Australian writer (well New Zealand) - Bruce Stewart. Script on Australian subject. Performed in UK and American TV first.
Premise
It is set in the year 1840 on the convict settlement on Norfolk Island. On Sundays the chapel bell rings as a convict Jacky is flogged by an overseer for the crime of resting during work hours. They are watched by the commandant, Major Childs, along with Lt Barnaby and Dr McCombie, plus the overseer Quill, and three convicts: Clay, Silverwood and Stukely. Jacky passes out; Dr McCombie inspects the prisoner and suggests Jacky is only swooning or shamming to avoid punishment. Childs orders that the remainder of the sentence be carried out the following Sunday, over the objections of Graves, a clergyman.
We cross to the cells, where it is clear there's social differences between Clay, who was poor, and Silverwood, who came from a well off background in England. The prisoners are being fed less food because a detachment of troops is off the island and Childs wants to keep the prisoners weak. Quill, a sadistic overseer, makes Jacky beg for food. This behaviour infuriates Clay, who strangles Quill to death. Clay decides to escape. Silverwood agrees to help if Clay promises no more bloodshed. Jacky and Stuckely accompany them.
Major Childs is having a farewell dinner for his daughter Dora who is going to the mainland tomorrow, when the other troops arrive back. Other guests include Lt Barnaby and Reverend Graves, who is worried about the condition of the men.
Clay knocks out two soldiers, upsetting Silverwood. The convicts charge into Childs' house, shooting Barnaby. Clay insists the doctor look after Jacky first and says Dora can look after Barnaby. The doctor gets medicine to help Jacky but it is too late - the convict dies. This rouses Clay to fury; he says he will kill one hostage per hour unless his demands are met. Silverwood objects but Clay lashes him.
The doctor panics and says he knew Jacky shouldn't have been flogged but he told Childs what he wanted to hear. This is news to Childs, who starts to feel guilt. Clay demands to be taken to the boat. Childs refuses so Clay shoots the doctor dead. He orders Silverwood, who Clay no longer trusts, to join the hostages.
The soldiers realise there has been an uprising and begin to take action. Childs insists on refusing to help Clay, so Clay shoots Reverend Graves dead. Clay is about to shoot Dora dead when Barnaby attacks the convict, Silverwood assisting Barnaby. However Stuckley shoots Barnaby dead. This sends Stuckley completely insane and he charges outside, where he is shot dead by the soldiers.
Silverwood decides to take Dora to safety, daring Clay to shoot him. Clay cannot do it. Silverwood and Dora leave Clay and Childs alone. Childs acknowledges his role in driving men to their deaths through his naive belief in punishment. Childs gives Clay the key to the boatshed and encourages him to escape.
The soldiers are interrogating Silverwood and Dora when they hear the convicts have heard about the outbreak and are being mutinous. When Childs realises this he refuses to give Clay the key. Clay steals the key. Childs thinks Clay won't kill him because Childs stands for the good in the world however Clay shoots him dead.
Clay goes to the boatshed only to find the boat has been removed by the soldiers. He collapses on the floor, sobbing.
Cast
- Robert Peach as Major Childs, the widowed prison governor
- Syd Conabere as Clay, "a huge colonial" (according to the script) - in prison for killing a man in a fight in Port Phillip
- David Mitchell as Silverwood, "an Englishman with a sensitive face" - in prison for fraud; he feels as he deserves to be in prison
- Ron Finnell as Stuckley, "a half-crazy bent character of no definable origins"
- Mark Kelly as Jacky Prendergast
- James Dence as Quill, an evil overseer
- Carole Potter as Dora Childs, Major Childs' "attractive daughter"
- Keith Hudson as Reverend Graves
- Donald Crosby as Dr McCombie, an alcoholic
- Charles Sinclair as Lt Barnaby
- Kenneth Goodley as Sgt Davis
- Bill Bennett as Soldier 1
- orton Smith as Soldier 2
- Keith Dare as Corporal
- Peter Oliver as Bates
- Les Platt, Adrian Rawlins as soldiers
- Lewis Tegart, Aldwyn Owen as convicts
- Donald Sey as overseer
1960 British TV version
The play was filmed in Britain as the first episode of a new ATV series called Theatre 60.
