by Stephen Vagg
No Dogs on Diamond Street
This was a part-family-drama-part-thriller directed by Storry Walton, reuniting him with actor Ed Devereaux and designer Jack Montgomery from the mini series My Brother Jack.
It was written by Marion Ord, who was not a professional scribe at the time, living on a property near Parkes in New South Wales. She had attended a TV school in Orange held by the University of Sydney Adult Education Department, where the tutor was Phillip Mann, who worked for the ABC as a writer and drama editor. Ord wrote No Dogs as an exercise for the course, and it was accepted for production by Australian Playhouse. Good on the ABC for giving a newbie a crack!
The story concerns a young woman (Helen Morse in one of her first TV roles, if not the first) who witnesses her father (Devereaux) returning home late one night. It turns out a person was shot dead at her father’s work during a robbery and dad may be responsible (cult actor Roger Ward appears as a cop).
No Dogs on Diamond Street is a decent drama with some good acting, particularly by Morse, subtle direction and interesting family dynamics (mum is cheating on dad, Morse’s elder sister has her own agenda). The characters are complex enough that this could have been expanded to an hour.
The Paradise Shanty
This was the last episode of the first season of Australian Playhouse. The Paradise Shanty was written by Kevin McGrath, who was an opera singer and radio director for the ABC as well as a writer: he based his script on his play Little Topar. The action takes place at an outback pub where a boundary rider (Dennis Miller) appears, and dies, and everyone gets on the booze. That’s about it. Oh, and some bloke sings and plays the guitar. This sounds a little odd, and it is odd, but it’s compelling in its way – a slice of life drama about how men interact in the outback, atmospherically directed by Patrick Barton.
The critic from the Sydney Morning Herald called it “one of the best of the year’s output, being a sceptical look at the old mateship tradition and contrasting pathos with crudity and crassness. The story of a lonely ill fated lad was played out among a crude little plot of unfeeling men. A moving show.” That review is spot on IMHO.
Should the Woman Pay?
This was one of two Australian Playhouse scripts by Monte Miller, a police prosecutor who, after this, decided to give up a steady public servant job and become a writer… and did quite well at it, especially on Crawfords cop shows, where his professional background came in handy. The Australian Writers Guild’s Monte Miller Award is named after him. I have previously written about another Miller script, The Blind Balance.
Should the Woman Pay? is far more comic and less crime-y than The Blind Balance. It’s about an artist (Wyn Roberts) who turns up at the house of his ex-wife (Marcella Burgoyne) and confronts the wife’s new man (Brian Burton). It feels like a one act stage play rather than a piece for television – the action is very talky and all takes place in real life. It’s not as good as Blind Balance, but has a very strong performance from Roberts. Patrick Barton directed.
Ticket to Nowhere
This is a hidden gem. It’s basically a two hander set in a train carriage about two businessmen travelling home. One of them (Wynn Roberts) appears to have the same identity as another one (Terry Norris).
Ticket to Nowhere was directed by Fred Maxian, an Austrian immigrant who normally did variety shows, and written by John Bragg who wrote some Homicide episodes. Bragg’s script is first rate, comfortably up to the standard of something like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which was presumably an influence. The direction doesn’t quite do the script justice but it is highly entertaining.
Australian Playhouse was probably too ambitious for its own good, but it really did some first-rate work.
