Based on the Oscar Wilde play. Reportedly the first time this had been adapted for TV.
Premise
Salome, step daughter of King Herod, desires the prophet Jokanaan. He rejects her so she demands his head.
Cast
- Frank Thring as Herod
- Freddie Parslow as Jokanaan
- Buster Skeggs as Salome
- Monica Maughan as Herodias
- David Foster as first soldier
- Ross Sharp as second soldier
- Peter Hepworth as Page of Herodias
- David Foster as young Syrian
- Martin Magee as Tigellinus
- Michael Duffield as Capradocian
- Joseph James, Keith Lee, Martin Vaughan, David Spurling, Lewis Rowe as Jews
- Paul Eddey as Nazarene
- Ricky Gay as Nubian
Original play
The play debuted in 1891. The full text is here.
Production
Thring had performed in productions of the play on stage numerous times. He did it in Melbourne in 1952. It was a performance of Salome in England in 1954 that established his reputation over there. His biography is summarised here.
(Alan Burke was in England at the time. He says the production was transferred to the West End. It was directed by Alan Burke in a small town but when it was transferred to the West End Burke says direction was taken over by an Englishman who was Burke says was a "minor, inconsequential Englishmen as man Englishmen who came to Australia were." Burke says the production was "laughed off the stage". Another 2004 interview though Burke says Burke was meant to direct A Respectful Prostitute which was on the double bill with Salome but it was taken off him by Freddy Farley, a director at the Arrow)
Trevor Ling designed the production from drawings done by Aubrey Beardsley.
The production was announced in July 1967 and taped in December of that year. No publicity photos of the dance were allowed. The dance was specifically different from that performed by Rita Hayworth in a 1953 film about Salome.
Music composed and conducted by Frank Smith. Choreography - Joe Latona. Wardrobe suervision - Keith Clarke. Make up supervision - Marjorie Reid. Lighting - Leigh Hardy. Technical production - Robert Forster. Design - Trevor Ling. Produced and directed by Oscar Whitbread.
Buster Skeggs by arrangement with J.C. Williamson. Frank Thring, Monica Maughan, David Turnbull, Michael Duffield and Martin Vaughan by arrangement with Melbourne Theatre Company.
Reception
The Sydney Morning Herald said the production "did not make sense" in part because "of sexual passion and conflict there was no trace" saying Thring "was the only player to move and speak with conviction and control."
The Age said "it was more music hall than melodrama" with "Miss Skeggs was splendid" and "Thring's Herod had everything to recommend it."
From Buster Skeggs:
I was 21 years old and in Man of La Mancha at the Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, when I was asked to audition for Salome. I had to learn the last speech which was very long & quite difficult. But when I did the audition I knew Oscar Whitbread really wanted me, as I was a trained dancer as well as a trained actress. David Goddard, the head of drama at ABC TV, had seen me in many musicals like Sweet Charity etc. and told Oscar that I was very good in those but surely, would not be able to handle Oscar Wilde‘s blank verse. Oscar Whitbread very kindly sent the audition tapes to David Goddard without the names attached and David chose mine out of many. I couldn’t believe it!
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| SMH TV Guide 30 April 1968 |
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| Canberra Times 29 April 1968 p 15 |
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| The Age TV Guide 8 May 1968 p 2 |
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| The Age 2 May 1968 p 10 |
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| The Age TV Guide 25 April 1968 p 1 |
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| The Age 6 July 1968 TV Guide p 1 |
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| From Buster Skeggs |
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| TV Times Vic 1 May 1968 |
Forgotten Australian TV plays: Salome
by Stephen Vagg
August 18, 2021
Stephen Vagg’s series on forgotten Australian TV plays looks at a 1968 version of one of Oscar Wilde’s kinkier works, Salome.
The earliest Australian television plays were mostly based on overseas scripts. It took over a decade for Australian television executives, particularly ones at the ABC, to rid themselves of this habit – it was not until 1969 that Australian-shot drama on the ABC was entirely written by Australians. One of the last of the “foreign adaptations” was a 1968 version of Oscar Wilde’s play Salome.
Salome is one of the artier efforts in Wilde’s oeuvre, a verse play based on the legendary Biblical tale of Salome, who danced for King Herod in order to get the head of John the Baptist. Wilde’s tale sticks to that basic story, adding his own slant. Basically, Salome is hot for John (here called Jokanaan), but he rejects her; she does a dance, and stepdad Herod orders the chop. There’s more to it than that, of course, but that is the basic premise. The concept of the “dance of the seven veils” was invented by Wilde with this play.
Wilde wrote Salome in 1891-92 (in French!), but was unable to get it produced in London due to censorship concerns. It was first performed in Paris in 1896, while Wilde was serving his prison sentence; he never saw Salome on stage in his lifetime. However, the play has proved to be surprisingly durable over the years – or perhaps not surprisingly, offering as it does some great roles, wonderful language, plenty of subtext and kink, a sexy dance and a beheading. Among the works directly inspired by Wilde’s Salome are the 1905 Richard Strauss opera Salome, the 1988 Ken Russell film, Salome’s Last Dance, and the 2011 Al Pacino docudrama which no one remembers Pacino made, Wilde Salomé.
