AustLit

'The scene is laid in a small village on the coast of Southern Queensland. The theme of the play is the conflict between a lonely mother, who has lost her husband and son at sea, and her daughter, who wants to break away from her mother's influence and make her own life. Throughout the play, always in the background, is heard the sea.'

Source:

'The Jottings of a Lady about Town', Sunday Times, 5 November 1939, p.21.

According to Dollee, the play involves a young man stabbing another with a garden fork to prevent him prostituting his girlfriend.

'Author Ru Pullan has tried to present aspects of Australian character in the setting of Rabaul, about a year after the end of the war.

'His theme is the conflict of mateship and impressive individualism, both tested in the scavanging [sic] atmosphere of war salvage.

[...]

'It centres on the discovery of money during the war buried on an island by Curly , spring-heeled tough, and Scobie, his crippled mate.'

Source:

'New Australian Play in Sydney Undistinguished', The Age, 4 September 1958, p.2.

Radio play about the death of Socrates.

According to contemporary news reports, the radio play 'took for its subject the love of King David for his son Absolom.'

The same reporter noted that 'Research revealed that the story was taken straight from the Biblical text, so that no flights of imagination were necessary and the author had only to concentrate on the dialogue. Even a great deal of this was provided by the Book of Samuel.'

(See 'The Bright Side of Concerts' under Works About.)

'The play is about a diverse group of friends who go camping together every Christmas/New Year on Stradbroke Island. However, this year, the Bicentennial year, things go riotously out of kilter : it begins to rain and doesn't let up for days! The creek rises and cuts them off from civilisation ... the holiday now becomes a struggle for survival!

Friendships are strained, belongings are soggy, food becomes scarce. Relationships are stripped to the bone! The vigorous games of 'Bastard Ball' are replaced by the dividing up of the last sardine and the spelling out of S.O.S on the beach in XXXX empties!

The play is about migration within Australia—the annual Christmas trek. It's about playing games and having fun. It's about relationships that extend beyond family, and about the strain on those bonds when the food runs out!' Source: www.theatreworks.org.au/ (Sighted 08/10/2010).

Contemporary newspaper reports indicated that Leitch 'made the necessary alterations in the plot so as to preserve almost every dramatic situation it contains, and he has preserved most of the interesting scenes and even the dialogue of the original story', but he did switch the conclusion so as to bring his work to a happy ending.

See Brisbane Courier article below.

Little is known about the plot of this play, which pre-dated Dann's first big success (the prize-winning In Beauty It Is Finished) by six years. Along with a three-act farce called Family Failings, it is Dann's earliest work.

Little is known about the plot of this play, which pre-dated Dann's first big success (the prize-winning In Beauty It Is Finished) by six years. Along with a one-act comedy called Odds, it is Dann's earliest work.

Little is known of the plot of this drama.

Set on an island off the coast of Queensland, the play deals with the refusal of a lighthouse keeper to recognise the effect that the geographic and social isolation is having on his family.

Set in a sheriff's office in Sydney in 1828, the play deals with an execution for highway robbery.

Radio adaptation of the one-act play.

A radio play exploring the introduction of Percy Bysshe Shelley into the Godwin household c. 1812.

Fanny Imlay was one of Godwin's two stepdaughters, the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and Gilbert Imlay. She was left behind when Shelley eloped with Mary and her stepsister Claire Clairmont in 1814: she later committed suicide, in part, it is said, at her continued isolation from the Shelley household.

Little is known about the plot of this radio play.

A musical version of George Landen Dann's play of the same name, with the score written by Sydney-based composer Gerry Cole. Set in the Australian outback the narrative concerns Aboriginal rights and ideals, particularly with regard to the production of a corroboree. Matters such as assimilation, politics and ideology and race relations are questioned. Although the work was broadcast on radio there is no record of it ever having been produced on the stage. Theatre historian and friend of Dann, Leslie Rees, wrote in 1958 that he often thought about 'having a go at this musical but it would be hard to make any players other than true aborigines [sic] seem convincing' (qtd Queensland Theatre Company programme, 2000, p9). An unpublished manuscript is held in the Eunice Hanger Collection of the Fryer Library (The University of Queensland).

Jeffery and Elizabeth Blackburn find themselves at isolated Wolford Hall, occupied by a group–each strangers to the other–who have been invited to the property by a 'Mr Rea'. As the mysteries of the house thicken–including the appearance of unsigned typewritten notes–the couple begin to suspect a connection with a five-year-old unsolved murder and realise that one of the house's inhabitants is that murderer, Edward Anson, in disguise.

For a (partial) list of episode titles and episode-by-episode synopses (drawn from contemporary radio guides), see Notes below.

An expanded script of Farwell's 1940 radio play of the same name.

Clem and Carla are adamant that they will never bring a child into a world ravaged by war—a world where cancer tragically takes people’s lives. They see senseless death all around them. After travelling very far to see Sir Earnest in his Consulting Room, they are dismayed to discover that they do not have an appointment. However, in this mysterious, fantastical place, they will find themselves in the company of a young man and an elderly spinster who will change their lives forever.

A fantasy drama, described in contemporary newspapers as 'Locale midway between life and death; characters, the unborn, the living, and the dead; moral — boosting the birthrate.'

Source:

'Radiopinion: You Can Say What You Like', Sunday Mail, 13 June 1948, p.6.

