Flowering Cherry (13 Feb 1963)

Adapted from the Robert Bolt play. 

It was the first drama to be simultaneously presented in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne via coaxial cable. (Though did that not happen with Prelude to Harvest?)

Premise

Mr Cherry abandons his life as a clerk to start an orchard. His dreams of fulfilment are linked to his memories of growing up in Somerset. 

He is married to Isobel and they have two children, Tom and Judy. Judy goes to art school with Carol, and they plan to live in a flat together. Tom is about to go into the army and clashes with his father who believes Tom is too artistic.

Jim has been stealing money from Isobel and drinking cider. Carol flirts with Jim and says if he can bend an iron rod around his neck she will kiss him. Jim tries to bend the rod but can't; he tries to kiss Carol but she rejects him.

Isobel discovers that Jim has been stealing money and that he was fired three weeks ago. 

Jim dies of a heart attack trying to bend the iron rod around his neck.

Cast

• Grant Taylor as Jim Cherry
• Margo Lee as Isobel Cherry
• Peter Adams as Tom Cherry
  
• Frank Taylor as Grass
  
• Don Pascoe as Bowman
• Rosalind Seagrave as Judy Cherry
  
• Elizabeth Ferris as Carol
  

Original play

This was Bolt's first hit. It debuted on the West End in November 1957 starring Ralph Richardson and Celia Johnson. This star power helped the play become a hit and it ran for 15 months. This success enabled Bolt to give up teaching and become a full time writer. It's been overshadowed by the success of Man for All Seasons and Bolt's collaborations with David Lean.

It played on Broadway in 1959.

Other adaptations

It was adapted for British TV in 1960 as an ITV Play of the Week and BBC radio in 1958.

It was adapted for Australian radio in March 1963 and in 1964.

Production

The production was filmed in Sydney. The director was Colin Dean who did a lot of historical mini series. 

In a 2004 oral history with Graham Shirley, director Dean said he struggled to recall much about it. He did remember that this and The Long Sunset were more character based than most of the dramas he made (i.e. the historical mini seriea). 

At the time Grant Taylor was appearing on stage with Googie Withers in Woman in a Dressing Gown.A TV Times profile on the play goes over his career.

Elizabeth Ferris who made her acting debut was a diving champion whose name was linked romantically to Murray Rose.

It was the first drama to be simultaneously presented in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne via coaxial cable. 

Noel Robinson did the adaptation. Harrie Adams the technical supervision. Jack Montgomery did design.

Reception

The TV critic for the Sydney Morning Herald thought "Grant Taylor was well in command" of his role but that Colin Dean's production "was rather too crowded."

Val Marshall of the Sunday edition of the same paper called it "a first rate production" in which Taylor and Lee were "brilliant".

Frank Roberts of The Bulletin wrote that:

ABC producer, William Stirling, told a recent seminar that Australian television critics are unconstructive. Another speaker said Australians is compulsive knockers, with television critics leading in brass. Perhaps I can dispel that illusion. I was all set to write a favorable review of “Flowering Cherry” the morning after Sydney and Melbourne viewers had seen it on Channel 2. Then someone wandered in and said, “Did you see Flowering Cherry’ last night? Wasn’t it terrible?” The person in question is a stage Player and was considering the quality of the acting in this television drama, which was the second she had seen. I had to tell her it was a better television play than most we’ve seen. It was too. The sets were good. The light illuminated them. The dialogue was better than average and sometimes the acting illuminated it too. And that’s a favorable review...

The players, in that order, were Grant Taylor, Margo Lee, Peter Adams, Rosalind Seagrave, Elizabeth Ferris, and Don Pascoe, who used a different regional dialect for each appearance. The producer was Colin Dean, who did well, considering. It was written by Robert Bolt of “A Man For All Seasons,” who must regret it bitterly. As you can see, it had a trite, shop worn plot, not worth the fair dialogue the playwright wrought for it. The players, as usual, felt they were on stage but realised they were on television, which resulted in some confused acting. The cameras, used as spectators rather than as participants, were efficient. The drama was a bit melo-, ending with Mum joining Johnny Appleseed, leaving Dad to kill himself trying to bend the big poker. Given a stronger plot, livelier dialogue, less stagey sets, more imaginative cameras, some television actors, and better make-up, it could have been a good play. Lacking them, it was still tolerable, because the viewer could feel that at least everyone was trying, and that is not a bad beginning for ABC drama production in 1963. 

TV critics were so defensive when people called them out.

TV Times Qld 11 April 1963

 

The Age Supplement 7 Feb 1963 p 1

Canberra Times 11 Feb 1963 p 20

Canberra Times 13 Feb 1963 p 25

SMH TV Guide 4 Feb 1963 p 4

The Age 7 Feb 1963 p 33

SMH 10 Feb 1963 p 61

SMH 11 Feb 1963 p 15

SMH 14 Feb 1963 p 7

The Age 13 Feb 1963

SMH 13 Feb 1963 p 11

SMH 17 Feb 1963 p 67

The Age 13 Feb 1963 p 21

 
Forgotten Australian TV Plays: Flowering Cherry
by Stephen Vagg
March 14, 2021

In his series on forgotten Australian TV plays, Stephen Vagg looks at the ABC’s 1963 adaptation of Robert (A Man for All Seasons) Bolt’s British play, Flowering Cherry.

