Australian TV Plays: A Piece of Ribbon (10 July 1963)

Based on a British play about Malayan Emergency. Australians served in Malaya but the ABC did not tell a story about them.

Plot

During the Malayan Emergency, British soldiers are having a break from jungle patrol at a Malay Beach Club House. Several of them are attracted to an Eurasian gir, Marianna de Souza, who is there to meet her boyfriend Corporal Cutliffe. He arranges to meet Marianna later at a beach.

Marianna is found murdered. Investigations into her death are cut short when the company is sent out on patrol under Sgt Wiley.

Cast

Neville Thurgood as Sgt Wiley
Jeffrey Hodgson
Heather Leembruggen as Marianna de Souza
Geoffrey Hodgson as Corporal Cutliffe
George Whaley
Roly Barlee
Terry Beattie
Kurt Beimel
Robin Farquhar
Joseph Gentile
Charles Haggith
Max Horder
Paul Karo
Dennis Miller
Alwyn Owen
Joseph Szabo
Christine Veld

Original TV play

It was based on an English TV play by Leslie Thomas that had already been performed by the BBC in 1962 as an episode of Suspense.

Thomas had served in Singapore during the Malayan Emergency. He became a journalist, then was commissioned by the BBC to write A Piece of Ribbon. He later wrote the popular novel The Virgin Soldiers. In his memoirs Thomas said it was a foreunner to that book. He said the play benefited from starring Jacqui Chan who had gone out with Princess Margaret's fiancee.

Production

Thomas pitched it to the ABC while in Australlia.

It was filmed in Melbourne and was directed by Christopher Muir.

There was a cast of 25 including five models from the Mannequin and Models Guild.

Heather Leembruggen was from Sri Lanka; it was her TV debut.

The producers shot scenes for where the girl was discovered on the beach at Beaumauris. Leembruggen had to perform it only in a sarong.

The set was designed by Kevin Bartlett.

An aside: Barbara Vernon wrote a stage play about Australian troops during the Malayan Emergency, Naked Possum, produced at the Independent Theatre in 1956. A review is here. They could've filmed that.

Reception

Frank Roberts of the Bulletin said the cast, "with one minor exception", were believable as British soldiers. He advised Rex Rienits to study from Leslie Thomas. Was Roberts the snobbiest critic in Australian history?