Ep 3 of Australian plays.
Premise
A comic account of Governor Phillips's 1788 landing in Australia. It is set in the modern day on the mythical island of Extrania, where Lieut. Tilley has been sent to establish a penal colony.
Tilly has to deal with corrupt naval officers, Godwin and Grunch, as well as convicts. He forms a relationship with a female convict, Miss.
Tilly winds up declaring independence. They discover plutonium.
Cast
- Donald MacDonald as Lt Tilly
- Pat Bishop as Miss... er
- Michael Boddy as Kosslin
- Ric Hutton as Godwin
- Barry Lovett as Grunch
- Tom Farley as PM
- Noel Ferrier as Stuckey
- Ronald Golding as Milibanks
- Jack Allan as Mr Makespeace
- Ruth Cracknell as Mrs Makepeace
- Sheila Kennelly, Frank Lloyd, John Gray and Robert Bruning as convicts
- Laurier Lange, Edward Howell, Anthony Bazell and Ron Roberts as cabinet
- Reg Collins as governor
- Rona McLeod, Margaret Shepherd, David Cameron, Terence Bader, Brendan Lunney as hippies
- Douglas Hall as Johnson
- Marion Johns as Lady
- Eve Wynne as Landlady
- Colonel Crint and His Regiment of Foot and Mouth Deserters as band.
Production
Before the production aired, Pat Flower's script won the 1967 Dame Mary Gilmore Medal awarded in March 1968.
Judges called it "a superbly funny comment with a strong Australian history allegory on present attitudes to domestic and foreign affairs. A rare dramatic event — a satirical script. It has style in the best sense of the word. It hides unexpected social comment beneath well-constructed fun. The humour is visual as well as verbal, the TV medium is an integral part of its being."
It was the first self contained drama by the ABC to be shot entirely on film with no videotaped segments. More than thirty people were in the cast and above-the-line costs were estimated to be somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000.
Croyston talked about it with Graham Shirley in 2004. He was proud of it being the first long drama all shot on film - said John Cameron wrongly claimed this was another production that happened under Cameron. He said there was a bit of ad libbing on the set. He also said it was written as a film so it had to be done as a film.
Crew
Lighting cameraman - Dennis Lankford. Camera operator - Edward Rayment. Sound - Sid Butterworth. Editor - John Wain. Continuity - Brenda Levy. Designer - Jack Montgomery. Wardrobe - Rosalind Wood. Make up - Deryk de Niese. Assistant director - David Hurst. Unit manager - Bryan Bruty. Production assistant - Russell Webb. Staging assistant - Ken Richardson. Producer and director - John Croyston.
Reception
The Sydney Morning Herald said "never have so many done to much for so little. It was a laboured hour of TV. There is only one word for it. Ouch."
The same paper later called the production one of the worst shows of 1969.
The play has been re-appraised in later years. Academic Susan Lever wrote:
On my first viewing I was appalled by the slow pace and sheer crudity of this television offering. Its low budget is evident in every aspect, and every actor (with the exception of Ruth Cracknell and possibly Donald McDonald) milk every line for any possibility of humour. With further viewings, though, I find it clever and experimental—at least, it’s evidence that there was more than ‘naturalism’ on television in the early decades. At the same time, there’s not a trace of that ‘it could be you’ identification with the audience; nor any claims for documentary accuracy whatever... It’s clearly based in the tradition of satirical revue, but it is more sustained and serious than the sketch comedies that now constitute television’s version of that tradition.
The Stage said " unbelievingly winner of a 1968 award for television drama was a feeble attempt on a Peter Sellers-type theme, which in script form probably sug gested much comedy potential. In execution hardly anything could have been more ponde rously unfunny and, despite utilising the talents of a great number of top flight Australian artists, it sagged badly through out. Its authoress, Pat Flower, also provided the script for a very different kind of play. "
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| The Stage 24 Dec 1969 |
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| The Age TV Guide 23 Oct 1969 p 8 | |
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| Governors and Convicts a Television Staple |
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| The Bulletin 15 Feb 1969 p 42 |
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| Sydney Tribune 7 Feb 1968 p 8 |
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| SMH 16 Nov 1969 p 125 |
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| SMH TV Guide 10 Nov 1969 |
Forgotten Australian TV Plays: Seven Comedies from the 1960s
by Stephen Vagg
September 19, 2021
Stephen Vagg’s series on forgotten Australian television plays looks at seven different comedies from the late 1960s: How Do You Spell Matrimony?, Face at the Clubhouse Door, The Brass Guitar, The Proposal, The Bear, A Phoenix Too Frequent and Tilley Landed On Our Shores.
As any comedian knows, comedy goes in and out of fashion on Australian television. Sketch shows are in, then they’re out. Sitcoms are hot, then they’re not. They can’t get enough stand-up, then they don’t want any. The only network you can rely on is the ABC and they have limited funds and varying enthusiasms.
During the late 1960s, the national broadcaster was more open to comedy than it had been earlier in the decade. There was a mini-boom of comedy on Australian television in those years, due, I would argue, to the immense and immediate success of two programs on the commercial stations: The Mavis Bramston Show and My Name’s McGooley, What’s Yours? The ABC – more influenced by the commercials than it cared to admit – decided that it should get in on the hyucks. I have written about other comedies in previous pieces – The Man Who Saw It, The Lace Counter, The Sweet Sad Story of Elmo and Me. This essay looks at seven different ABC TV plays from the second half of the 1960s. (I’ll admit it – I don’t quite have enough to talk about each play individually but anyways, here we go) ...
Tilley Landed on Our Shores (1969)
This was an odd duck. It was written by Pat Flower, who was best known for her thrillers like The Tape Recorder, but also did a lot of comedy, like The Lace Counter.
Tilley is a satire of the European settlement of Sydney, set in the modern day, with parallels for real life events: there are stand-ins for Governor Phillip, Aboriginal people, convicts, the Chinese, troublesome officers and the like.
Flower’s script won the 1967 Dame Mary Gilmore Medal awarded in March 1968. Judges called it “a superbly funny comment with a strong Australian history allegory on present attitudes to domestic and foreign affairs. A rare dramatic event — a satirical script. It has style in the best sense of the word. It hides unexpected social comment beneath well-constructed fun. The humour is visual as well as verbal, the TV medium is an integral part of its being.”
It was filmed as part of Australian Plays, an anthology series of, you guessed it, Australian plays, that ran on the ABC from 1969 to 1970. The episode was entirely shot on film – the first time Australian TV had done a whole hour on film, I believe – with a strong cast including Pat Bishop, Ruth Cracknell, Noel Ferrier and Ric Hutton.
The actual production of Tilley Landed on Our Shores was eviscerated critically. I think it might have been one of those scripts that read well but doesn’t film well (such things are not uncommon) Susan Lever wrote about it in an article about convicts on television here. Some of it was funny, but a simple joke is perhaps dragged on for far too long. Ruth Cracknell is typically superb. John Croyston directed.
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