The Square Ring (20 April 1960)

 Adaptation of a play by an Australian writer Ralph Peterson which had been filmed in England.

Premise

The story of six fighters who wait for their turn in the ring one night at a boxing ring in England. Ex champ Docker Starkie is trying to make a comeback; Eddie Burke is a new boy on the way up; Harry Coombers is a certain future champion; Rick Martell is planning on throwing a fight; Sailor Johnson is a broken-down has-been; Rawlings likes to read books before a fight.

Mixing with them all is the dressing room attendant Danny Felton who has seen fighters come and go and understand them. There is also associated characters like a stadium manager. 

Docker ends up dying after a fight in the ring.

Cast

• Don Barkham as Eddie Burke
• Guy Doleman as Harry Coombes
• Jack Fegan as Docker Starkie
• Ken Goodlet as Sailor Johnson
• Joe Jenkins as Rowdie Rawling
• Owen Weingott as Rick Martell
• Edward Hepple as Danny Felton, the handler
• Al Thomas as the stadium manager
• Ben Gabriel as Joe
• Louis Wishart as stadium doctor
• Max Osbiston as Watty
• John Unicomb as Ford

Original play

Peterson wrote an Australian radio play about boxing, Come Out Fighting which aired in 1950.

Peterson moved to London in 1951 and wrote a stage version, The Square Ring, over three months. He wrote the play over a three-month period. He sent the play to Anthony Quayle, who he had met in Sydney when Quayle had toured Australia with the Stratford Players (Quayle had appeared in a radio play written by Peterson about aboriginal issues, The Problem of Johnny Flourcake). Quayle was going to put it on himself but then accepted another theatrical tour of Australia so he passed it to the Tennents, who agreed to produce it. Apparently an early working title was The Gladiators.

After several weeks of rehearsal, the play premiered in Brighton in September 1952 with a mostly male cast but one female, the wife of the central character. Peterson said "the play never seemed to jell. It got wacky and the girl seemed to be distracting attention from the main story." So he made it an all male story. 

He also changed it by doing "away with the normal compression of time. The running time of the play is exactly the period it would take a boxer to arrive in his dressing-room, to wait for his bout, and to complete his fight. It goes on without a break."

Peterson said "The play's only philosophy is: What makes men fight? The answer is simply-money."

The play debuted in London in October 1952 and was acclaimed. It was the first play by an Australian to appear in London since Hugh Hastings' Seagulls Over Sorrento which was also filmed for TV that year.

The play was produced in Melbourne in 1953 with a cast including Frank Thring. 

1953 Feature Film

The play was turned into a 1953 British film. This added some female roles. I've seen the film it is very entertaining - an Ealing Studios movie from Basil Dearden. The film was shown on Oz TV in 1964.

1954 Novel

Peterson adapted the play into a novel which was published in 1954. 

1959 British TV Version 

The play was adapted for British TV in 1959 with Sean Connery, Alan Bates and George Baker.

Radio Version

The play would be adapted for Australia radio in 1956, 1961 and 1965 and 1969.

My thoughts on the 1953 movie

 Little known Ealing movie which I was keen to see because it was based on a play by an Aussie, Ralph Petersen which was filmed for Australian TV in 1960. It tells a series of stories about boxers that take place over one night - there are spivs, gangsters, molls, announcers.

It's well done: Ealing enjoyed this sort of semi documentary male focused entertainment. There's lots of familiar faces like Sid James (announcer) and Sidney Telfer (betting man); Joan Collins pops up as a girlfriend threatened by a gangster, Kay Kendall is a shady lady who tempts boxer Robert Beatty into a fight he shouldn't do.

I'm not wild about Beatty but he has the best part - his death packs a wallop, Jack Warner is a kindly trainer, Roland Lewis impresses in a character part as a nervous boxer (he was a character actor trapped in a leading man's body, Lewis), Bill Travers is in it as well as people like Maxwell Reed.

