Australian TV Plays: August 2021

Key TV Dates

* 13 July 1956. The first television test transmissions by TCN9 in
Sydney.

July 1956. HSV7 Melbourne also commences Test TV transmissions.

Sunday 16 September 1956 at 7.00pm. TCN9 Sydney becomes the first TV
station to begin regular transmission. [Opening speech re-shot 3 years later]

Thursday 27 September 1956 at 4.30pm. GTV9 Melbourne conducts its first
test transmission.

27 October 1956. TCN9 Sydney officially opens.

Sunday 4 November 1956. HSV7 Melbourne officially launched on-air.

5 November 1956. ABN2 Sydney officially opens.

19 November 1956. ABV2 Melbourne officially opens.

22 November 1956. Olympic games opens in Melbourne

2 December 1956. ATN7 Sydney officially opens.

19 January 1957. Sir Dallas Brooks officially opened GTV-9 from studios in
Bendigo Street

Wednesday 21 May 1958 at 7.55pm. Official opening of “New studios” at
ABV. (studio 31 and studio 33). Studio 32 opens 3 months later.

August 1 1964. ATV0 Melbourne opens.

January 20 1980: Melbourne’s ATV0 changes to ATV10.

Play - Curly on the Rack

Curly on the Rack is a 1958 Australian play by Ru Pullan.

It was presented by the Elizabethan Theatre Trust at a time when production of Australian plays was rare.It was considered a disappointment after their successful productions of The Shifting Heart and Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. Nonetheless the play was adapted for Australian radio in 1960. But it was not filmed for the ABC. Maybe the reviews?

Plot

After World War Two, two brothers, the tough Max and the gentler Harry, live in Rabaul with their sister Pet, salvaging war time equipment. Their truck driver, Curly, waits for his opportunity to recover £10,000 he planted on a nearby island during the Japanese invasion along with a fellow soldier called Scobie.

Scobie arrives, having lost both his legs during the war, demanding his half of the money. Smith, a philosophical drunk, comments on the action.

Cast of Original Production

* Stewart Ginn as Scobie
* John Gray as Smith
* Coralie Neville as Pet Finton
* Max Osbiston as Harry Finton
* Grant Taylor as Max Finton
* Ken Wayne as Curly
* Owen Weingott as Tim, a ship’s captain

Production

Ru Pullan was an experienced radio writer. The play came about from a discussion Pullan had with a friend about treasure left behind in the war.

The brochure is here.

Reception of original production

Reviewing the original production, The Bulletin said “the dramatic cliches and tortuous contrivings that go with resolving the situations are rather less than bearable, and the scene wherein Scobie recovers his manhood and Max reveals his yellow streak must be one of the most preposterous bits of hoo-ha served to an audience for many a day.”

The Sydney Morning Herald said the play “ran a wayward course through melodramatic shallows” and “had an entertaining enough adventure yarn to tell, but Mr Pullan seemed unable to develop the issues of his intriguing first act in a rich way through the stationary second, and then abandoned adventure to turn his third act into a much too rapid_, much too tritely tremulous, much too improbable study of a wrecked man’s redemption into full and confident manhood.” The paper’s reviewer added that the “dialogue had the surface fluency to be expected of an experienced hand in day-to-dsy radio writing, but the play...had something of radio’s way of forcing over-heated dramatics into situations that could seem more plausible if allowed to generate more stealthily.”

The Age said the play was “undistinguished” with “some of the most predictable action ever seen on stage”.

Ausstage listing.

Other adaptation

It was adapted for radio in 1960. Rex Rienits rejected it for TV in November 1960.

From the brochure

The Age 4 Sept 1958

The Bulletin 10 Sept 1958

Play review - The Bastard Country (6 May 1959)

The Bastard Country is a 1959 Australian play by Anthony Coburn. It was also known as Fire on the Wind.

It was performed by the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust. It was adapted for radio in 1960 but not filmed by the ABC even though they filmed a lot of Trust plays (eg Ned Kelly, The Shifting Heart).

Plot

John Willy is a violent man who owns a farm in northern Victoria and has a mistress, Connie. He is visited by Greek Nick Diargos, who intends to kill John for raping and murdering Nick’s wife in Greece when John was a soldier.

However Nick falls for John’s daughter Mary.

Original cast

* Neva Carr Glyn as Connie Naismith
* Patricia Conolly as May Willy
* Neil Fitzpatrick as Possum Willy
* Ron Haddrick as Doctor Gorman
* Rodney Milgate as Billy Willy
* Desmond Rolfe as Jim Richards
* Grant Taylor as Nick Diargos
* Frank Waters as John Willy

Production

It was announced in February 1959 as part of a series of plays at the Trust. It was one of two Australian plays being done by the Trust for that season the other being The Slaughter of St Teresa's Day.

