Australian TV Plays: Traveller without Luggage (16 Aug 1961)

The first Australian TV play directed by Henri Safran who, along with Ken Hannam, would be one of the few Australian TV directors from this time who did much in features.

Premise

The Traveller has been in an asylum for 16 years suffering from loss of memory. He is without the memories that the normal person carries with him as "luggage".

On the advice of the asylum psychiatrist, he sets out to find his past and spends 24 hours with a family who believe he is their lost son.

He discovers he was a seducer, a wife-stealer, and generally vile character, and decides to ditch his old self, adopt a new personality and a new family.

Cast

Ric Hutton as the Traveller
Enid Lorimer as the Mother
Rhod Walker as the brother George
Patricia Kennedy as the maid
Clarissa Kaye as the sister in law Valerie
Gordon Glenwright as Butler
Brian Gilbert as Small Boy
Robert McDarra as psychiatrist

Original play

The play by Jean Anouilh debuted in 1937. There was a vogue for it in English speaking countries after World War Two.

Borrow a copy here.

Other adaptations

The play had been performed at the Sydney University Drama Society in June 1960.

It played on Australian radio in 1955.

There was another Australian radio version in 1956 with John Meillion.

It was filmed for Canadian TV in 1962.

It was filmed by the BBC in 1965 and recorded by BBC radio in 1953 and 1954.

Production

It was shot in Sydney. George F. Kerr did the adaptation.

Reception

The critic from The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that the production was marked by "competence rather than exciting path-finding... Desmonde Downing_'s sets rank with the best one has seen in A.B.C. productions; and George Kerr's adaptation of the play, while it reduced many interesting subsidiary threads, nevertheless fairly happily retained the essence of the writing."

The Woman's Weekly said it "gained distinction both from its cast and its production."