Australian TV Plays: A Fourth for Bridge (17 July 1957)

The first TV drama directed by Alan Burke who became one of the ABC's leading directors. It aired in Melbourne on 16 August and went for 30 minutes.

Premise

In 1942, an Italian plane carries several POWs from the island of Pantelleria to a camp in Sicily. There are two Britons, a Hussar and an RAF man, plus a female Polish partisan and an American soldier (the Yank). They are guarded by an Italian and German.

The Britons explain to the German that they persuaded their Italian guard, Pasquale, to fly them to Sicily in order to get a fourth for bridge. The Air Force Type says "if the unthinking lobster can grow a new claw in a crisis. then surely we can manage to find a fourth for bridge?"

Pasquale gets air sick. The Air Force Type proposes they take over the plane and fly to Malta. While the German is in the toilet, the Yank takes the gun off the Italian and tells the pilot to go to Malta. The Pilot refuses and points out of they shoot him no one else can fly the plane. They suggest that the Partisan seduce the pilot but she refuses. They eventually get the Pilot to go to Malta by bluffing that the Air Force Type can fly.

The German comes out of the toilet and they point a gun at him. Then the Italian recovers. The Yank fires the gun but it has no bullets. The German and Italian take control again. The German insists they fly to France.

The Partisan and the Air Force type discuss the nature of war. The Partisan reveals she has a grenade. She wants to go to Poland. She throws the grenade out the window.

All admit they are tired with their governments. Neither want to fight anymore and they decide to land in the territory of the country who will win the war. They land in a country but are not sure of where it is.

Cast

Hans Eisler
Al Garcia
Nigel Lovell as the Air Force Type
Richard Meikle
Don Pascoe as the Hussar
Melpo Zarokosta as the Partisan

Original Play

It was based on a play by Irish writer Denis Johnston (1901-1984). Johnston had a bit of a vogue in his lifetime; he doesn't seem to be particularly well remembered now though maybe he is more in Ireland. From 1946-47 he was director of programs at BBC TV in London.

A Fourth for Bridge was published in 1948. As I understand it, it was Johnston's only one act play and his only play based on the writer's wartime experiences as a war correspondent (although he wrote a war memoir, Nine Rivers from Jordan).

It is supposedly based on a true story, which appears in Jordan. Two RAF captives and their Italian guard left the Mediterranean island of Pantellaria in search of a fourth bridge partner. The Italian became air sick so the two Britons tried to take over the plane and force the pilot to land at Malta. The pilot did not want to. However as fuel was running out he agreed provided the plane would only be used by the British for humanitarian purposes, i.e. capturing downed airmen. This promise was kept.

A version was filmed for the BBC, produced (i.e. directed) by Johnston himself in August 1948. It was called The Unthinking Lobster and starred Frank Harvey Jnr, who I believe was the son of Frank Harvey, the actor-writer-director who lived in Australia from the 1930s onwards.

In his introduction to the play, Johnston says this TV version was received with "deafening silence".

Here's a photo from that production:

From Denis Johnston, a retrospective (1981, Geralds Cross) Photo 22

An excellent analysis of the play is here in Denis Johnston by Gene Bartnett (1978, Twayne Publishers).

I read the play. It had a good mixture of characters, an inherently tense situation. It was a little different. The thriller aspect worked best for me - four POWS, two guards and a pilot in a plane. There's solid tension. It was in three "scenes"... time jumps to allow for travel.

The theme seemed to be all war is bad and countries are bad for fighting war. But it was World War Two where the lines of good and evil were so clearly drawn, that that theme just annoyed me. The play hints they land in Poland - they're all going to be stuffed then aren't they?

Other adaptations

A radio version played on 3LO in 1949.

Production

Alan Burke was under contract to the Elizabethan Theatre Trust. He had just directed Ned Kelly for them, handling the transfer from Melbourne to Sydney. Under his deal with the Trust they agreed to "'not stand in the way of television opportunities'. "He had a free three months and he was loaned to ABC television. Burke said in an interview he spent the first month observing, the second month as a floor manager the third month directing.

It was his first directing for TV. (He went back to the Trust afterwards). He had studied TV in England. He later said in an interview:

While I was in England in the early 1950s I got an opportunity to attend a 2 month BBC television Training Course - this was in 1954. The Course was conducted by Royston Morely. At the end of the course we all had to produce a 5 minute program. When the ABC embarked on television, they brought out Royston Morley to run production training; so it was great fun to see him again when I joined the ABC. I think Royston was an important figure, a very good teacher of television.

"In those days there were really no people there to provide support and guidance," recalled Burke. "All one could do was talk to other producers afterwards. What I was not confident was 'calling the shots'. But as we had only 2 cameras in those days it was not a big problem." (This quote is from a website, ABCTV at Gore Hill, for which the link now appears defunct.)

He spent six weeks working on the play directing in the old Arcon studio "which is as big as this room" he told Graham Shirley in 2004. He said it was "set in an aircraft and about 5 or 6 characters and that was fun. So I directed that and then went back to the Trust."

He later said in the same interview.

"There’s not much to talk about really... Good little play, short, just over half an hour.
GS How confident were you with A Fourth for Bridge? AB Oh not remotely.
GS Not remotely. I mean if you felt unconfident, who was there basically to support and guide you?
AB Well, my fellow directors really because the Head of Department I think at that stage was Paul O’Loughlin, I may be wrong, acting because Neil Hutchison who was Head of Drama was acting as Controller of Programmes, everybody went up one. But neither of them was experienced in the hardware, the nuts and bolts of television. They were administrators but other directors at the time were Will Sterling, Raymond Menmuir who both went on to direct in England with enormous success. And really all you could do is talk to them afterwards. You took your own initiative to get the show on and then ask for advice about it and I think it was alright. It wasn’t very good but it had a sense of the visual which I’d always felt confident about. I was confident about directing the actors. What I wasn’t confident about was the calling of shots and things like that but luckily ‘A Fourth for Bridge’ only had two cameras so there wasn’t much choice.

There was only one female in the cast, Melo Zarokosta, who had just been in Sunday Costs Five Pesos.

It aired on a Wednesday 17 July - Wednesday was to become Australian drama night.

Burke told Graham Shirley Rthe News went out live from the same studio and we had to stop rehearsing while the News went and then the News was following by something pre- recorded or an overseas programme and we moved in again to set up and do the live performance of the play.

The NAA has photos. Not online. See here. Also a script - possibly radio version. See here. Not online.