For me, Grant Taylor was the great lost film star of Australian cinema. In 1940, he came seemingly out of nowhere (the boxing ring, to be precise) to play lead roles in two hit Australian films: Dad Rudd MP and Forty Thousand Horsemen. His impact was immediate, especially in the latter: swaggering, virile, cheeky, two-fisted… one of the first screen embodiments of the macho Aussie screen archetype, Jack Thompson before there was a Jack Thompson.

Taylor’s career momentum was interrupted by World War Two and he never really got it back, in films at least, only playing a few more leads (Rats of Tobruk, Captain Thunderbolt) before drifting off into character actor land. This was mostly due to the moribund nature of the Australian film industry at the time, but Taylor didn’t help his own cause by not taking care of his appearance (he gained weight, refused to wear a hair piece, and had a clear fondness for the bottle).

On stage, it was a different story: Taylor, with his booming voice and imposing presence, became one of the most popular leading men in post-war Australian legitimate theatre. He also made an impact in early Australian television drama, including playing Robert Newton’s sidekick in The Adventures of Long John Silver (co-starring Taylor’s son Kit as Jim Hawkins), several guest roles in the meat pie Westerns series Whiplash, and, most notably, the lead in the 1963 TV play, Flowering Cherry.

Flowering Cherry was based on a little-remembered 1957 stage play by Robert Bolt. Bolt later became legendary for his David Lean screenplays and A Man for All Seasons, but it was the West End success of Flowering Cherry that originally enabled the one-time English school teacher to become a full time writer.

The play concerned an insurance salesman, Jim Cherry, who tells his wife and two adult children that he has quit his job and intends to buy an apple orchard. It eventually turns out that Cherry was fired from his job, has developed a drinking problem, steals money from his wife, and has no intention of bringing his dreams to reality. He (SPOILERS) winds up dying of a heart attack trying to prove his virility by bending an iron bar around his neck.

The play was a hit in London – due in no small part to the popularity of stars Ralph Richardson and Celia Jonson – and had a short run on Broadway; it was never turned into a feature film – perhaps it was felt too similar to Death of a Salesman – but was shot for British TV in 1960 and 1965.

For some reason, the ABC decided Flowering Cherry was just the thing to be adapted for Australian television in 1963. I had no idea why this decision was made… perhaps director Colin Dean wanted a complete change of pace from the historical miniseries which he had been making (Stormy Petrel, The Outcasts). Perhaps it was due to Bolt becoming a very hot property after the 1960 debut of A Man for All Seasons (incidentally, the ABC would film that, too, in 1964, with Wynn Roberts as Sir Thomas More).

Anyway, the decision was made, and the play shot in Sydney. It was the first Australian drama to be broadcast on the ABC’s coaxial cable simultaneously in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra (before then, a show generally had to be broadcast live in one city, then the taping of that broadcast was shown in other cities).

The cast was headed by Grant Taylor, then appearing on stage in Woman in a Dressing Gown. The role of his wife was played by Margo Lee, a leading stage, radio and TV actor of the day, with the support cast including Peter Adams (who later became a household face as JJ in Cop Shop) as the son, and one time Olympic medal winning diver Elizabeth Ferris, who plays a friend of the daughter who dates the son and flirts with dad.

The running time was a healthy 75 minutes, meaning most of the play’s nuances were captured. The storyline could have been relocated to Australia –there’s nothing particularly British about it, Australians dream of escaping to the countryside too – but Noel Robinson’s script adaptation was a faithful one, keeping the action in England.

I saw a copy of Flowering Cherry through the National Film and Sound Archive. To be honest, it feels like a filmed play – there’s one set, long scenes, theatrical entrances and exits – but Colin Dean’s direction is sensitive, and the film is quite entertaining in a well-made-play-of-the-fifties way, particularly the superb performances of Lee and Taylor. Lee is perfect as the tired, betrayed Isobel Cherry, weary of life, unsure of how she got to her current position, pushed to the limit. Taylor is also excellent as the blustering, ageing Jim Cherry; the actor’s physicality and former status as a Forty Thousand Horseman heart throb makes his decline more touching: you believe Taylor would feel like he could still bend an iron bar around his neck, even though he’s clearly on the verge of a heart attack.

I wish the ABC had filmed an Australian play or script rather than Flowering Cherry, but at least it provided two of our best actors with sensational roles to remember them by. Far too much of their – indeed many Australian actor’s – best work has vanished to the mists of time with no record. But thanks to the National Film and Sound Archive you can easily see a copy of Grant Taylor and Margo Lee at their best in Flowering Cherry.

NLA Ratings