Australian TV Plays: Barnstable (7 August 1963)

Based on a one-act British play by someone called James Saunders. It was a parable about nuclear war, apparently.

Premise

Set in the drawing-room of the Carboys' home on a spring morning.

Cast

John Morgan as Charles Carboy
Elizabeth Wing as Daphne, his wife
Felicity Young as Helen Carboy
Michael Duffield as the Rev. Wandsworth Tester
Sandra Power as Sandra, a maid - the only one who recognises the menace in their situation.

Original play

The play had been performed on British radio (BBC) in 1959 (another link here).

William Sterling called it "a comic modern parable of serious intention. It is a parody on sotck characters, situations and phrases which invites people to laugh and then makes them stop and wonder why they did. Barnstable itself, never clearly defined, is a symbolic destructive force. It could be God, destiny or a third world war."

He called it a "brilliant, satirical comment on present-day apathy, hide bound tradition and outworn moral, social and political values."

According to an obit, Saunders (1924-2005) "was one of the most distinctive voices to emerge from the wave of new British playwrights of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Saunders used drama to play with philosophy, psychology, history and the vicissitudes of language, a style which put his early work alongside peers such as Harold Pinter, and made him a prime influence upon Tom Stoppard. Like them, he loved word play and paradox, writing dialogue that was erudite, whimsical and honed to a sharp edge, particularly when discussing sex, the family or voguish values."

Other adaptations

A stage version was produced at the Questors Theatre, Ealing, with two other one-act plays, Return To A City and Committal, under the title Ends and Echoes, on the 13th June 1960.

Here's the play. You have to borrow it.

It was adapted for British television on BBC in 1962 (according to TV Times - need to check this) and Australian radio in 1961.

Production

It was filmed in Melbourne.

Sandra Power was the barrell girl from In Melbourne Tonight making her acting debut. She had appeared in rep in Adelaide and ABC Schools' Broadcasts. "It is so much more exciting than just being a BBG type," she said, "and this is a wonderful role. It's small, but makes enough demands to give me the self confidence which I lack at the moment."

Why was this made?

Reception

The Age wrote "it was difficult to known how to take the play."

The TV critic for the Sydney Morning Herald wrote that "Blessed simplicity is the virtue of a parable, but in this production, strongly reminiscent in style of the first episode of a very dull science fiction serial, it was never clear whether the author... wanted an undercurrent of humour to his horror or an undercurrent of horror to his humour."

Reviewing the year in TV the Age called it and Chinese Wall an example of "highbrow productions" that "frustrated more than they entertained."