Australian TV Plays: KCU#1 - The Robert Wood Trial (4 Sept 1957)

The first in a series of four TV plays based on real-life trials - Killer in Close Up.

Does this make it Australia's first anthology series? Production was quite sporadic though.

The title comes from the use of close-up in TV drama. According to the ABC Weekly the production consisted entirely of close ups.

Lack of close ups was an annoying feature of much early Australian TV direction eg Burst of Summer. Was that a reaction to over-doing it here?

Premise

This is based on the Camden Town Murder. In 1907 artist Robert Wood was tried and acquitted of the murder of prostitute Emily Dimmock.

Wood is defended by a famous barrister, Marshall Hall.

Cast

Brian Anderson as Robert Wood
Leonard Bullen as Marshall Hall (probably)

Production

As far as I can gather this was an "original" for Australian TV. It's just a shame we didn't do one about a local trial - there were enough grisly murders in our history, even by 1957. George Kerr said he tried to find out - and came across one set in the South Australian goldfields. But it doesn't appear to have been made.

The BBC might have filmed it prior to this. They definitely did in 1989, in an episode of the series Shadow of the Noose, which was about Marshall Hall.

Ken Tynan writes in his letters that in 1952 he discussed co directing a series based on famous trials with Royston Morley.

Raay Menmuir said in his NFSA interview with Tom Jeffrey that the whole series was all in close up “a bit naff now to think of it but it came out of the exigencies of the time.” Menmuir said it came out “we haven’t got any money what do we do? We sat around Neil Hutchison’s office one evening then a guy called George Kerr said well what about... and they said why not. I took it up, he wrote it and we did it... But you’ve got to have the writer."

It was broadcast "live" from Sydney on 4 September 1957, recorded and shown in Melbourne on 4 October 1957. It went for 30 minutes.

It was directed by Raymond Menmuir. But other people directed others in the "series" (George Kerr wrote them all)

The writer was George F. Kerr, an Englishman who had been a POW and moved to Australia. I'm not a big fan of his writing.

The first play used nine sets and twelve actors. The Sydney Morning Herald said its goal was "to show new techniques in Australian TV production and acting." (see below)

They wound up making three more off this series so presumably this was well received.

Other versions of the story

There was a 1949 BBC radio version of this in a series called Let Justice Be Done. This was a series to illustrate cases of many kinds in the story of the administration of justice in British Courts. Did Kerr get the idea off this?