Australian TV Plays: House on the Corner (23 June 1957-58)

An early Australian television program which aired from 1957 to 1958. A 10-minute segment on Sydney station ATN-7, it was a drama about a family, and was produced by the Christian Television Association.

Cast included Harry Howlett (who also wrote it), his wife also played a role, as well as Rosemary Barker and Annette Andre.

The series aired live, with the cast consisting mainly of amateurs drawn from church drama clubs.

It was probably the first attempt at a dramatic TV series produced for Australian television, though not the first dramatic TV series produced in that country (overseas-financed children's series The Adventures of Long John Silver was the first in that regard, and pre-dated the introduction of television to Australia) Australian TV drama was relatively rare at the time.

Background

A condition of a commercial television station's licence was that it had to make available free pro-rate air time to the Christian religious dominations; ATN-7 had an allocated quarter hour on Sunday afternoon. The manager of ATN-7 in Sydney, Len Mauger, allowed Harry Howlett, a former actor and then executive for an association of Protestant churches, to use that quarter hour for a drama series. It was called The House on the Corner and was given the nickname The Brothel on the Bend.

It was directed by David Cahill. According to Ailsa McPherson, who worked on the show as a script assistant, "it had a script with a social message and some highly dramatic scenes, with settings created by scavenging among the stock flats and properties available at ATN.^"She said the actors would come into Seven's studio on Sunday afternoon and there was a camera rehearsal before transmission.

Annette Andre recalled:

The first thing I did on television was this religious program [The House on the Corner (1957) a drama produced by the Christian Television Association which aired on ATN-7] – a quarter hour show. I think it was 4 eps in total, and I was in the four.

I played a young Hungarian girl, and I didn’t know any Hungarians. I went around the shops and eventually found one girl serving behind a counter who was Hungarian. I got into conversation with her and explained that I had to acquire a Hungarian accent. She was very helpful and spent some time talking with me. The director was quite happy with the accent – but I really don’t think he knew what a Hungarian accent sounded like either.

It was announced in May 1957. I'm not sure it started until July though.

It was meant to be replaced by a show The Star of David in January 1958 but I'm not sure the latter was ever released.

Episodes

23 June 1957, 14 July 1957, 21 July 1957, 28 July 1957, 11 Aug 1957, 18 Aug 1957, 25 Aug 1957, 8 Sept 1957, 15 Sept 1957, 22 Sept 1957, 6 Oct 1957, 13 Oct 1957, 20 Oct 1957, 10 Nov 1957, 17 Nov 1957, 1 Dec 1957, 8 Dec 1957, 15 Dec 1957, 29 Dec 1957, 5 Jan 1958, 12 Jan 1958,