Australian TV Plays: Bellbird (28 Aug 1967 to 23 Dec 1977)

Bellbird (28 Aug 1967 to 23 Dec 1977)

Bellbird ran for ten seasons.

1508 x 15 minute episodes
53 x 60 minute episodes
134 x 30 minute episodes

Bellbird remains to this day the ABC’s longest-running drama series, having clocked up almost 1700 episodes over a ten year run.

Development

David Goddard suggested to Colin Free they do a soap based on Blue Hills. They read some eps and decided to do their own version. Free did a two pager then passed it over to Barbara Vernon. See oral history here.

Barbara Vernon was script editor for the first season. Based a lot of it on Inverell.

June 1967 Janet Kehoe joins writing team of Vernon, Alan Hopgood, Michael Wright see here

It started filming in March 1967.

“We won’t be emphasising the seamy side of life,” she told TV Times. “But neither will we be frightened of using human situations which always have that element of shock. We have tried not to make Bellbird too sentimental or melodramatic but have continually striven for reality. There has never been a TV series based on a rural Australian town so we were starting from scratch.... [asked about Peyton Place and Coronation Street} I have rarely seen those programmes so there is definitely no influence from them. Bellbird is purely Australian in character and concept... [asked about seeing the set] It’s marvellous! I really do feel as if I have created this whole town and all those people, doing all the things I want them to do. But when it comes time fo the actors to make them come alive, they sometimes turn out differently. I'm fascinated and a little anxious. The person in one part is magnificent and has made my character different from what I had planned - more real. I could not have hoped for better actors. Bruce Barry is wonderful. Brigid Lenihan and Elspeth Ballantyne are wonderful: in fact everyone is perfect.”

The series was based around the fictional country town of Bellbird.

Vernon later said that Mrs Phillips was meant to be unpleasant but Joan Macrthur made her funny and that made the character loveable. Vernon "when you see your own work on the screen given interpretations so different from what was intended, it can be a tremendous shock. It's almost a physical shock... It's as if a little bit of yourself is there on the screen and sometimes it seems as if it's being derided. With experience you build up a defence agains this and also, a more experienced writer would be more involved to the extent of seeing the production before it was telecast."

She told TV Times 'We have a problem in Australia that actors insist too much on being written for. I believe it's their business to interpret the role as it's written and not to insist that it echoes their own personality. This is being idealistic when it comes to a long running serial though and it is inevitable that the actor's personality will influence the character to a very great extent."

Vernon told TV Times in 1970, "Knowing the country well, I was able to make sure that at least that side of Bellbird was authentic."

Early location filming to set the scene for Bellbird was conducted in the real-life town of Daylesford and at Eltham in Melbourne’s outer north, with an old house in the beach side Melbourne suburb of Brighton also used for outdoor filming.

Despite its Victorian backdrop, Bellbird was not intended to depict any particular state.

“We chose the name Bellbird because we understood that there was a town called Bellbird in every State in Australia,” Vernon told TV Times. “We were also very conscious about keeping the setting neutral. We made a great effort to keep State references out. For instance, we always referred to “the city”, rather than to Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane. However, production began in the ABC studios in Melbourne. This was because they happened to be available. Sydney had a full schedule. So when there were cars they had Victorian registration, the trains were obviously Victorian, and it pretty soon became obvious that Bellbird was a Victorian town. This hadn’t been intended.”

Bellbird made its debut at 6.40pm on Monday 28 August 1967. The opening episode featured city schoolteacher Michael Foley (Barry) taking up a posting in Bellbird. Foley’s arrival prompts gossip when it becomes known that he is to board with the town librarian, the young and single Lori Chandler (Ballantyne).

Vernon said originally Lori ran a gift shop but Vernon made her a librarian because she'd been one and knew the set up. Vernon based Lori on her. "I wanted Lori Chandler to be a late maturer, but I don't think I succeeded. I maintained that at 25, Lori should be almost completely untouched emotionally... I've always felt that I've done everything late, so that if there were anyting at all of me in Lori, it would be this. And I couldn't get it across."

James Davern directed the first episode. Oscar Whitbread the second. Brett Porter was the intial producer.

Vernon said Gwen Meredith had "always been very kind to me and it was nice of her to ring". She called Vernon a week after the show had been on air.

Vernon said the older actors liked to stay but the younger ones wanted to move on - as in the country.

Janet Kehoe

Vernon did not last long as story editor. Davern told Albert Moran that Vernon had a "nervous breakdown".

Vernon said she left the show as story editor because of the commute to Melbourne - it was felt they needed someone in in the production office.

Janet Kehoe took over - she impressed producer Brett Porter. She had a run as story editor.

June 1968 article here referes to writing team: Ray Kolle, John Howson, Bill Dick, Oriel Grey, Judith Colquhoun and Roger Carr.

Davern says that when a writer flipped out she asked Davern to write a script, which helped launch his career as a writer.

