Australian TV Plays: Dark Under the Sun (28 March 1960)

The first Australian TV play, to my knowledge, that depicted an Aboriginal character. Played by a white actor.

(There was also Whiplash made around this time.)

Plot

In the town of Nombora, a university-educated half-aboriginal man, Jim Robertson, falls for a white woman, his childhood playmate, Julie Handford. Social and family problems begin when they decide to get married.

Beryl Parker is a scheming friend who causes trouble.

Julie winds up rejecting Jim.

Cast

Edward Brayshaw as Jim Robertson
Elizabeth Goodman as Julie Handford
Moira Carleton as Grannie Hill
James Lynch as Les Holland
Berys Marsh as Beryl Parker
John Norman as Dave Handford
Joyce Turner as Mr Handford

Production

In January 1960 the ABC announced the play would be one of several new TV plays from Australian writers. The others included Eye of the Night, The Turning Point and The Slaughter of St Teresa's Day . This was one of the plays.

It was an original.

The play was written by Chris Gardner, a Queensland author. She had moved from England to Australia eight years previously was living in Woody Point. She started writing when briefly bed-ridden due to a slipped disc then became more serious about it when she joined a Brisbane radio group in 1956. Dark Under the Sun was her first TV play. Her play 'The Pub at Pelican Creek' was commended in the 1958 General Motors play competition won by Slaughter of St Teresa's Day see here.

Gardner would go on to write a number of TV plays.

Director William Sterling said, “When they told me I was do to an Australian play I thought to myself, ‘Oh Lord’, because some of them that we see are so dreadful contrived and artificial. But not this one. It was good.”

Director William Sterling said the play was written in the style of Paddy Chayevsky or Ted Willis - "a familiar social situation being shown in a simple, believable story with recognisable characters appearing in realistic situations and arguing their point of view forcefully without being mere mouthpieces for a particular opinion."

This style of Willis/Chayevsky writing wasn't that popular at the ABC - you more commonly found it on ATN 7 with plays like The Big Deal or The Concert. The ABC seemed to go in for more historical dramas and thrillers.

It was shot in Melbourne.

Sterling later made another Aboriginal themed play, Burst of Summer.

Advertising called it "a dramatic live play by Chris Gardner on the problem of social assimilation in a Queensland community."

The NAA have Garner's copyright appliction - see here. They also have photos see here. There's a two minute audio clip at the NAA. Record is here. They also have the script - a link is here. And photographs - link here.

Thoughts on the script

Little remembered but one of the first if not the first dramatic depictions of Aboriginal Australians on television.

Gardner was a British born housewife and mother who moved into writing in the 1950s and had a clear gift for it. This is a simple, understated piece; I guess you could say it was in the Ted Willis tradition. It's about "ordinary people" falling in love, the gimmick being one of the people here is Aboriginal. He is "half caste" which allowed the use at the time of white actor in the role. I haven't seen the play -Edward Brayshaw played the part. I wonder what it would have been like had Robert Tudawali played the role.

Jim is the Aboriginal - characters frequently refer to him as an "abo". He's back in the country town where he was born after a stint in Brisbane and romances a childhood friend, Julie. They're both adult and sensible; Jim is smart, hard working and polite, so the only issue is his race. Sidney Poitier was often criticised for playing those perfect black men in the sixties; Jim is a little like that too but I think he has to be perfect because, as Danny Peary pointed out in a review of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, it makes it clear what the objection is.

Julie's family aren't keen and the subplot involves town tramp Beryl, a character type familiar to those who have read their William Inge. She's from a Bad Family (who actually sound like a lot of fun - Queensland poor white trash) and inspires Julie's brother Dave to steal some horse doping drugs to win a horse race. Which seems to veer off the topic of race relations but does provide a terrific character dilemma: Julie wants Jim to lie about what happened to cover up for Dave, but Jim refuses; each has a go at the other's morals. It's an excellent dilemma and scene, a worthy climax to the story.

We do miss seeing Jim's homelife - even just one scene with Jim and another Aboriginal, a family member or friend, would have elevated the piece tremendously. But it is written with sensitivity and empathy. One can see why the ABC went for it.

Reception

The Age TV reviewer called it "excellent... struck such a telling blow for Australian produced and written drama that it is regrettable that not more than a handful of viewers watched this one hour production." He added Brayshaw "at times his acting was quite brilliant" and thought Goodman "also performed excellently... the drama flowed smoothly and well."

The same paper, when it reviewed the year in Australian television, again called the production "outstanding"

The critic for the TV Times said they watched it with "considerable reluctance" fearing "one long sequence of well meaning sermons" but found it "a delictate drama... handled with such gentle understadment. Her characters were well drawn and believable. They were average people reacting to a difficult, not unusual situation with the emotional, unthinking logic of their backgrounds."