Australian TV Plays: The White Carnation (1 May 1963)

Based on the 1953 play by RC Sheriff. That year the ABC also filmed The Long Sunset by Sheriff. Why?

Plot

John Greenwood says goodbye to the guests from he and his wife's Christmas Eve, but a gust of wind shuts the front door and leaves him locked out of his own house. He breaks a window to gain entry and finds the house ruined and deserted. A policeman questions him what he is doing in the house, all of whose inhabitants were killed by a V-1 flying bomb during a Christmas Eve party in 1944, but Greenwood indignantly insists that he is in his own house. A coroner and doctor are summoned and inform Greenwood that he was one of the inhabitants killed and that he has returned to the house as a ghost - and that is now 1951.

Greenwood is visited by Lydia Truscott, niece of the town clerk, who agrees to help him in his attempts at self-education and returning to the spirit-world. He also meets with a welcome from the local vicar Mr Pendlebury and his next door neighbour Mrs Carter, but also has to deal with the coroner and the Home Office, who are determined to move Greenwood out, knock the house down and build new flats on the site.

As the house's demolition begins, Greenwood finally vanishes and in a final scene re-runs his last Christmas Eve party, reconciling with his wife, whom during his haunting he had realised that he had emotionally ill-treated during his lifetime.

Cast

Michael Duffield as John Greenwood the ghost
Stewart Weller
Neville Thurgood
Roly Barlee
Barbara Brandon
Margaret Cruikshank
Brian Gilmar
Edward Hepple
Jane Oehr as Lydia Truscott
Alwyn Owen
Hugh Stewart
Leslie Wright
Felicity Young

Original play

The play premiered in 1953. Ralph Richardson starred.

A revival of the play was reviewed here by Michael Billington who said much of the play felt like padding.

Other adaptations

It was adapted for BBC radio in 1953. On TV it was an ITV Play of the Week in 1956.

Production

It was shot in Melbourne. Chris Muir directed. It went for 60 mins.

The set was designed by Kevin Bartlett.

Chris Muir says while filming it the set caught fire. They kept filming it while the studio hands put out the fire with extinguishers before the sprinklers went on. (Source is Day, Christopher (1981). "TV Drama". In Peter Beilby (ed.). Australian TV: The First 25 Years. Thomas Nelson. p. 138.)