James Davern then took over as script editor.

Death of Charlie Cousens Less than two months into Bellbird‘s second season, real estate agent Charles Cousens (Robin Ramsay was to be written out. Ramsay had accepted an offer to play Fagin in a Japanese stage production of the musical Oliver! Cousens fell to his death from atop a wheat silo. The tragic exit sparked an incredible reaction from viewers — with ABC switchboards inundated with phone calls and letters from upset fans. One Perth viewer threatened to come to Melbourne, where the show is made, to “do something about it”.

The death of Charles Cousens was to be the one single storyline that would come to be the show’s most memorable.

Aug 1968 says Pat Alexander replacing Brett Porter as producer see here. They said no more death.

By Oct 1968 the script editor was James Davern. Pat Alexander replaced Brett Porter as producer.

Jan 1969 Alan Burke made producer see here.

June 1969 Jim Davern took over as producer see here. Says Vernon working as sstory editor. Davern was the fourth producer, after Brett Porter, Pat Alexander, and Alan Burke

Developments

Brian Wright talked about it to Susan Lever about his experience writing for the show:

they did not hire writers from Sydney to write for Bellbird, the ABC. You had to live in Melbourne, and be part of a writing team. It was a regular job. You sat on the team, and you had meetings regularly, and so forth. So I joined that team. We both went back to Melbourne. I remember saying--oh no. The kids--I've forgotten where we put the kids then. I think the kids were growing up by this time. .. This was about the mid-70s. And I wrote through for Bellbird, and when Bellbird finished, I wrote through it to the end. ..

Bellbird was a lovely show to write for. It was my introduction to the team of the committee plotting of all the writers together with the script editors, and so forth, the staff people of the ABC. We were not staff; we were freelancers. We were in regular work, put it that way about 5-6 writers. We would meet in committee, and we'd plot. Then go to the pub, and spend the rest of the afternoon at the pub. We would get a block of 5 episodes. That was a quarter hour. I think quarter hour of 20 minutes, Bellbird. We did a block of about four, I think, in one story. And we would go off and write them, and then come back when we'd finished. Have another script meeting, and carry on like that.

Q    What were you trying to achieve with it do you think?

A1    With Bellbird?

Q    Yes.

A1    Entertainment, learning the game. We were still learning the game. Bellbird had a fairly tight budget. It had quite a lot of film in it. By this time, film was beginning to get into our dramas. The budgets were getting a little bit bigger, and a little bit bigger. As a matter of fact, I played a character in Bellbird of a squatter. My stuff was almost all on film. It was good fun. We had some good writers. Richard Lane was writing for it then. Kay and Judy Calhoun, a very good Melbourne writer, Aurial Gray, some very good writers. ..

Bellbird was really Blue Hills on television. That was the quite shameless concept. We’re trying to get that audience appeal I suppose was what we were learning, it was audience appeal. That’s what we learnt on Homicide and all those very early shows was how to attract your audience, how to hold your audience on television. It was a great learning curve and writing regularly, there was no time for finesse half the time, you just had to churn the words out – get them in, get them produced and get them onto air. That was a fairly good training. But in terms of writing I think, I’m talking for myself and I think possibly for Mary too, that we were learning how to reach an audience and make palatable drama in a medium we were just beginning to understand. I think that was the period going through there.

Bellbird continued in its 15-minute episode format for most of its run — although viewers constantly bemoaned the limited airtime. Its unusual timeslot, 6.40pm, made it a difficult sell to capital city viewers, but in the country it was a popular ritual to watch Bellbird leading up to the ABC news at 7.00pm.

Jan 1972 Vernon working on Lane's End with Eleanor Witcombe, Michael Boddy producer by Alan Burke. See here.

7 June 1973 - hits 1000 episode see here

By the end of 1975, Bellbird was reported to be on its last legs. Writers had simply run out of storylines for the close knit community, apparently.

Despite the rumours, ABC kept the show going into 1976 but in a new format — one 60-minute episode a week instead of the traditional four 15-minute episodes. This was not well received by fans and by the end of the year ABC decided to expand the series to three half-hour episodes a week.

The radio serial Blue Hills had come to an end in 1976.

As past and present cast of Bellbird were celebrating their show’s 10th anniversary in September 1977, they were to learn that ABC had dropped the series. Production was to wind up in November with the last episodes going to air before the end of the year. .

To its credit, at the time no other serial drama in Australia had managed the longevity of Bellbird. Commercial network success stories such as Number 96 and The Box coincidentally were also coming to an end during 1977 after six and four years respectively,.

During most of its 10-year production run, 15-minute episodes of Bellbird screened from Monday to Thursday nights during the lead in to the 7:00 pm evening news bulletin. In 1976, the series was screened as a single one-hour episode each week, before switching to three half-hour instalments per week during its final season.

Memos from James Davern are at the NAA here.

Ratings

Ratings were consistent but not huge.