Based on a play by R.C. Sheriff.
Premise
The story of an aristocratic Roman family living in 410AD Britain, who discover the Emperor has ordered all troops to leave the island. The family decide to stay on, despite the threat of invading Saxons and the suspect loyalty of their Caledonian slaves. They are helped by the arrival of a mercenary warrior, Arthur, who helps teach them how to defend themselves, and offers a possible new future for the island of Britain.
The paterfamilias, Julian, is an old school Roman determined to cling to traditional ways; his wife Serena is a committed Christian; their son Otho dreams of being a Roman soldier; daughter Paula falls for one of Arthur’s knights (by the name of Gawain!); the Caledonian slaves just want to go home and do not how to treat their former masters.
While Arthur helps
the Romans fight off an initial Saxon attack, he has to head north for
the winter (where he will presumably turn in to the legendary King
Arthur); Otho and Paula decide to leave with him while Julian and Serena
elect to stay behind, only to be abandoned by their slaves; the final
scene has the elderly couple hiding out in the woods by their home,
facing probable death from re-invading Saxons
Cast
- Henry Gilbert as Julian Severus
- Lynne Murphy as Serena Severus
- John Faassen as Marcus
- Guy le Claire as Lugar
- Sandra Gleeson as Paula
- John Bell as Julian's son Otho
- James Condon as Arthur, leader of a band of Britons
- Tim Cohen as Gawaine
- Ronald Morse as Portius
- Richard Parry as Lucian
Original play
The play was first performed for radio on the BBC in 1955 then performed on stage in 1955.
A complete text of the play is here.
Other adaptations
It was adapted for British TV in 1958 on the BBC.
The play also broadcast on Australian radio in 1963.
Production
It was filmed in Sydney.
The designer was Douglas Smith.Noel Robinson did the adaptation, trimming it down to an hour. Big speeches were cut.
"It's not hard to see parallels with modern situations," said director Colin Dean. "Alaric's encroachment on Rome in the fifth century AD is not without its modern counterparts."
Lynne Murphy and Henry Gilbert previously played husband and wife in The Outcasts, John Bell had been in Ballad of One Gun.
It was the TV debut for Sandra Gleeson.
It was the last drama Colin Dean directed. What a loss. He does a good job. He mentions it very briefly in an audio interview here.
The music was done by Richard Connolly, who did music for Dean's earlier The Play of Daniel.
Dean told Graham Shirley he had "to work pretty hard" on one of the performances in this but didn't say who. He refers to it being a man who was still alive (the interview was in 2004). He says he called the man "wood". Was it James Condon?
He also recalled that the story was a "Roman version" of what was happening in Britain. He said the Roman villa was meticulously copied by Doug Smith from one in Kent which had been dug up recently even to extent of copying mosaic on the floor. He considered more in depth in its approach to character than most of the things he wrote.
Crew
Music by Richard Connolly. Technical producer - John Hicks. Designer - Douglas Smith. Producer Colin Dean. Noel Robinson - adapted. R.C. Sheriff - original play.
Reception
The critic from the Sydney Morning Herald wrote that "the gingerly stiffness of dialogue and manner that seems to overcome most dramatists and actors when they are playing at history was seldom absent from the" production. He felt that the characters in the original play "are in any case incorrigible cardboard, but Colin Dean's production, despite a few visual ingenuities, seemed to emphasise rather than minimise their creaking unreality. The Romans either intoned phrases of hollow nobility and stoicism or were querulous and fearful; their British allies in the fight against the encroaching Saxons merely slouched and growled. None of them was more than spasmodically interesting."
The critic felt Gilbert "seemed to be taking part in a very slow and stately pageant" while Condon was "conscientiously surly and thicktongued" while Bell and Faassen "were largely wasted in dull parts." The critix felt "the play would have seemed better if the performance had shown more evidence of the sort of rehearsal that allows actors to develop characterisations as well as merely learn lines and moves, but even with devoted attention it is not likely to have much more in its favour than the romance of its historical idea."[
The Age said Gilbert was "most convincing" and that the play "opened impressively" then "floundered with the Roman settlers left to their own devices" but "concluded with a compelling marshalling of dramatics."
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| SMH 27 Nov 1963 p 18 |
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| SMH TV Guide 18 Nov 1963 p4 |
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| The Age TV Guide 28 Nov 1963 p 2 |
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| The Age TV Guide 28 Nov 1963 |
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| SMH 28 Nov 1963 p 15 |
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| The Age TV Guide 12 Dec 1963 p 2 |
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| Vic TV Times |
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| Vic TV Times |
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| TV Times Dec 1963 |
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Filmink article
Forgotten Australian TV Plays: The Long Sunset
by Stephen Vagg
March 19, 2021
The latest in Stephen Vagg’s series on forgotten Australian TV plays looks at one with an early screen appearance by none other than John Bell, The Long Sunset (1963).
When you hear the words “Australian drama”, one doesn’t automatically think “Ancient Rome”. Yet in 1963, a Roman villa and surrounds was recreated in ABC’s Gore Hill studios, Sydney, for filming of the live TV play The Long Sunset.
