become jealous and demand the convict leave. Paterson decides to grant Elizabeth a ticket of leave and loans her five pounds to set up an inn. Elizabeth sings "I'm on My Way".^[5]

Elizabeth runs the inn, called the Silver Bottle, along with a servant girl, Mog. It is popular but they have trouble with the local soldiers. She decides to gate crash a party held by Paterson and his wife, in order to talk to the Governor. At the party, Lydia sings a song to her guests, "Our Own Bare Hands".

Elizabeth arrives to make an appeal to Paterson, but upsets Lydia. Richard arrives at the party and dances with Elizabeth; he sings her a song, "Sometimes".

At the Silver Bottle, the customers, including Mansfield, Harbutt, and Snark, sing and dance a number, "The Grog Song". The convicts mock Lydia, when Paterson arrives and overhears. He is upset and sends the convicts home. Paterson also tells Elizabeth she and Richard must not see each other, as she would be bad for his career. She briefly reprises "Send for Me".

Paterson tells Richard to not see Elizabeth and he reluctantly agrees. Mansfield, Harbutt, and Snark escape, taking Paterson's rabbits. Sent to find the convicts, Paterson sneaks out to see Elizabeth and they sing a song, "So Much More". Paterson catches the two of them together and demands Richard's resignation; he also orders Paterson to spend the night in prison with the three recaptured convicts.

In prison, Mansfield, Harbutt, and Snark sing "The Whole Shebang", watched by Richard. The convicts escape, during which Richard is knocked out. The convicts deposit Richard and Elizabeth's inn. When Richard wakes up he insists they go back to prison. He and Elizabeth sing "The Argument" along with Mansfield, Harbutt and Snark. The convicts eventually agree to return to their cell.

Lydia is convinced that Elizabeth and her husband are having an affair. The convicts have broken out of prison again. Elizabeth insists she loves Richard. Elizabeth and Richard sing a love duet, "You Walked By".

The convicts arrive, having recaptured Paterson's rabbits. Paterson tells Richard that the NSW Corps is being disbanded, Paterson is going home and Richard is out of the army. Elizabeth has to serve out the remaining four years of her sentence. Mansfield, Harbutt, and Snark are given an extra five years of service, but are assigned to Richard as servants. Mog, the convicts, Elizabeth and Richard sing a final song.

Cast

Wendy Blacklock as Elizabeth Westcott
Michael Cole as Lt Richard Soames
Nigel Lovell as Colonel Patrerson, the acting Governor of NSW
Queenie Ashton as Lydia Patterson
Chris Christensen as Mansfield
Nat Levison as Snark
Michael Walshe as Harbutt
Joy Hill as Mog McGuire
Don Crosby as corporal
Frank Sheldon as Ensign Randall
Frank Salter as soldier/guard
Bruce Harris as sentry
Don McIntyre as Lt Collins
Joy Hill, Frank Sheldon, Margaret Abbie, Frank Salter, Paul Munro, Bruce Harris, Dawn Bowden, Don McIntyre, Judy Maxwell, Kevin Fruend, Chris George as dancers

Production

The film was commissioned by ATN-7 from the writers of the musical Lola Montez, which had enjoyed a successful run on stage. The brief was to create a family musical for Christmas. The budget was £5,000^.

The book was by Alan Burke and Peter Benjamin, the music by Peter Stannard, and the lyrics were by Peter Benjamin. Burke appeared "by courtesy of the ABC" who were employing him as a director.

David Cahill the director says in his NFSA oral history that the lead character was loosely based on Mary Beiby.Her bio is here.

The show was broadcast live from ATN-7 studios in Epping, Sydney. The music was conducted by Tommy Tycho. Kevin Cameron did the sets, Bill Robinson did wardrobe and Vernon Best was operations manager. Ken Shadie did audio. Betty Pounder was borrowed from JC Williamsons to do choreography.

Michael Cole had been fired from Lola Montez. He was hired by the writers for this to make it up to him.

According to Ailsa McPherson, who worked on the show as a script assistant, during the live broadcast the actor who played Colonel Paterson accidentally omitted over a page of dialogue in an earlier scene. The other actors continued because it was live, but it meant later plot points would be confusing. After the show went to air, they re-shot the scene and re-inserted it into the tape and kine.

Alan Burke discussed this with Graham Shirley in 2004.

That grew out of Lola having gone on at The Trust, the Elizabethan Theatre and Channel Seven commissioned us to do a musical for television. The first Australian musical written for television and it cropped exactly as I was about to do Wuthering Heights which wasn’t the ideal time. But the two Peters worked at it and Benj did in fact, not only the lyrics but the book and I came in and sort of edited, it was about all I could contribute to it. It went to air, enormously successful, it was repeated I don’t know how many times. I think it got two repeats which is pretty much unheard of. It was a very handy thing to put on on Christmas Day for instance which they did...
Wendy was nice and oh the lovely Queenie Ashton was marvellous and they’d written a song for Queenie ‘Just Their Own Bare Hands’ which was very sweet about ‘how we built this colony out of nothing and we’ve got cricket pitches and theatres and all these lovely things’. And in the middle section of course ‘we had a little bit of help along the way, but only the tiniest amount, you’ve got to show these convicts that their crimes can never pay, so work done by them just doesn’t count’. Very sweet song, Benjamin at his very best lyrics. So Queenie sang that and we were able to use Michael Cole. I think I’ve told you earlier that he was sacked by the Trust after the Brisbane season of Lola and before we gave him to Sydney but Thank God we’d already made the LP and Michael is immortalised on that for Saturday Girl. But we were able to offer him as it were as the .......(unclear) to Channel Seven and indeed they used him opposite to Wendy and it was great fun, very nice.