A brochure from the Trust is here.

Reception

The Sydney Tribune said the 1959 production featured “one of the finest performances that this reviewer has seen on the Elizabethan stage— that of Grant Taylor’s portrayal of Nick Diargos, the. vengeance-seeking Greek. He invests Diargos with an awe-inspiring strength and yet with gentleness and dignity and his performance is one of the main reasons for the play’s great impact on the audience."

The production then toured.

Other adaptations

It was adapted for ABC radio as The Fire and the Wind in 1960.

A list of other productions is here via Aussstage.

A review of a 1963 Melbourne production is here.

Trust website

Sydney Tribune 20 May 1959

SMH 7 Jan 1960

Tharunka 23 June 1959

Jewish Times 15 Mau 1959

AWW 10 June 1959

AWW 26 Aug 1959

State Library NSW

William Sterling

What happened to Will Sterling?

Sterling's dad died in WW2 in Crete when Will was 15. Read this piece here.

He went to the US to study in 1964. Worked at the CBC. Then went to Brtiain. Worked for the BBC until 1971.

He returned to Oz in 1972 to promote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. An article about making the film is here.

He criticised the Australian film industry for being too parochial. "We must forget our aggression and nationalism" he said.

In 1977 he was back trying to raise money for an Australian film. Again, he called for Australian films to be more international and criticised them for being "parochial". The film he was trying to get up was The Bird of Strange Plummage written by Michael Noonan about an Aboriginal girl and a white boy. (Sterling did Burst of Summer.)

TV Credits

Graduate Sydney Uni

1956 focus on drama

23 April 1957 The Wraith

19 June 1957 Ending It - Sydney

July 1957 Neil Hutchison discusses sending Sterling to Melbourne

21 Aug 1957 Rope - in Sydney

23 Oct 1957 Sound of Thunder

8 Jan 1958 - Gaslight in Melb

26 March 1958 The Small Victory

21 May 1958 Captain Cavallo

18 June 1958 The Rattenbury Case

23 July 1958 The Public Prosecutor

17 Aug 1958 Box for ONe

5 Oct 1958 THe Governness

16 Nov 1958 The Lark

10 Dec 1958 - Wild Life and Christmas Belles

18 Feb 1959 - Trip Tease and High C

4 March 1959 - The Solderi's Tale

21 May 1959 - A Dead Secret

15 July 1959 Black Limeligh

21 Oct 1959 Ned Kelly

16 Dec 1959 Treason

1960 - took leave of absence to make Return Journey

13 Jan 1960 - Heatr Attack

20 April 1960 - Mine Own Executioner

15 June 1960 - Shadow of Heroes

13 July 1960 Who Killed Kovali

7 Sept 1960 Macbeth

14 Dec 1960 - Two Headed Eagle

11 Jan 1961 Heda Gabler

22 March 1961 The End Begins - Sterling made it after return from overseas

3 May 1961 Night of the Ding Dong

12 July 1961 Call Mea liar

9 Aug 1961 Burst of Summer

4 Oct 1961 Lady from the Sea

29 Nov 1961 The Big Deal

21 Dec 1961 Ides of March

21 Feb 1962 Devil Makes Sunday

18 April 1962 House of Mancello

16 May 1962 Hobby Horse

17 July 1962 The Forbidden Rite

18 July 1962 Village Wooing

8 Aug 1962 Murther in the Cathedral

3 Oct 1962 The Music Upstairs

14 Nov 1962 The Prisoner

19 Dec 1962 Light Me a Lucifer

3 April 1963 - Pearl Fishers - 46th ABC production

17 April 1963 The Chinese Wall

26 June 1963 Uneasy Paradise

7 Aug 1963 Barnstable

18 Sept 1963 The Fighting Cock

16 Oct 1963 Man for All Seasons

31 March 1964 - Half Hour with Helpmann

7 June 1964 directs First 400 Years

Aug 1964 applies for Assistant Director of Drama when gets back from overseas so can live in Sydney

Sept 1964 directed Soldiers Tale for the Trust

Sept 1964 leaves for 12 months - to go to US, Canada and London

Nov 1964 in Chicago

Sept 1964 - BBC agree to have Sterling on attachment

1965 works for BBC

1971 - goes freelance

directs Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

1972 - returns to Australia on promo trip for Alice

1977 back in Australia

*Burst of Summer

*Murder in the Cathedral

The Age 26 Sept 1958 supplement p 2

The Age 28 Dec 1972

The Age 15 Jan 1977

The Bulletin 6 Jan 1973

NAA William Sterling

Key TV Dates

Play - Curly on the Rack

Play review - The Bastard Country (6 May 1959)

William Sterling

Janus of the Age aka Gordon Bett