There's always something happening and it has pleasing atmosphere. I wonder how faithful it was to the original play?

Production

This would have been one of the ten plays by Australian writers that the ABC did in 1960. It had a prestigious lineage.

From memos below it seems Ralph Petersen was in discussion with Ray Menmuir at GTV9 to do it but "when I heard Ray had left I told my agent to halt negotiations as I was anything but certain of the production people taking over from Ray."

Sydney boxing trainer Ern McQuillan was the technical advisor for the story.  Ray Menmuir directed. Menmuir said "we make consistent use of a crowded frame, with many close ups. It is no use standing off from the action and using gentle camera movements in a play of this kind. We hope viewers will be able to appreciate something of the dressing room atmosphere as a result."

Joe Jenkins, who appeared often on television as a dancer, makes his acting debut as Rowdie Rawlings. He would later go on to appear in several Australian TV dramas.

It was filmed on 20 April 1960 at Studio 21 in Gore Hill.

Peterson was asked by Graham Shirley about being asked to write for Australian TV. “No. I kept well out of it. I looked at it and I didn’t like it. The stuff I’d seen I didn’t like it. Because I’d studied TV in London in the 1950s... “ He saw problems of early British TV. “Australia, they weren’t inventive, they seemed to strike a dead spot. It was easier to run a film that they brought from America. Saved all that hassle, getting directors and actors. Frank Packer “do you intend showing Australian TV?” “Not if I can help it.” “I had no interest in writing for TV until they got better then I decided to give it a go.”  

Crew

Producer - Ray Menmuir, script assistant - Catherine Garland, designer - Jack Montgomery, technical producer - John Garton.

My thoughts on the script

 You can see why this worked so well on stage - it's a look at one night at a boxing ring, all set in the change room in real time, as various people go out to fight. There's a trainer, and manager, and various boxers: an amateur who's gone pro, a punch drunk veteran, another veteran making a comeback, a boxer throwing a fight.

It's very well done - lots of characters but they are individual, and carefully delineated. It builds to the powerful emotion of the death of Docker.

I wonder how it played on TV? The temptation must have been there to open it up.

Shame Petersen, who was Aussie, couldn't have adapted it to be set in Australia.

Broadcast

It showed in Melbourne on  10 August.

Reception

Listener In called it "turgid 90 minute boxing expose" that "took so long over its introductions and the cast spoke at first in such broad Culcotta Australianese that many viewers must have switched off in the first half hour. This was a pity because the drama eventually took shape and at least punched its message even if there were no physical punches to break the monotony of the dressing room set.".

Frank Thring of TV Week said "why the ABC should have devoted its energies and its best producer, Ray Menmuir, to the tiresome exploration of what goes on in the minds of half a dozen pugs if they have any minds I just can't explain.Maybe the economy of the set was the attraction."

SMH 18 April 1960 p 4

SMH TV Guide 18 April 1960 p1

Listener In

   

SMH 18 April 1960 p 22

NAA

 

ABC weeklyVol. 17 No. 14 (2 April 1955)

A Play Goes Into Production

Australian playwright RALPH PETERSON wrote a successful play, The Square Ring, while he was living in London. Back in Australia he describes the great strain on author, director and cast, leading up to the opening night.

