Australian TV Plays: Campaign for One (24 Nov 1965)

Adaptation of British TV play. Set in space.!

Premise

Set in 1967, an English astronaut, Phil Osborne, is in orbit for the Allied Commission of German, English and American specialists. After completing a spacewalk, he announces that he has no intentions to return to Earth, due to his wife leaving him, and would prefer to die in space

Cast

Stanley Walsh as Phil Osborne
Lynne Flanagan as Osborne's wife
Michael Duffield as a scientist
Carl Bleazby as the army colonel
Kenric Hudson as a doctor
Mark Albiston
Edward Howell

Original play

The play was by Anthony Church and Marielaine Double. It aired on the BBC as part of the Wednesday Play in March 1965 starring Barry Foster. That was a quick turnaround. Why not just show that version? I think it was a TV original.

Some reviews of that production are here. Not sure it was adapted for radio.

Production

It was shot in Melbourne.

Director Brian Faull said "there was real suspense and a true-to-life drama about it. One couldn't help but feel that the situation could arrive sometime. We were producing Campaign for One at the same time a space projects were going on at Cape Kennedy and with all the news reports about there was a feeling that the play was the real thing."

A large seesaw rig was used to simulate walking around outside an orbiting capsule.

Sets - Kevin Bartlett. Technical direction - Robert Forster.

Reception

Canberra Times called it "an undistinguished play" and said it had a "preposterous pommy script".

By comparison Australian Women's Weekly called it "one of the best local TV productions for ages" and said the spacewalk sequence was "most skillfully produced".

The Sydney Morning Herald called it "brilliant" with "sustained tension, highly competent performances by a well-knit cast and whipped-up direction which left no one lime to wonder what lo do with his hands... a most exciting and professional job by any standards."

The Sunday Sydney Morning Herald called it "a nice, taut, well produced bit of space drama... a gripping and highly credible thriller."

TV Times called it "one of the best local drama productions of the year".