Brian Wright told Susan Lever:

So we commissioned our own play: “Pardon Miss Wescott” and Peter Stanard wrote the music. Very good music too. Peter Benjamin wrote the lyrics and the book. We came up with this original comedy about the convict days, and so forth. It was a very big production in its day. It went very well. But that’s also on Kenny recording, and it’s terribly old-fashioned now, but it was the first ever done here. .. I’ve got an LP of the music. .. It was quite good. I’m rambling on here a bit. ..

We went to air live. We had just got the first video tape recorder in Australia at ATN. We did a lot of firsts in those days. But we’d only had it a week or two, and the producer, Brett Porter, I was the Executive Producer of it, Brett Porter and the director David Carl and I had a long conference. And in our wisdom, we decided not to use the video tape, but to go to air live. Because we thought this would kill the spontaneity of the actor, as we need to have this feeling of going to air live. Well how mad we were. In the second act of the show, Nigel Lovell, playing the governor at the time, Nigel Lovell had two cues, which were identical. A maid came in to tell him that dinner was served, twice cuing Nigel. They’re about 20 minutes apart. In that 20 minutes, it was a very thin little plot we had. Rabbits featured in it. And what happened to the rabbits, happened in that 20 minutes between these two cues. Nigel of course, cut from the first cue straight to the second, and cut the entire middle of the play out! Including a couple of musical numbers, and we had to roll on.

Now we were Kenny recording that for Melbourne. When the show finished, we re-recorded the second act, and edited it back in. But poor old Sydney can’t have had any idea what the plot was about.

You can guess what it was about. It was about two rabbits. You can guess what happened.

Songs

Overture (orchestra)
"He-ho, you'll never go back" - sung by male chorus of convicts at beginning
"Send for Me" - sung by Wendy Blacklock
"I'm On My Way" - sung by Wendy Blacklock
"Bells Suddenly Ringing" - love song sung by Michael Cole
"The Grog Song" - sung by taverners at The Silver Bottle
"How Could I See?" - sung by Blacklock and Cole
"The Whole Shebang" - sung by three convicts (Chris Christensen, Nat Levinson, Michael Walsh)
"You Walked By" - sung by Blacklock and Cole
"So Much More"
"Our Own Bare Hands"
"The Argument"
"Sometimes"
Finale

Reception - Ratings

The Beacon Research Company estimated that 250,000 adults and 10,000 children watched the broadcast. More than 100 people rang in to congratulate on the broadcast on the night it aired.

It earned a 55% share in Sydney.

Critical Reception

TV Times said it was "really not good enough".

The critic from the Sydney Morning Herald wrote the musical "had an entertaining and beguilingly tuneful premiere in a smoothly organised live production" despite "the lack of colour and space in which create spectacle and the effects which properly, and uniquely-belong to the stage." However:

Nine numbers in a 75-minute show is pretty fair value, and the... tunes and lyrics were fluent, neatly turned and literate. Equally important. they arose naturally from the situations arranged by the... book, and always took the story-line, and characterisation, a step further. And at least one song, "Bells Suddenly Ring" is a possible hit tune. Moreover, the show proved that for those who are willing to use their imagination, there is plenty of theatrical material in our early history... Michael Cole acted and sang very attractively indeed: Wendy Blacklock brought the proper strength of character... but was not entirely at ease with her songs. Nigel Lovell.. was engaging and sympathetic, and Queenie Ashton, his snooty hypochondriac wife, was nicely acid. Chris Christiansen, Nat Levispn and Michael Walshe made a usefully funny convict trio, and Joy Hill danced with considerable verve and enthusiasm.

Cast Album

A studio cast album, with different performers from the television version (apart from Queenie Ashton), was released in December 1960.^[

1. 'Overture' (Orchestra);
2. 'Heigh Ho, You'll Never Go Back' (male chorus);
3. 'Send For Me' (Elizabeth, Mansfield, Harbutt, and Snark);
4. 'You Walk By' (Richard);
5. 'The Whole Shebang' (Mansfield, Harbutt, and Snark);
6. 'I'm On My Way' (Elizabeth);
7. 'Grog Song' (chorus);
8. 'So Much More' (Elizabeth and Richard);
9. Our Own Bare Hands (Lydia);
10. 'The Argument' (Elizabeth, Richard, Mansfield, Harbutt, and Snark);
11. 'Sometimes' (Richard);12. 'Finale' (Elizabeth, Richard, and Chorus).

My thoughts. Silly, sweet and fun - a convict era musical made in Sydney by ATN7, from the team who gave us Lola Montez. The songs aren't particularly outstanding, at least not on first listen, but are pleasant. The dancing is very skilled and it's done with high spirits.

I'm really enjoying the direction of David Cahill. It's unobtrusive and skilful; he knows how to change scenes, when to go in for close ups, when to stand back. It's very good work.