THE standard London theatre contract clearly states that the author shall be consulted in all matters pertaining to director, cast, set de- signer, publicity, cos- tumes and that the author reserves the right to exercise certain powers in the choice of these matters. The contract also states that the author shall be obliged to attend auditions, rehearsals and tryouts. In my case the director and I were sent away by the production firm to the seaside town of Weston- Super-Mare, a small re- sort on the Bristol Chan- nel. It was an enjoyable week made even better by a lingering summer. “Upon our return to London another week was spent in consultation with the set designer. And this is where the work of rewriting com- menced. My idea of how the set should look was not entirely practical. Many original ideas had to be discarded and sub- sequent rewriting had to be done to compromise with my original idea and what was practical. And after a week or so of con- tinual discussion these difficulties were eventu- ally overcome. By this time casting had begun. That took another week. TVOW began rehearsals. ; The normal rehearsal time for a London show before its tryout is about Brisbane pianist CLYDE COLLINS , who presents A Handful of Keys at 2-15 p.m. on Sunday, April 3. three weeks. And it was three weeks of constant rewrite, tailoring each part as the rehearsals progressed. Some actors could not meet the de- mands made by the script, others developed beyond the script range, therefore it was a mat- ter of compromise again, cutting down on one character and expanding upon another. Eventually rehearsals finished, the show, was ready for the road, open- ing at the try-out town of Brighton. Knowing they are guinea - pig audiences, the Brighton theatregoers have devel- oped a most sophisticated attitude to new plays. The two daily papers are quite competent regard- ing criticism. So when the curtain rose on the first night, after a ragged dress re- hearsal which had lasted all day, it was a nervous cast which played on the stage and a terrified playwright who sat in the lower gallery trying to judge the whole objec- tively and take notes at the same time. After what seemed all of three years the curtain even- tually came down on the performance. Deafening cheers? Well hardly, but seven curtains and good comment. IHAD always imagined that after a first night, even on the road, the entire company in- dulged in a slight orgy in the star’s dressing room drinking champagne from the leading lady’s slipper or anything else handy. I’m afraid another illus- ion had to go. It was back to the hotel, dinner which we had missed owing to rehearsals and then, of all things, re- writing. The notes which the director, producer, stage manager and myselt naa ■mde were compared, talked about and remed- ies suggested. By that time it was 2 o clock, a everyone went to oeci with the exception °l myself, who went over line until the grey dawn filtered into my suite. By breakfast time I had fin- ished and despatched the material to the typist for copies to be ready by 11 o’clock to start rehearsals. Naturally, I had to attend the rehearsal. Polishing and adding and trying out new pieces of business went on for the entire week, until it was thought that we now had a successful show. I was beginning to doubt it and wondering if it had been all worth it. I had lost weight, my dog didn’t recognise me when I came home and I felt as if I didn’t really care what happened, or what the critics said. But, of course, it was worth it.

The Age 10 Aug 1960

Forgotten Australian TV Plays: The Square Ring and Night of the Ding Dong
by Stephen Vagg
January 3, 2022
Stephen Vagg’s series on forgotten Australian TV plays takes a look at two by Adelaide writer Ralph Peterson, The Square Ring and Night of the Ding-Dong.

Copies of most early Australian television plays no longer exist – particularly those pre-1962. This limits the ability to discuss them, which is frustrating since so many are culturally important: like, say, The Sub-Editors’ Room (1957), the first locally written TV play ever broadcast on Australian TV, or Lola Montez (1962), the small screen version of the Australian musical.

One never knows when a copy is going to pop up of course, but if that isn’t an option, the historian is forced to take alternative action. Fortunately, there are other sources: contemporary reviews, scripts at the National Archives of Australia, interviews at the National Film and Sound Archive, contracts, original source material and so on.

Today, I’d like to look at two television plays, neither of which I have actually seen, but for both of which I’ve managed to collect a fair amount of information. These are The Square Ring and Night of the Ding Dong, both written by Ralph Peterson (1921-1996).

Peterson is one of those Australian writers who should be better remembered than he is, having contributed to several cultural classics. First was the hugely popular radio comedy series Yes, What? (1937-41), which Peterson starred in and helped write; this show, about the antics of teachers and students at a school, was so beloved that “best of” tapes of it were released years later, and my father (a big fan) forced me to listen to them. (Side note: why did they never adapt Yes, What? into a TV series? It would have seemed a natural.) Second was My Name‘s McGooley What’s Yours? (1966-68), the first hugely popular Australian sitcom; Peterson wrote most of the episodes.

