The first in the series Love and War. Based on a play by GB Shaw. The ABC had already adapted this in 1963. This was a "war" play.
Premise
In Tavazzano in May 1796, after the battle of Lodi, Napoleon meets a young Lady who he believes could be a spy, but to whom he is attracted.
Cast
- Brian Hannan as Napoleon
- Anne Charleston as the Lady
- Dennis Miller as the lieutenant
- Stanley Page as Giuseppe, the innkeeper
Production
It was filmed in Melbourne.
Technical production - Bob Forster. Design - Gunars Jurjans. Director (it was billed as "directed by" by now) - Patrick Barton.
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| TV Times Vic |
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| The Age TV Guide 7 Sept 1967 p 3 |
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| SMH 4 Sept 1967 TV Guide |
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| SMH TV Guide 11 Sept 1967 p 1 |
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| Canberra Times 4 Sept 1967 p 15 |
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| TVTimes 13 Sept 1967 p 9 |
Forgotten Australian TV Plays: Point of Departure and Man of Destiny
by Stephen Vagg
October 4, 2021
Stephen Vagg’s series on forgotten Australian television plays looks at two locally-shot works based on plays by foreign writers: Jean Anouilh’s Point of Departure (1966) and George Bernard Shaw’s Man of Destiny (1967).
The first decade of Australian television drama mostly consisted of locally-shot versions of foreign scripts. That changed around the middle of the 1960s with the success of Homicide and The Mavis Bramston Show, and by the end of the decade, almost all Australian drama was actually written by Australians. It didn’t happen overnight though, and this article looks at two later foreign adaptations: Point of Departure (1966) and Man of Destiny (1967)...
The Man of Destiny (1967)
Australian television executives back in the day were almost as fond of George Bernard Shaw as they were of Jean Anouilh – there were locals productions of Village Wooing (1962, starring a visiting Michael Dennison and Dulcie Gray), Candida (1962, starring a visiting Joan Miller), O’Flaherty VC (1967), and not one but two versions of Man of Destiny (1963 and 1967). I’ve recently seen the latter, which was filmed as part of the Love and War anthology series (along with other plays I’ve written about, such as Intersection and Romeo and Juliet).
The Man of Destiny is a comedy set in a north Italian tavern in the year of 1796. It concerns a young Napoleon Bonaparte (Brian Hannan) bantering with a woman (Ann Charleston), who may or may not be a spy for the English. You can read the original play here.
The cast also includes Dennis Miller, as an officer colleague of Napoleon’s, and Stanley Walsh, who later produced Neighbours, as an innkeeper. Speaking of Neighbours, Ann Charleston does a scene in male drag, which is something I don’t think she ever got to do on Ramsay Street.
Shaw’s dialogue is always entertaining, and Patrick Barton directs well, but I admit that all the way through watching this, I was wondering why the hell the ABC were making it – especially as they’d already filmed it four years previously. I mean, seriously, only four years – and it wasn’t very well known Shaw either.
Was there any point in the ABC doing The Man of Destiny, or Point of Departure, when there were BBC productions the ABC could have just shown instead? I guess the actors, directors and crew liked working on something classy. Eventually, Australian television drama grew out of it, though the cultural cringe continues to burn brightly in our major theatre companies today. Still, at least both productions were well done.
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