The first locally written sci fi story for TV! And a early Australian TV play that sold to the US. The first Australian play on the space race.
Premise
At a rocket research station "somewhere in Australia", four men (two Americans, an Englishman and an Australian) are
training to become astronauts, and are preparing for the
first manned space launch from Australia, for which only one of the men will be
selected.
As the day for the launch draws closer it is decided to send up the Englishman, Peter Corbitt. His wife does not want him to go.
Scientists discover that one of the candidates used boot polish over his helmet to protect his eyes from the impact of the centrifuge. Scientists plead for postponement but the general wants to be first into space. He confronts the candidates asking them to swear on his honour. Corbitt's wife says he's been having nightmares so they think he did it.
It was decided to send an Australian. He dies in an explosion. A posthumous letter reveals that the Australian was the guilty one with the boot polish.
However when it turns out the choice may be unwise for medical reasons, it is decided to send an Australian. The Englishman's wife is frightened to the point of hysteria while the Australia's wife is supportive.
Cast- Alan Hopgood as Dave Armstrong, the Australian astronaut
- David Mitchell as Len Cassidy - Mitchell had previously only been seen in school telecasts
- Mark Kelly as Jeff Burrows
- Tony Brown as Flight Lieutenant Peter Corbitt, the English astronaut
- Keith Eden as Dr. Vaughan
- Kurt Ludescher as a German scientist - Ludescher was from Vienna
- Kendrick Hudson as a U.S. Air Force general
- Marie Redshaw as Jill Corbitt, Peter's wife
- Anne Harvey as Del Armstrong, Dave's wife - Harvey was usually associated with revue
- Collins Hilton as a steward - Hilton had appeared in On the Beach
Production
Don Houghton was an English writer based on Sydney. He was born in Paris, wrote for the BBC and then moved to Sydney where he wrote radio serials, short stories and novels. This was his first TV play according to the TV Times. He helped set up the Writers Guild in 1962 along with writers such as Richard Lane and Kay Keavney. He eventually moved to England in the 1960s sick of the lack of opportunities for writers in Australia and enjoyed a successful career.
He was prompted to write the drama after the announcement of the Mercury Seven in April 1959.
Its original title was There is No Triumph. It was accepted by the ABC (via Rex Rienits) in November 1959.
Houghton said "For the sake of the play I hope any attempt to put a man
in space will not be made before May 18," when the show was being
broadcast.
He wrote the play in late 1959 and was worried "that my play will
become a piece of history first -not a projection of the future as it is
now."
He told the TV Times that "I am not a technician so in writing this play I concentrated on the human aspects involved. Nevertheless I have udnergone some pretty intensive research so that the technical details will be accurate."
The script was bought by the Canadian Broadcasting Commission.
Houghton said the drama was not science fiction, but rather
highlighted the short step ahead of what was actually happening with
space exploration. The play posed the question, "what sort of man is an
astronaut?"
It was one of the ten Australian plays the ABC put on in 1960.
Exterior filming took place at Laverton with the co operation of the RAAF. They also provided pressure gravity suits while the Navy and Army assisted with uniforms and technical advice.
Director Chris Muir tried to find lesser known actors for the production, aware of criticism of "the same old faces".
Broadcast During the broadcast on 18 May a conversation between two ABC
employees was picked up accidentally; it was about the marriage between
Princess Margaret. The ABC said the wrong switch was turned on saying
it was "a human error for which the ABC offers its apology for any
inconvenience."
Reception
TV Times thought "the plot lacked the element of novelty which is an essential of true science fiction" and "also lacked most of the elements necessary for a good straight drama. Only three of the characters came alive." The acting and directing were criticised along with the acting.
TV Week felt "it was not as dramatic as it was topical"... with "flat and lifeless characters".
Listener In said it was not plausible but held tension.
Other adaptations
The play was adapted for Australian radio in 1961. This was repeated in 1963.
An overseas sale
The ABC report for 1960-61 said this and Outpost sold to CBS. It also sold Scent of Fear.
The Astronauts definitely screened on some US channels as part of "international hour" in July 1961.
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The Stage 25 July 1963
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TV week 26 May 1960
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Forgotten Australian TV plays: The Astronauts
by Stephen Vagg
July 11, 2021
The latest in Stephen Vagg’s series on forgotten Australian TV plays looks at a Melbourne-shot sci-fi take on the space race from 1960, The Astronauts.
Writers of sci-fi TV have faced an uphill battle in Australia – it is a genre that has never enjoyed the prominence of, say, cop/medical/family dramas. Still, science fiction has carved out its own niche here, starting with The Astronauts, the first (to my knowledge) locally written Australian sci-fi drama for the small screen.
The author was Don Houghton, an Englishman who had moved to Australia and was working in radio. He was inspired to write The Astronauts by the announcement of the Mercury Seven in 1959 – the group of seven astronauts selected to fly spacecraft for Project Mercury, the first proper American astronauts (a tale so memorably immortalised in The Right Stuff… and you could argue The Astronauts is Australia’s Right Stuff only, well, fictitious).
The plot concerns a space program based at the Commonwealth of Australia Rocket Research. It is run by a German scientist (Kurt Ludescher), who is supervising four candidates in line to be the first man into space: an Englishman (Tony Brown), Australian (Alan Hopgood) and two Americans (David Mitchell, Mark Kelly). One of the men has a secret.
I have got to come clean here – I’ve only been able to access the first 30 minutes of this hour-long drama. What I saw I enjoyed enormously, though: I mean, the concept of an Australian space program is instantly likeable, to me at any rate, and the story was progressing logically, with strong stakes and interesting characters. When the men sit around joking, trying not to talk about death, it even had slight Only Angels Have Wings vibes.
The Astronaut was broadcast live from the ABC’s studios at Ripponlea on 18 May. Early in the running time, a conversation in a neighbouring studio between two ABC employees about the recent marriage of Princess Margaret was picked up accidentally and broadcast to the viewers. A spokesman for the ABC explained the following day that the wrong switch was turned on and said that it was “a human error for which the ABC offers its apology for any inconvenience.” These sorts of mistakes only happened rarely in Australian live drama – The Astronauts was probably the most notorious. Still, getting busted talking about the then-most-scandalous royal was pretty cool.
Also cool was the fact that The Astronauts was later purchased for screening in the USA on the CBS network as part of the International Hour, which also showed the Melbourne-shot TV plays Scent of Fear and Outpost. (I’m assuming they’d fixed up the sound issue by then).
Don Houghton’s subsequent credits for Australian television were few, despite (because?) of the key role he played in helping establish the Australian Writers’ Guild; annoyed, he moved to England where he enjoyed great success working on shows such as Emergency Ward Ten and Doctor Who, plus writing several early 1970s movies for Hammer (Dracula 1972AD, Shatter, etc); he also married actor Pik-Sen Lim, a Malaysian actor who worked extensively on British television.
The ABC went on to make several other sci-fi television plays in the 1960s, only for whatever reason all of them were from overseas scripts (Ray Rigby’s The End Begins, Nigel Kneale’s The Road, Anthony Church and Marielaine Double’s Campaign for One). There were a fair few locally written sci-fi TV series though, such as Wandjina, The Stranger, Phoenix Five, The Interpretaris, and Vega 4. This established a pattern in the Australian industry when it came to sci-fi… (namely, an attitude of “for kids yes, for adults no”), although the attitude seems to be changing with shows such as Glitch and Bloom. Still, in 1960 the ABC really did make a grown-up space race drama set in Australia and shot in Melbourne: The Astronauts.
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