This was based on a 1955 stage play by R.C. Sheriff, a British writer best known for his classic wartime drama Journey’s End and number of film scripts, notably The Dambusters. Sheriff was an amateur archeologist in his spare time, and The Long Sunset was a topic close to his heart: it told the story of an aristocratic Roman family living in 410AD Britain, who discover the Emperor has ordered all troops to leave the island. The family decide to stay on, despite the threat of invading Saxons and the suspect loyalty of their Caledonian slaves. They are helped by the arrival of a mercenary warrior, Arthur, who helps teach them how to defend themselves, and offers a possible new future for the island of Britain.
The Long Sunset has not entirely aged well: it feels like a (metaphorical) apologia for the British Empire in the era of decolonisation, with the Romans depicted as sympathetic upper class types who are well mannered and “always treat their slaves kindly”, while the Caledonians are simple, violent primitives, and the Saxons remorseless, unseen conquerors whose presence offers little other than destruction and death.
But the central situation is inherently dramatic: aristocratic members of a colonial Empire now in ruins, faced with the option of leaving a no-longer-Imperial outpost for a “home” they’ve never seen, or staying on to face an uncertain future surrounded by hostile neighbours. Sheriff ensures all the characters are distinct and have specific roles: the paterfamilias, Julian, is an old school Roman determined to cling to traditional ways; his wife Serena is a committed Christian; their son Otho dreams of being a Roman soldier; daughter Paula falls for one of Arthur’s knights (by the name of Gawain!); the Caledonian slaves just want to go home and do not how to treat their former masters.
And the ending is very powerful (SPOILERS): while Arthur helps the Romans fight off an initial Saxon attack, he has to head north for the winter (where he will presumably turn in to the legendary King Arthur); Otho and Paula decide to leave with him while Julian and Serena elect to stay behind, only to be abandoned by their slaves; the final scene has the elderly couple hiding out in the woods by their home, facing probable death from re-invading Saxons. (You can read a full copy of the play here, incidentally – https://archive.org/details/playsoftheyearvo017758mbp)
The Long Sunset was not a huge success for Sherriff, but had a bit of a life in repertory and was adapted for radio and British TV. (It originally premiered as a radio play.) I’m surprised no one ever turned it into a movie: the story is full of tension and intrigue, with a clear dramatic throughline, showy star parts, and refers to a number of offstage battle sequences that would have been exciting to dramatise on film. Indeed, the same time period, including a similar re-imagining of the source of the King Arthur legend, was used in the 2004 Jerry Bruckheimer adventure movie, King Arthur. Maybe the ending was too downbeat.
By the early 1960s, Sherriff had gone out of fashion as a playwright in England; like Terence Rattigan he was a victim (it seemed) of the preference for “angry young men” playwrights (something which made Sherriff quite bitter in his memoirs). However, Sherriff remained much admired at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, who adapted several of his works for local television, including Miss Mabel (1958), Journey’s End (which started filming in 1957, with John Meillon in a lead role, but mysteriously was never shown), The White Carnation (1963) and The Long Sunset (1963).
The Australian Long Sunset was directed by Colin Dean, the ABC’s go-to-guy for historical stories at the time, having made several mini series set in Australia’s past (Stormy Petrel, The Outcasts, The Patriots). The script adaptation was by Noel Robinson, who had to cut down the running time to 60 minutes, meaning that some key subplots were lost (notably those involving Otho and Paula) but she did a faithful job; the essence of the play remains.
I will nail my colours to the wall here: I don’t think that the ABC really had any business filming this play for Australian television; they would have been better off broadcasting the 1958 British BBC TV version of The Long Sunset and spending their drama budget instead on an Australian story. (This is not a knock on Sherriff, a writer I greatly admire: I feel this way about every foreign play filmed for Australian TV, including two other ABC dramas set in the days of the Roman Empire, Antony and Cleopatra (1959) and The Ides of March (1961).)
Having said that, I enjoyed the production a lot. The acting was excellent, particularly Henry Gilbert as Julian and Guy le Claire as Lugar, Julian’s Caledonian slave, who always looks like he wants to cut his master’s throat. It’s great fun to see Lynne Murphy as Serena and future stage legend John Bell, then at the beginning of his career, playing Otho (Bell never did much TV, but the same year as this, he also played Ned Kelly in a TV play called Ballad for One Gun).
Colin Dean might have reined in the performance of James Condon (who plays Arthur) a tad: Condon’s an excellent actor, but he was usually typecast as a solid citizen and I think he got a little overexcited playing a swashbuckling warrior here (his wig does not help). But overall, Dean’s direction is very good, with judicious use of close ups and smooth camera work, and he hits all the right emotional and suspense notes. Douglas Smith’s settings and costumes are impressive, as is Richard Connolly’s music.
It’s extremely watchable entertainment, John Bell fans will get a major kick out of it, and Australian dramatisations of Ancient Rome have definite novelty value. If you are interested in seeing it – access copies are available through the National Film and Sound Archive viewing centres.
The author thanks Simon Drake and Stephanie Carter of the NFSA for their assistance with researching this article.
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