The London Times praised "the style of production" by director Morahan "with its powerful claustrophobic use of close up and crowded medium shot to convey something of the atmosphere of an Australian convict colony in the 1840s". The critic felt the play "was not, perhaps, always quite so good as it looked, it was interesting enough - for its documentary value if no other."
The title came from an old song quoted in the play:
Ho ho, says God, for I'll make man,
I'll start him off on Monday
I'll finish him by Friday night
And then I'll sleep,so now take fright
If I ain't woke up by Saturday night
I'll let the devil make Sunday
1961 US TV Version
The episode was filmed in the US as part of the US Steel Hour. The cast included Dane Clark (Clay), Martyn Green (Childs), Brooke Hayward (Dora Childs) and Fritz Weaver (Silverwood).
The script was written by Joe Palmer who had also adapted Stewart's Shadow of a Pale Horse for American TV. The cast was all American.
It aired in January 1961.
Other versions
It was adapted for ABC radio in 1961. It aired in Melbourne in August.
It was adapted for British radio in 1961 by the BBC.
Syd Conabere, who plays Clay, had previously performed in that role in an adaptation of the play for ABC Radio in 1961.
Producer William Sterling said Stewart wrote a "marvelous emotional study in his play."
Sterling had directed Stewart's play Low Voice in Rama for ABC radio in 1961.
The production was shot in Melbourne. Rehearsals took place at St Silas Church Hall, Madden Street, Albert Park. There were later rehearsals at Christ Church Hall 14 Acland St St Kilda. There was a final dry run on Monday 19th Feb at Studio 31 Ripponlea with the entire ase. Camera rehearsal took place on 20th and 21st Feb..
It was transmitted 21 Feb at 8.30 in Melbourne and shown in Sydney on 14 March.
When a telerecording of the production was shown in Sydney, Darrell Miley noted “the lamentable technical quality of the first ten minutes of the play” adding “apart from those of us with some professional interest in it, I don’t image we have any viewers after the first few minutes” and demanding “a full-scale investigation”. (Memo from Darrell Miley, ‘“The Devil Makes Sunday”’ 15 Mar 1962 NAA: SP727/2, TV8/1/1 PT 5. See also Memo from Clement Semmler, ‘”The Devil Makes Sunday”’ 16 Mar 1962 NAA: SP727/2, TV8/1/1 PT 5.) Paul O’Loughlin denied there was any technical issue apart from “some almost imperceptible flashes at the beginning. (Memo from Paul O’Loughlin, ‘”The Devil Makes Sunday”’ 16 Mar 1962 NAA: SP727/2, TV8/1/1 PT 5)
Thoughts on script Exciting Desperate Hours style tale of a convict uprising on Norfolk Island in the 1840s which ends up with convicts taking the commandant and his daughter hostage. Tough, violent, fast paced - you can see why the Americans bought it. It's a shame this was never adapted into a feature film script (maybe it was but just not filmed... it's period but not super expensive.)Reception
The TV critic from the Sydney Morning Herald thought the production was "chiefly remarkable for the briskness of its violence" listing the "five deaths by shooting, one by strangulation and one by public flogging. Even a hardworking Elizabethan playwright of the most bloodthirsty kind would have thought this a respectable tally."
He added "Stewart's principal characters were merely mouthpieces for a set of ethical attitudes. Because they were so obviously pieces on a moralistic chessboard and because their dialogue dealt in words like good and evil without once making these seem more than black and white abstractions, their predicament was almost totally unmoving."
He also felt producer (director) William Sterling "was busy enough with his properties and cameras...but he seemed actually to have encouraged the actors playing the prison commandant and the chaplain to emphasise the intrinsic hollowness of their dialogue." However the performance of Sydney Conabere was praised.