The play was crucial to the career of Frank Thring, Jnr, one of the legendary Australian actors of the twentieth century. Thring had played Herod to great acclaim in a 1951 production of Salome in Melbourne for his own Arrow Theatre company. Thring reprised the performance when he went to London in the mid ‘50s; reception was again overwhelmingly positive (the production briefly transferred to the West End), leading to Thring being cast in a Peter Brook production of Titus Andronicus with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh.
This, in turn, led to Thring enjoying a hugely successful career as a villain in various Hollywood epics (The Vikings, Ben Hur, El Cid, King of Kings – apparently, he rooted Jeffrey Hunter while making the latter, a tidbit I put in for sheer gossip).
Charles Laughton had played Herod in a 1953 Rita Hayworth-starring non-Wilde version of the Salome story, and Thring looked set to inherit Laughton’s mantle as chief Hollywood villain.
However, the Melbourne boy threw away what would have been a hugely lucrative career to return home, where he established himself as a key figure in the Melbourne theatre scene, particularly the Union Theatre Repertory Company (later the Melbourne Theatre Company).
Thring appeared in a number of early Australian television plays for the ABC, invariably stealing the show: Treason (1959), as a Nazi tracking the plot to assassinate Hitler; Light Me a Lucifer (1962), playing Satan who visits Sydney; Photo Finish (1965) as an author; The Heat’s On (1967), a comedy. He was a very busy guest star on shows such as Skippy. And then there was the TV version of Salome.
This was shot in Melbourne in late 1967, and broadcast the following year, with a running time of one hour. It was one of a four-part series of classical plays produced by ABC television on the theme of greed – the others were adaptations of Ben Jonson’s Volpone, and Chekov’s The Proposal and The Bear. This was reportedly the first time Salome had been adapted for television, which is pretty cool.
Thring reprised his performance as Herod and is magnificent, all booming voice and mischief, sucking in his gut, wearing an outrageous headdress, and acting up a storm. There really was no other Australian actor like him. Frederick Parslow makes a good fist of the fanatical, wiry Jokanaan, babbling away in his loin cloth, while Monica Maughan is strong as Herod’s wife, Herodias.
It was directed by Oscar Whitbread, who uses a steadicam-esque style that he did in his adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, moving the camera around and swopping in for close-ups on key moments.
The part of Salome is excellently played (and danced) by Buster Skeggs, who is probably best known for her extensive theatre work, both here and in Britain. I got in contact with Ms Skeggs via her son, actor Sam Haft (they’re a showbiz family – Sam’s dad is actor Linal Haft) and asked for her memories of Salome. She responded below:
“I was 21 years old and in Man of La Mancha at the Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, when I was asked to audition for Salome. I had to learn the last speech which was very long and quite difficult. But when I did the audition, I knew Oscar Whitbread really wanted me, as I was a trained dancer as well as a trained actress. David Goddard, the head of drama at ABC TV, had seen me in many musicals like Sweet Charity etc. and told Oscar that I was very good in those but surely, would not be able to handle Oscar Wilde’s blank verse. Oscar Whitbread very kindly sent the audition tapes to David Goddard without the names attached and David chose mine out of many. I couldn’t believe it!
“People didn’t accept triple threats in those days. You had to be either an actress, a singer or a dancer. Luckily, as my parents were both theatre people from the UK, I grew up being trained in all three.
“Frank and I got on like a house on fire right from the beginning. He was wonderful to me and he only ever gave me one note which was to say “niither” instead of “neeether”, which we had a habit of doing in Oz at the time. He once told me he wished I was a boy, which I took as being a great compliment from him. He also got me into the Melbourne Theatre Company which was another great compliment. We remained friends until his death. He even gave his approval of Linal Haft being my husband.
“A dear choreographer friend of mine called Joe Latona, whom I first worked with as a Tivoli Girl in Sydney, when I was 15, was my chosen choreographer for The Dance of the Seven Veils. It was quite risque for the time. But I was never naked, and Joe did a pretty good job for 1967. Trying to be sexy and strip while dancing in a play for ABC TV was pretty naughty. When the opera companies did Salome it was like Dance of the Seven Army Blankets.
“The costume designs were quite lovely and based on Aubrey Beardsley’s drawings.
“My one bit of bad luck was that Harold Holt decided to take a swim in the wrong place at the wrong time and, consequently, I could only do one take of the last speech, as they had to get the cameramen down to Portsea. The head on the tray was covered in chocolate sauce as it looked like blood. Oh well! Whatcha gonna do!!”
The ABC 1968 version of Salome is a beautiful, stimulating production, very theatrical, but with an excellent set (Trevor Ling was designer) and costumes (bar a few unfortunately fake beards). Unlike most Australian television plays based on foreign scripts, this production of Salome was important culturally, because the play was so crucial to Thring’s career, and Thring was so important to Australia. Immortalising his performance was reason alone to make Salome; the fact it was so well done is an added bonus.
The author thanks Sam Haft and Buster Skeggs for their assistance with this article.
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