Australian TV Plays: Barley Charlie (31 March 1964)

The second sitcom in Australia. 13 eps. Information is here.

Showed on TCN-9 in Sydney.

Premise

Joan and Shirley Muggleton are two cityslicker sisters who inherit a roadhouse cafe and garage midway between Melbourne and Sydney. Working there is Charlie Appleby, a lazy and clueless mechanic.

Cast

* Sheila Bradley

* Robina Beard

* Eddie Hepple

Production

According to Rod Kinnear, who produced and directed, Colin Bednall of GTV-9 decided to do a half hour series set half way between Melbourne and Sydney a la Albury so avoid Sydney-Melbourne rivalry. Bednall went to England and got the creator and writer of the Rag Trade, gave his idea, can you think of a concept in which to do series. They came up with idea of the girls inheriting service station. They wrote the pilot, Alan Hopgood wrote the rest of the scripts

Hopgood told Susan Lever:

Rod Kinnear also decided it was time to have our first Australian situation comedy... however, they brought out two English writers, Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe (The Rag Trade, On the Buses), to ‘show us how to do it’ and we thought that was a bit offensive. The series was Barley Charlie. It was set in a garage diplomatically located between Melbourne and Sydney, and Charlie was a rogue who worked there.... They wrote six episodes and I was brought in to Australianise them, basically I was translating their scripts. Subsequently, I wrote the next seven of the first 13 episodes. It had mixed reaction and, in fact, Channel Nine panicked and stopped production. No sooner had they done that than our ratings went through the roof and suddenly we were out-rating all the opposition. So they wanted another series, but by that time the cast had dispersed. The success had been made possible because I worked closely with the cast, and we discussed theway the series should continue and develop, which is what good sitcom teams do, like Mash. But for the fact Channel Nine panicked, we could have gone on to make several series.

Episode Guide

Ep 1 The Double Take - 13 Apr (Syd)

Ep 2 The Big Fix 20 Aprl (Syd) |

Ep 3 - A Quid Each Way -27 Apr (Syd),

Ep 4 = The Inspector Calls = 4 May (Syd) |

Ep 5 = Petticoat Prison - 11 May (Syd)

| Hygiene Hi-jack - 18 May (Syd)

| Home Sweet Brew -25 May (Syd) |

Hot Lines - 1 June (Syd) |

Gawler’s Ghost- 8 June (Syd)

Bad Nose For Charlie = 15 June (Syd) |

Colonel Blood - 22 June (Syd) |