Australian TV Plays: Close to the Roof (14 Dec 1960)

Adaptation of a TV play by Rex Rienits. Was this the last of the ten Australian plays by the ABC? Need to check.

Plot

In a house in the Sydney suburb of Surry Hills, two siblings, Lucy and Charlie, prepare the beds in their attic for guests. The siblings are the children of Tony Perelli, a widowed Italian migrant who is bitter about his lack of success in Australia, and who is determined to return home from whose children come home. Tony refuses to let Lucy work and does not know the Charlie has been boxing, thinking that he is going to be a musician.

Two men, Wally and Joe, arrive to stay in the attic. They were part of a trio who robbed a band at Newtown, which resulted in people being injured; the third member of their group, Bill, was captured in a shoot out. They are paying Tony money and Tony's children discover this; they are unhappy about it but support their father.

Joe is an ex-boxer from the country on his first robbery Wally is an experienced criminal. Joe and Lucia seem to like each other. Joe gives Charlie advice how to fight a particular boxer.

As the days pass, things become tense between Joe and Wally. They disagree over a number of things including Lucy and over how to divide the money. Bill dies in hospital without waking up and Joe wants them to give Bill's share to the latter's widow. Wally mandhandles Lucy, resulting in Joe fatally knocking out Wally.

Charlie and Tony bury Wally's corpse in French's Forest. Tony discovers that Joe has been helping his son with boxing and orders the criminal out of the house. Charlie decides to drive Joe to Queensland. Joe tells Lucy that he has a girlfriend but she deduces he is lying and they kiss. Joe realises police are waiting outside. He knocks out Charlie so the latter will not follow him, and walks out the front of the house. A gunshot rings out.

Cast

Stewart Ginn as Wally Fox
Ron Haddrick as Joe Cullon
Edward Howell as Tony Perelli
Josephine Dunphy as Lucy Perelli
Ken Lawrence as Charlie Perelli

Original stage play

The play was based on stage play called Hideout by Rex Rienits and Stewart Howard which was produced at Sydney's Independent Theatre in 1937 starring John Alden, who also co-directed.

This in turn was based on a story called "Heat," which appeared in the Melbourne magazine, Pandemonium. "Heat" led to Adelaide police to seize copies of the magazine.

Other adaptations

The play was adapted for British TV in 1958 as So Close to the Top (ITV). It starred Aussie expats in London like Bruce Kerr, Lloyd Lamble, Jerold Wells, June Brunell, Trader Faulkner and George Pravda. TV Times said it was an all Australian cast. The dirctor was Lionel Harris who did Kain.

It was adapted for Australian radio in 1960.

Production

I think this was one of the ten Australian plays the ABC made in 1960 (Australian as in from local writers): Eyes of the Night, Turning Point, Slaughter of St Teresa's Day, Dark Under the Sun, The Square Ring, The Astronauts, Swamp Creatures, It's the Geography That Counts and Who Killed Kovali?

Advertising promoted it as "the play seen on British TV".

It was Ron Haddrick's first TV appearance. Edward Howell had been in 25 which TV Times suggested was a record.

A full copy of the script is at the National Archives of Australia. A copy is here. They have copies of photos which aren't online but links are here.

Set - Jack Montgomery.

My thoughts on the script

It's a strong basic set up - two crims hide out after a robbery in the attic of an old Greek. "People hiding out" was a common plot device in TV plays because it was so easily adaptable to the small screen - The Devil Makes Sunday was a convict era equivalent.

There's some awful on the nose expository dialogue to start things off with the two kids of the old Greek but it picks up - all the characters are distinct, I like how it touches on the immigrant wishing he was at home, and it builds until the final shoot out. You actually didn't need to cut away to pool halls. Dramatically very sound.

Ron Haddrick was in the production, which I have yet to see.

Reception

The Sydney Morning Herald said it was "a fairly efficient if unimportant variation on the "and then there were none" theme" whose "only unusual contributions to the form were its "don't - come - the - raw prawn" dialogue and its coincidental echoes of the two most successful Australian dramas of recent years", namely The Shifting Heart (in Edward Howell's character) and Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (in the characters of the two robbers). The reviewer said Haddrick's "appearance was entirely convincing, a piece of sculptured Australiana" but that Ginn's character "a rat under a hot tin roof if ever there was one, was the most interesting character before the cameras."

The reviewer added the "production made a virtue of dispensing with background music and of confining the action almost entirely to one setting. The unconvincing sounds of shooting at the end of the play were a minor flaw."

The allegations of "coincidental echoes" with two other Australian plays prompted Rex Rienits to write to the newspaper pointing out the play was based on a stage play called Hideout which had been performed at the Independent Theatre twenty years earlier, well before Shifting Heart or Doll had been written.

The critic responded to Rienits, denying he had made a charge of plagiarism. What a whinger (the critic, not Rienits).

The TV Times called it "a promising start".