They were just chapters in a long career. Peterson grew up in Adelaide, starting in the business as a child actor for radio. After war service, he returned to that medium as an actor and writer, also doing some work on stage (he was in the cast of an early production of Rusty Bugles). He wrote a radio feature (semi-documentary) called The Problem of Johnny Flourcake (1950), which impressed its star, visiting British actor Anthony Quayle, who encouraged Peterson to try his luck in the UK.

The young man went there in 1950 along with his wife, actor Betty Lucas, and wound up writing for Tony Hancock and Benny Hill, among others. Peterson would go back and forth between the UK and Australia over the next fifteen years, his credits during this period including episodes of Whiplash!, the Australian film Three in One (1957), and The Square Ring and Night of the Ding Dong.
The Square Ring (1960)

The Square Ring began life as a boxing-orientated Australian radio serial by Peterson, Come Out Fighting (1950). When in England, he used that material as the basis of a stage play, which takes place in real time over the course of one evening in the change room of a British boxing stadium. We meet various boxers before they go out to fight and then when they come back, including ex-champ Docker Starkie, who is trying to make a comeback; Eddie Burke, a new boy on the way up; Harry Coombes, a future champion; Rick Martell, who is planning on throwing a fight; Sailor Johnson, a broken-down has-been; and Rowdie Rawlings, who likes to read books before a fight. In the shocking climax (SPOILERS), Docker gets beaten so badly he dies in the dressing room.

Peterson’s play debuted in England in 1952 and was a critical and commercial success. Film rights were bought by Ealing Studios who turned it into a 1953 film directed by Basil Dearden starring Jack Warden and Robert Beatty.

;

While the play had an all-male cast, the film included some female characters, played by Kay Kendall and Joan Collins among others. It’s a pretty good movie, not one of Dearden’s most famous, but solid drama with strong actors and atmosphere, and a gut-wrenching finale.

The play was filmed for British TV in 1959 with Sean Connery, Alan Bates and George Baker – how’s that for a cast? It was done on various Australian stages – Frank Thring’s company did a production in 1953 – and adapted for British and Australian radio, as well as into a novel.

The Square Ring was also adapted for Australian TV by the ABC in 1960; according to Peterson’s papers at the State Library of NSW, the national broadcaster paid him a hundred pounds for the rights. I’ve read the script (available at the National Archives of Australia) and it seems to have been a faithful version of the play, with the same (all-male) characters, structure and ending. I wish Peterson had set it in Australia, but the drama remains very potent.

The cast was extremely good for the time, including Jack Fegan, later of Homicide (as Docker), Guy Doleman (Harry Coombes), Don Barkham (Eddie Burke), Ken Goodlet (Sailor Johnson), black American dancer Joe Jenkins (in his drama debut) (Rowdie Rawling), Owen Weingott (Rick Martell) and Edward Hepple (Danny Felton, the handler). Sydney boxing trainer Ern McQuillan was the technical advisor and Ray Menmuir, probably Australian TV’s best director, was in charge behind the camera. (Peterson insisted that Menmuir be the one who directed.)

No copy exists, but with that cast, director and script, I cannot imagine this was anything less than excellent. The Square Ring has disappeared from cultural memory now – even film buffs are not likely to be aware it was written by an Australian. But it still holds up, on paper at any rate...
...
Peterson returned to Australia permanently in the mid ‘60s, where he had his greatest success with McGooley and its sequel Rita and Wally (1968). For all of his career, Peterson alternated between TV, film, theatre and books, finding the going harder towards the end of his life – his papers at the State Library of NSW are full of rejections from publishers in the 1990s, proving that in the arts you can never be too old or successful to be ignored.

Ralph Peterson’s career was at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s – which was also the peak time TV executives would whine that “there are no good writers in Australia”. He disproved that time and time again, two of his finest exhibits being The Square Ring and Night of the Ding Dong. Not that I’ve ever seen them!
The author would like to thank Graham Shirley and the staff at the State Library of NSW for their assistance with researching this piece. All opinions are my own.

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Birmingham Mail 3 Jun 1959