Australian TV Plays: Roundabout (4 Jan 1957) (Melbourne)

Roundabout was the first live play performed on Melbourne TV. The same play was later performed on Sydney TV though with an entirely new production (see a link here). This was what happened with The Twelve Pound Look but the ABC soon found that method impractical.

It was based on a British play about infidelity. A few of these were filmed by ABC TV - such as Marriage Lines. I think the play was first produced in around 1952.

ABV-2 (the Melbourne ABC station) began broadcasting 19 November 1956. There wasn't the impulse to show drama there. I guess they did have the Olympics (22 Nov to 8 Dec 1956).

Premise

Ruth, happily married to David for nine years, is preparing to leave on a holiday with the children. During the bustle of departure, Ruth and David find themselves dis cussing the recent divorce of their friends John and Patsy. Colder. When David asks her what she would do if he were unfaithful, Ruth calmly replies: “All these things can be talked out quite easily.” To prove her point she goes on to conjure up Paula, an imaginary “other woman”.

Cast

* Patrick Horgan as David

*Mary Ward as Ruth,his wife

* Beverly Dunn as Paula

*Sid Conabere as Bill

*Moira Carleton as Bill's wife

Information about the original play

Apparently it was a radio play broadcast in 1950. Then it was turned into a play published in 1952.

Michael Clayton Hutton, who wrote the original play, is not particularly well remembered as a writer now. I think he was born around 1923.

He had a success with Power without Glory which was premiered on the London stage in 1947 in a production featuring Dirk Bogarde and Kenneth More. Kenneth More writes about this play in his memoirs; he says it was a critical hit but commercial failure.

Hutton's other plays include Sleep on My Shoulder (1949), Turn to Page Two (1950), The Happy Family (1951), Dead Secret (1952) and Silver Wedding (1957).

Hutton's play The Happy Family was filmed as The Lady Says No (1952). There was an Australian TV play called Dead Secret but I think that was based on a Rodney Ackland play. However Hutton's Dead Secret was adapted for Australian radio as was Starlift.

Roundabout was a one act play. It appeared in the best one act plays of 1952-53 edited by Hugh Miller.

According to Kenneth More's book, Hutton's father was a boffin at the Air Ministry during the war who would invent gadgets to help Allied crews shot down over occupied Europe (things to be smuggled into uniforms). More says Hutton junior always felt to be in the shadow of his father; and that Hutton wound up committing suicide after being commissioned by the BBC to write a script for TV: Hutton didn't believe the offer, and didn't believe he could do it, and according to More, was found dead with a letter of offer from the BBC next door.

Another account says that Hutton committed suicide after completing the play Starlight. "For three years he had been fighting against theatrical ill-luck and disillusion," wrote one newspaper in 1956.

(I'm not exactly sure when Hutton died - maybe 1953 - but it was clearly before Roundabout aired on Australian TV.)

Other adaptations

It was adapted for BBC radio in 1951. Not sure if it was filmed for TV. Hutton's other plays were popular around Little Theatre.

Production information

It was the TV debut of Beverly Dunn who became one of the most popular actors on Melbourne TV in its early days.

The director was Bill Eldridge, an actor and radio producer. He was an amateur poet too. Eldridge was British - he joined the BBC in 1939, went into the services in 1941, rejoined the BBC in 1944. He worked in Singapore then joined the ABC in 1947. (The link is to a 1947 article on Eldridge). He directed some early television. In ABC Weekly he often appeared in photos gesticulating.

Eldridge said the play was chosen to introduce live TV drama to Melbourne because of its simplicity. "It is a good vehicle to serve as a bridge between sound drama and TV drama. It helps the viewer to bridge the gap gradually. It introduces TV drama without giving way all the tricks that we hope to use later."

Patrick Organ was appearing in The Reluctant Debutante at the Comedy Theatre. He had to rush from the TV studio at 8.30 get a taxi and be driven to the theater.

Only two sets where used, both planned by ABC set deisgner John Peters.

The cast rehearsed for 12 hours including six hours dress before the cameras.