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| SMH 15 March 1962 p 7 |
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| The Age Supplement 15 Feb 1962 p 5 |
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| The Age Supplement 15 Feb 1962 p 11 |
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| SMH 12 March 1962 p 17 |
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| The Age Supplement 15 Feb 1962 p 1 |
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| The Age 21 Feb 1962 p 19 |
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| SMH 12 March 1962 p 15 |
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| SMH 14 March 1962 p 15 |
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| The Age 21 Feb 1962 p 19 |
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| Review of US perf - Pittsburgh Post 27 Jan 1961 p 29 |
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| Article on US performances Pittsburgh Post 24 Jan 1961 p 33 |
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| Daily Herald Utah 23 Jan 1961 p 13 |
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| Daily News New York 25 Jan 1961 p 62 |
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| The Stage 4 August 1960 p 10 |
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| The Stage 11 August 1960 p 19 |
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| Script cover page |
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| Script p 2 |
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| Schedule |
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| US Newspaper |
Forgotten Australian Television Plays: The Devil Makes Sunday
by Stephen Vagg
January 10, 2022
Stephen Vagg’s series on forgotten Australian television plays looks at an Aussie story filmed in England and Hollywood before it made its way here: The Devil Makes Sunday (1962).
I like a lot of old Australian television plays, but I’m particularly fond of the genre pieces: thrillers, war stories, musicals, comedy-thrillers, courtroom dramas, that sort of thing. It’s a matter of personal taste, of course – there’s nothing wrong with a sensitive drama or slab of Ibsen, I’m just a more low-brow kind of guy.
Probably my favourite genre script out of any early Australian television play was Bruce Stewart’s The Devil Makes Sunday. I have to go off the script since this is another one of those plays that I haven’t seen. But I have read the script – it’s at the National Archives of Australia – and loved it, so I wanted to do a piece on it, especially as it was so successful.
Stewart (1925-2005) was a New Zealand actor and writer who, like so many of his countrymen working in showbusiness, emigrated to Australia seeking greater opportunities. After a number of years working in Sydney radio, Stewart decided to emigrate to London, again like so many of his countrymen (and Australians) working in showbusiness.
He had a long, solid career in England, ranking with Peter Yeldham, Michael Noonan, Sumner Locke Elliot, Morris West and Rex Rienits as among the most successful Antipodean expat writers of his era. (Sidebar: Like a weirdly large amount of writers around this time – Noonan, West, Thomas Keneally – Stewart once considered being a priest. He’s also not to be confused with another New Zealand writer called Bruce Stewart, a Maori.)
When Stewart was in London, he wrote a number of scripts set in Australia for British television and radio. These included Time of the Serpent, Moonfall, Shadow of a Pale Horse, Day of the Drongo, Day of the Galah, Jungle Juice, an adaptation of Ruth Park’s Harp of the South, and The Devil Makes Sunday. He also played the lead role in the Australian-set Lean Liberty and wrote on New Zealand subjects.
Shadow of a Pale Horse was Stewart’s breakthrough work as a television writer, so I might talk a little about that first.
It was set in 1860 in the New South Wales town of Cobar, and concerned a man called Jem, who is arrested for the murder of a young man. When the town is cut off due to floods, it’s decided to hold a trial in Cobar itself, and the father of the murdered youth is given the job of defending Jem while the dead youth’s employer is given the job of prosecuting him. The script was filmed by ITV in 1959 in a production starring Patrick McGoohan.
The acclaim was such that the script was later filmed for television in Canada, Australia and the US. The Canadian version starred Patrick MacNee and proved controversial when the sponsor pulled its support of the episode over violence. The Australian production was for the anthology series The General Motors Hour and starred Brian James – a contemporary review is here. The American one was an episode of US Steel Hour; it was rewritten by an American and directed by Jack Smight (Harper, Midway), starring Dan Duryea, Frank Lovejoy and Carroll O’Connor, which is totally cool. (American television shot the occasional Australian-set-and-written script eg. The Grey Nurse Said Nothing.)
