Australian TV Plays: It's the Geography That Counts (2 Nov 1960)

Play from Raymond Bowers, an Australian writer living in London. They ABC did a few of his plays in the early 1960s.

Premise

Inspector Hurst of Scotland Yard investigates a hit and run accident, the victim of which was struck bu an unusual experimental car.

Marshall Arnitt is a racing car driver who has spent the weekend with his mother in the south of England. His foster brother James has borrowed Marshall's car without permission and his a cyclist on the Scottish border.

Marshall decides to take the blame. But then James hears that their mother has been murdered, and Marshall has engineered clues so that James will take the fall.

Cast

Marie Redshaw as Marcia, Marshall's girlfriend
Keith Eden as Marshall Amitt, a racing driver
David Mitchell as James Amitt, Marshall's younger brother
Kenneth Goodlet as Inspector Hurst
Marie Redshaw as Mercia Sparling
Brian Burton as Det-Sgt Daniels
William Lloyd as Parker

Original stage play

Was by Raymond Bowers an Australian journalist who lived in Perth. He had four of his plays put on by amateur companies in Perth but was ambitious for more. In 1954 at age 34 he moved to London to work as a journalist and continue his career. His first break came when the BBC bought his play In Writing which showed in 1956. (It was later filmed by the ABC as well see here).

Bowers was later involved in a highly publicised divorced case (well, it made the papers) with his "highly sexed wife" admitting to having affairs with three other men while married to Bowers. Poor Raymond!

The play premiered in St James Theatre in London in June 1957 in a production starring John Gregson, that actor's first appearance on stage in six years. It would be the last production held at St James Theatre^..

Variety said "Too much talk and an over-complication of plot mar this otherwise ingenious whodunit. Basically It is a good dramatic story, but the first half consists practically of an involved duolog, with the first real punch Coming at halftime... a good play doctor could streamline this first' effort of a Fleet Street newspaperman, and it could be improved if skilfully adapted to the screen."

"My first aim is to make money," Bowers said in 1957. "To do that you have to entertain. If I have any philosophising to do, I'll leave it until I'm well established." He would too when he wrote The Right Thing.

Other adaptations

It was adapted for Australian radio in 1958 as The Man in Question.

It was filmed by the BBC in 1961 as Listen James. The Times called it "as engaging and effective a piece of mystification as we have been offered for some time... it is a puzzle and not a play of character."

A 1962 BBC radio version of the play is here. I listened to it - it's quite fun in that Dial M for Murder way -middle aged man has a scheme (a racing car driver who lives above his means, like M's tennis player who lives above his means), lots of talks about theories, an inspector who is pure exposition. Some great twists - spoilers - first of all that the racing car driver takes the blame, then it's revealed that he's doing it to set up an alibi for another murder, that of his mother. Then there's a woman involved who blackmails the driver into marriage.

Production

The play was adapted for Australian television in 1960. Filmed in Melbourne, it was directed by Chris Muir, who said "all the clues are contained in the dialogue, but it is cleverly concealed. It will be a fairly tough test for the amateur detectives."

It is unclear if the program was broadcast outside Melbourne.

I wonder if this and Close to the Roof were the last of the ten Australian plays the ABC were going to make.

I think it was a last minute replacement for The Foreigner.

Reception

Listener In said "I found the whole affair a little hard to follow - terribly full of conversations and terribly empty of any interesting action." However the critic liked Keith Eden and felt Muir "got the last drop of suspense out of a script that demanded much closer attention than most viewers are prepared to give anything."