Goodbye Gloria Hello (10 April 1967)

 Play by Peter Kenna, who wrote The Slaughter of St Teresa's Day. It had been performed in England first.

Premise

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, "a stuffed dog, a canary and a lodger come first in what loosely may be termed Gloria's affection."

Clive comes home to find his wife Gloria in the arms of their lodger, Hopgood.

Cast

• Joan MacArthur as Ada, Gloria's vengeful sister
• Brian James as Clive
• Brigid Lenihan as Gloria Bunt
  
• William Hodge as Hopgood the lodger
• Frank Rich as Cross
  
• John Roddick as painter
  

1964 British Play

The play had aired on the BBC in 1964 as Goodbye Gloria Goodbye. 

Kenna had gone to London and seen Slaughter of St Teresa's Day be filmed. He then wrote Goodbye Gloria. He originally called it Worms which the BBC hated. Didn’t have title until aired. That again was a great success - Kenna talks about it in interview here. 

The Sunday Times said it was "not wholly successful, but... of a distinctive flavour". A Guardian review is here. A Birmingham Post review here refers to it being a pastiche of silent films which I don't get from the Australian production.

It was based on a play "Beak of the Early Bird" - according to the Peter Kenna papers.

Production

It was filmed in Melbourne on Dec 11, 12 and 13, 1966. Running time was 75minutes.

A copy of the script is here.

Designer - Douglas Smith. Technical producer - Peter Simondson. Script assit - Maurice Pearce. Lighting - Leigh Hardy. Graphic design - Bruce Lauchlan.

Director was Patrick Barton. 

Reception

The Age called it "exciting... something to see... "

The Age 6 Sept 1967 TV Guide p 2

SMH TV Guide 10 April 1967

The Age TV Guide 4 april 1967

The Age TV Guide 13 April 1967 p 3

NAA Script

The Age 10 April 1967 p 17

The Guardian 6 April 1964 p 7

Birmingham Post 6 April 1964

Forgotten Australian television plays: Cross of Gold and Goodbye Gloria Hello
by Stephen Vagg
February 19, 2022
Stephen Vagg’s series on forgotten Australian television plays looks at two efforts directed by Pat Barton at the ABC, Cross of Gold (1965) and Goodbye Gloria Hello (1967)....

Goodbye Gloria Hello

A production with far more reason for being was Goodbye Gloria Hello, based on a script by Australian writer Peter Kenna (A Hard God), whose play The Slaughter of St Teresa’s Day was successfully filmed by the ABC in 1960 and which I wrote about here.

That went on to be filmed by the BBC in 1962. In a weird reversal, Kenna’s script for Goodbye Gloria Hello was actually first performed for British TV in 1964 as Goodbye Gloria Goodbye. I have no idea why Kenna changed the title. Apparently, it was based on a play by Kenna called Beak of the Early Bird.

The ABC filmed Goodbye Gloria Hello in December 1966, broadcasting it the following year. I recently saw a copy of the production and Kenna’s script can be read online here via the National Archives of Australia.

The story is set in a shabby Victorian boarding house – it takes place in England, not Australia. Brigid Lenihan stars in the title role, as a woman who is married (to Brian James) but is having it off with her lodger (William Hodge). The husband teams with Gloria’s shy sister (Joan MacArthur) to turn the tables, but things don’t quite turn out the way either plan.

There’s some broad playing, nice lighting and the running time of 75 minutes is too long for the material, which feels like it should clock in at an hour. Pat Barton directed this one too. I wonder what happened to Barton? If anyone reading this happens to know, please drop me a line.

Kenna’s career is interesting. The ABC spotted his talent relatively early, signing him up to a television writers’ workshop in 1959, and producing Slaughter of St Teresa’s Day. Yet his screen credits are quite sparse: an adaptation of Norman Lindsay story Dust or Polish (1972) from a series of Norman Lindsay adaptations on the ABC, TV adaptations of his classic play A Hard God in 1973 and 1980, the play 13,000 Miles Away (1976) from a BBC-ABC co-pro series called The Emigrants, the Bryan Brown-Rachel Ward film The Umbrella Woman (1987). That’s not a lot for a talented writer. I don’t think Goodbye Gloria Hello ranks among his better pieces though: too broad, and Kenna is less effective when not writing about Australia.

Star Brigid Lenihan is also worthy of attention. She was very busy on Australian stages and screens in the 1960s, often playing feisty broads – her credits include A Night Out (1961), The Little Woman (1961), Lola Montez (1962), The Taming of the Shrew (1962), Don’t Listen Ladies (1963), and The Right Thing (1963). Her theatre credits are here.

Alan Burke, who worked with Lenihan several times, told Graham Shirley in an NFSA oral history that she was “a lovely lady but rocky and a bit insecure and had trouble with the lines early on.” She died in 1970, aged only 41, survived by her 13 year old son. Far too many of her generation went too young – Peter Kenna only made it to 57.

You’ve probably gotten the impression from reading this that I wasn’t too excited about Cross of Gold or Goodbye Gloria Hello and that impression would be correct – I don’t have to like all these plays, he said defensively – but both have their moments.