Characters

CARLA

CLEM

NURSE

MISS EDWARDS

SIR EARNEST

DOCTOR

DAVID

'The story revolves round a young girl whose early fascination for a foreign ventriloquist leaves her with his doll, £1,000, and an accompanying "dark enchantment".'

Source:

'Australian Play "Needs Overhaul"', News, 28 June 1949, p.15.

Radio version of Arthur H. Adams's play, adapted by Edmund Barclay.

According to the Age:

Premier William Power's career faces ruin when, on the eve of the introduction of a bill aimed against big land owners, it is discovered that Mrs. Pretty, a young widow, and one of the land owners likely to be affected, had spent the night In the Premier's office — the night when he himself had not gone home.

Source:

[Radio guide], The Age, 1 March 1951, p.3.

Little is known about the plot of this radio play.

Little is known of this playscript, and no productions have been traced so far.

A radio adaptation of Max Afford's successful 1949 stage play, Dark Enchantment, by radio script-writer Joy Hollyer.

The world of a turbulent but brilliant concert pianist.

Recreates the fraught relationship between Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine at the end of the nineteenth century.

Very little is known about this obscure production, although it appears to have been written directly for television (see, for example, 'TV Today, Tonight', The Age, 14 June 1961, p.3).

'The loquat tree outside Jim Emerson's station homestead in northern New South Wales is his pride and joy–but it is a pest trap.'

Source:

Radio Times, 21 May 1964, p.45.

A contemporary newspaper report offers the following synopsis: 'The story deals with a crew which deserts a ship to find a fortune on the NSW goldfields of the 1850s and the efforts of the captain to lure them back on board.'

Source: '"Combat" Private in a Ballad', Canberra Times, 2 August 1965, p.1.

Vaguely described in contemporary newspapers as

'an off-beat little section on youth's contact with the aged.

The two main characters, played subtly by Patience Collier as the aged lonely woman and Gary Bond as the lonely youth were really a minor essay on that subject.

Not quite ABC Australia stuff but very much BBC Australia stuff, apparently.'

Source:

'Under the Long White Shroud', The Canberra Times, 12 July 1966, p.11.

Nothing is currently known of the cast or storyline of this production.

In Essington, Keneally gives an account of a Royal Marine settlement at Port Essington on the northern coast of Australia in the 1840s. The European settlers are unable to adapt their social structures and ideals to the new surroundings.

Bob Squires, a convict on the run, stumbles into the newly established township of Port Essington, which is crumbling under the effects of fatigue, disease, and madness. Squires makes himself invaluable to the marines of the disintegrating garrison. A naval vessel eventually arrives with orders to evacuate the settlement and destroy the fort to prevent it from falling into the hands of a possible enemy. Squires remains behind with a half-witted girl, Pretty Polly.

'Carrie lives alone on her impoverished river-flats farm. Isolated and forgotten by the world, she relies on the company of the birds and trees. With her parents long gone, and her neighbour's constant excuses not to visit her, she ekes out an existence from her old orange grove tree.

'But her solitude is shattered when David, a dark, handsome stranger appears, resembling her past lover. While David draws up his proposal for the development of a new road and bridge, Carrie's grip on reality begins to slide as she mixes recollection of a past betrayal with David's new one – the possible resumption of her land.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Playlab).

'Sons of Cain is a 1985 play by David Williamson about three female investigative reporters.

'It looks at the New South Wales Labor government of the 1980s'

'Production

'Williamson directed the original production himself, the first time he had done this with one of his own plays. He says he did five full drafts of the play over a period of six months.

'The original production was presented in London in 1986 by the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust.' (Source : website)

A screenplay based on David Malouf's novel. There is no indication of this screenplay's having been produced.

A screenplay based on David Malouf's novel. There is no indication of this screenplay's having been produced.

An independent Australian thriller, eventually picked up for distribution by American-based distribution company IFM Films.

According to the distribution company, 'the picture centres on the aftermath of a scheming couple's fateful scam at the jazz academy they run.'

Source: Screen Daily (http://www.screendaily.com/ifm-picks-up-the-turner-affair-for-afm/4011919.article). (Sighted: 19/8/2013)

'Placid Lake is a kid who follows his instincts; follows them so far they lead him to convalescing in a full body cast and pondering whether following your heart is good for your health. Deciding it isn't, he must take the road more travelled. Be normal, fit in. Even if it kills you.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 4/12/2013)

A regular suburban family man comes home 'from work on his birthday to find a deserted house and a videotape waiting to be played... '

Source: Screen Australia.

'Ross Mueller's groundbreaking Construction of the Human Heart effortlessly integrates form and content to produce an ambitious and original meditation on loss and the redemptive qualities of communication through art'

'At the heart of the play is The Couple, known only as Him and Her, two playwrights dealing with unimaginable loss the only way they know how — by building a fortress of words impregnable to grief. But emotions have a way of emerging through cracks in the walls. and gradually the truth slips past their defenses to uncover their very real tragedies.'

Source: Tasmanian Theatre Company.

'After a long and successful marriage, Pam and Don are still very much in love. But Pam is ill and has to make a heartbreaking decision that will transform both their lives. She does so in the only way she knows how - quickly, pragmatically, and resolutely. Don behaves in the only way he knows how - struggling to keep up but desperate not to lose touch.

'And No More Shall We Part follows Pam and Don's halting, humorous and devastating attempt at the impossible - to begin to say goodbye to each other after a lifetime together.' (From the publisher's website.)