Forgotten Australian Television Plays: A Tale of Two Hamlets

by Stephen Vagg

Back in the day, the ABC felt that if a play was worth doing on television, it was worth doing twice. Hence, we had the national broadcaster making two small-screen versions of Chekov’s The Proposal, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Chris Fry’s A Phoenix Too Frequent, Philip Johnson’s Dark Brown, Shaw’s Man of Destiny, Fy’s A Sleep of Prisoners, Sumner Locke Elliot’s Rusty Bugles, Priestley’s The Rose and Crown… and Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

I recently saw the first half of the 1959 Hamlet and the second half of the 1974 one. To my knowledge, no complete copy of either exists (though one never knows) but both are worth discussing, even in partial form.

The 1959 production was directed by Royston Morley, an old BBC hand who came out to Australia in the 1950s to teach the colonials how television was done. Morley was one of those exotic renaissance man figures that Britain seems to specialise in – charismatic, quick-witted, intelligent, fond of calling people “darling”. He started directing television very early – for instance, doing a version of Romeo and Juliet on the BBC back in 1937 – as well as writing plays, scripts, journalism and novels on the side.

Storry Walton once told me that, at first, the older ABC program heads found Morley’s presence a bit confronting, and his manner very distracting. But once they realised that he knew his stuff, Morley came to be regarded with a lot of affection and respect here. In turn, Morley seems to have developed a genuine affection for Australia: he married a local girl – Jan Bain, the sister of director Bill Bain – and after Morley returned to England in 1960 he was involved in making several Australian-themed plays for British TV (Flag Fall, Weekend at Willaburra), as well as writing an Australian-set novel, Cool Change Moving North (1966), which is a fascinating outsider’s look at our culture in the late ‘50s.

When Morley was in Australia, he wrote and directed for television in addition to his training duties. His productions included Point of Return (1958), Chance of a Ghost (1958) (based on a script by American writers then in Australia), Sixty Point Bold (1958) (from a script by Morley, which I think he wrote while living here, making it technically an Australian script), Enemy of the People (1958) (Ibsen relocated to Queensland), The Seagull (1959), Hamlet (1959) and Crime Passionel (1959). The ABC also made local versions of a number of plays Morley had directed for BBC television (eg. As You Are, The Importance of Being Earnest, Richard II, The Trial of Madeleine Smith); presumably he had a role in recommending them. He was one of the most influential figures in 1950s Australian television drama.

Hamlet was the first Shakespeare play that the ABC adapted for TV. Or, rather, the equal first – it was shot in Sydney, and so Melbournians didn’t get upset, the ABC arranged for Antony and Cleopatra to be filmed live from its Ripponlea studios on the same night (17 June 1959). Each production was recorded, then shown in other cities. Hamlet was given a budget of 2500 pounds and the cast had 78 hours of rehearsal for a two hour running time.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Hamlet tells of the most famous whinger in literature, Hamlet the Crown Prince of Denmark, who returns home on the death of his father, to discover mum Gertrude has married his uncle. Hamster suspects something is rotten, as the saying goes, in the state of Denmark, leading to him pretending to be mad and join a theatre company so he can figure out what’s going on and pretty much everyone ending up (SPOILERS) dead by final curtain.

The role of Hamlet was played by Adelaide actor William Job, who emigrated to England not long after this and had a decent career over there. Other key cast members included Georgie Sterling (Gertrude), Delia Williams (Ophelia), Henry Gilbert (the King) and Owen Weingott (Laertes).

(Sidebar – Delia Williams was one of my favourite actors from this period: a Welsh actor/model with a twinkle in her eye, she swept into Australia in 1957, nabbed the bulk of plumb roles going for young female actors on TV at the time – Ophelia in Hamlet, Nina in The Seagull, Cathy in Wuthering Heights, Mary Bligh in Stormy Petrel – then got married, had a kid and retired. If anyone knows what happened to her, I’d love to hear more. End sidebar.)

As mentioned earlier, I have seen the first half of the 1959 Hamlet (or, as the credits put it, “The Tragicall Hiftorie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”). It’s relatively primitive by later standards but the gloom is appropriate to the play (Morley uses a cobweb machine to excellent effect), the acting very good, and the ghost effects are extremely effective for the time. Morley doesn’t go in for close ups much – I wonder if this rubbed off on the Australian directors he trained.

Contemporary reviews of the production were generally strong, and the ABC repeated it several times over the years. In sharp contrast, poor old Antony and Cleopatra copped a critical shellacking and appears never to have been repeated.

Morley left Australia in 1960, working for a stint in Canada before returning to London where he spent the rest of his career, some of which he discusses in this interview available online. He died in 1991.

The ABC filmed Hamlet again for television in 1974, with John Bell in the lead. Bell had made his reputation playing Hamlet at the Old Tote in the 1960s, but this version recreated his 1973 stage performance at the Nimrod in Sydney, a production which Bell had directed with Richard Wherrett. The 1974 TV version was directed by Julian Pringle. Hamlet was one of four small-screen productions the ABC did of stage plays around this time, others being versions of The Misanthrope, A Hard God and Spoiled.

The 1974 TV Hamlet is superb – I mean, it’s filmed theatre, but extremely well done. Bell isn’t known for his screen performances, to put it mildly, but this conveys some of his stage greatness: you’re not watching old Max Von Sydow-y John Bell here, but young sexy John Bell, running around in an unbuttoned white shirt, going mad and yelling at Ophelia (Anna Volska). Other cast members include Max Cullen (Polonius) and Jeff Ashby (Claudius). Larry Eastwood’s design is fantastic.

Two very different Hamlets from the ABC, both interesting…. Where’s your version, Cate Blanchett?