Bruce Stewart wrote The Devil Makes Sunday not long after Shadow of a Pale Horse. Another violent colonial era drama, it takes place in 1840 on Norfolk Island, a convict settlement run by (the fictitious) Major Childs. A particularly brutal flogging, combined with the absence of troops, prompts a convict uprising led by Clay, a bitter prisoner serving a term for manslaughter, and including the posh Silverwood, the crazed Stukely and the near-dead Jacky. Childs strangles their overseer, knocks out two soldiers, then takes a house of hostages: Childs, his daughter Dora, the drunken Dr Barnaby and the Reverend Gray. Much bloodshed ensues as Clay tries to figure a way off the island.
In other words, it’s a siege story: The Petrified Forest/The Desperate Hours set in a convict settlement. That’s such a brilliant concept for a TV play: inherently tense and dramatic, self-contained, offering the opportunity to say something about the notion of punishment and Australian history (there were heaps of convict uprisings on Norfolk Island). And Stewart writes up to the quality of his idea: his characters are well delineated, the action moves swiftly, tension rises and, perhaps most of all, he doesn’t sell-out. He goes for it – by the end of the one hour running time, Clay (SPOILERS) has killed the overseer, the doctor, the reverend and Childs.
The Devil Makes Sunday doesn’t stuff around. While it has conventional moments (eg. the daughter, the “good” convict Silverwood), the characters of Clay and Childs are really fresh and strong; I especially like Childs, a weak man who thinks God is on his side. Incidentally, the title came from an old song quoted in the play:
Ho ho, says God, for I’ll make man,
I’ll start him off on Monday,
I’ll finish him by Friday night,
And then I’ll sleep, so now take fright,
If I ain’t woke up by Saturday night,
I’ll let the devil make Sunday.
The Devil Makes Sunday enjoyed a similar success to Shadow of a Pale Horse. It was filmed for British television first, being the premiere episode of a new ATV anthology series called Theatre 67. Like Shadow it also sold to the US Steel Hour where the all-American cast included Dane Clark (Clay), Martyn Green (Childs), Brooke Hayward (Dora Childs) and Fritz Weaver (Silverwood).
This was the television debut of Hayward, daughter of legendary agent-producer Leland Hayward and film star Margaret Sullavan; she was once married to Dennis Hopper and wrote a best-selling memoir about her family, Haywire.
Sydney Conabere
The script was rewritten by Joe Palmer who had also adapted Stewart’s Shadow of a Pale Horse for American TV, but like that, it was still set in Australia and the basic story remained the same.
The Devil Makes Sunday was adapted for radio in Australia and on the BBC, and the ABC filmed it for television in Melbourne in 1962. Sydney Conabere starred as Clay, a part he’d played on radio, and William Sterling directed, with Sterling’s wife and frequent collaborator, Carole Potter, playing Dora.
Critics complained about the violence – maybe this is why none of Stewart’s other scripts for British television set in Australia were filmed in Australia (Day of the Drongo, Jungle Juice). Just to recap – Bruce Stewart wrote more TV plays set in Australia for English television than Australian. Still, at least we did two of his best.
Part of the reason Australian television plays remain so little remembered is that none were turned into films. This is in sharp contrast with television plays from Canada (Zero Hour), Britain (Dial M for Murder) and the US (Marty, Twelve Angry Men). I get that there were barely any Australian features made in the 1960s, but there were a bunch in the 1970s onwards, many of which could have done with stronger source material. I guess it was cultural amnesia – if you didn’t see the play when it was on, chances are you wouldn’t again. It’s a shame; most Australian television plays didn’t suit big-screen treatment, but some were a natural for it, such as The Grey Nurse Says Nothing, Lola Montez, The Tower, Light me a Lucifer, and most of all The Devil Makes Sunday. It’s great that the ABC made it.
The author would like to thank Graham Shirley for his assistance with this article. All options are my own.
Main Photo: Carole Potter (Dora) and Robert Peach (Major Childs) in the 1962 production filmed by the ABC
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| TV Times Vic 15 Feb 1962 |
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