Forgotten Australian TV Plays: Don’t Listen Ladies

by Stephen Vagg

In the early days of television, the brief of the ABC was outlined in the Broadcasting and Television Act 1942-1962, which said that the public broadcaster was to “ensure that adequate and comprehensive programmes are provided… to serve the best interests of the general public.”

This was kind of vague to put it mildly: what is adequate/comprehensive/in the best interest of the public? Well, the ABC tried a few things – mostly ideas borrowed from the BBC. They had Shakespeare and Shaw, a bit of Chekov, and the occasional Australian play. They also had a fair amount of marital comedies among the upper classes.

Yep, in the late 1950s and 1960s, the ABC’s definition of “adequate and comprehensive programs” in the “best interests of the general public” included local adaptations of stage plays about rich men and their mistresses/wives/ex-wives. Just what Betty Blacktown ordered.

The first Australian TV play ever made was along those lines – an adaptation of JM Barrie’s The Twelve Pound Look. There was also Holiday in Biarritz, Fair Passenger, Three Cornered Moon, Don’t Listen Ladies, Tartuffe and The Four Poster, not to mention Australian-written comedies in this vein, including The Little Woman and The Five Sided Triangle. I’m not sure why they were so popular – I guess they were on stage a lot (upper crust theatre goers always seem to enjoy a bit of dramatised infidelity).

This article is focused on Don’t Listen Ladies, a farce based on a play from French writer Sacha Guitry. It’s set in an antique shop run by Daniel (Alexander Archdale in the TV version) and his second wife Madeleine (Margo Lee). She finds a letter that makes her think that he is having an affair, so encourages the love of Daniel’s assistant, Blandinet (Neil Fitzpatrick), who is infatuated with her. Also involved are Daniel’s first wife Valentine (Brigid Lenihan), a former girlfriend called Julie (Neva Carr Glynn), a young man called Michel (Owen Weingott), who Madeleine thinks of marrying, and customer Baron de Charancy (Noel Brophy). Oh, and a maid (Audrey Teasdale).

The play was first performed in Paris in 1942 (yep, with Germans in the audience and everything) as “N’ecoutez pas, Madames!” with Guitry himself starring as Daniel. It was adapted into English with the title “Don’t Listen Ladies” by Guy Bolton and “Stephen Powys”. Powys was actually PG Wodehouse (the guy who wrote all those Jeeves stories) using a pseudonym because Wodehouse had a bad reputation after World War Two due to him spending time in France under the occupation. Guitray’s reputation also suffered from this (he even spent time in prison after the liberation under charges of collaboration). The play had a run on the West End and Broadway; in New York, influential columnist Walter Winchell attacked Guitry for his relationship with the Germans and this was thought to have hurt the commercial possibilities of the play.

I have read a copy of the play (accessible here). It’s a lot of fun – you can imagine with the right cast, especially the leads, it would be entertaining to watch on stage. It’s cute how the antique dealer talks to the audience, to the men in the audience (“don’t listen ladies” is what he asks the ladies in the audience to do), as he discusses marriage, fidelity, etc. That’s a very theatrical device – it doesn’t always work well on screen, and I’m not sure it does in the ABC production, though I have to admit that I’ve only seen the last 40 minutes of that (never ideal, but particularly not for a farce which depends so much on set up and pay off).

Don’t Listen Ladies appears to have been popular with Australian drama societies in the 1950s and 1960s, and was adapted for ABC radio. This presumably contributed to the ABC’s decision to make it (a 75-minute version). It’s still weird that in 1963, they decided to film a French farce about a married antique dealer. I think this may have been the only PG Wodehouse filmed for Australian TV.

The play was shot in Sydney under the direction of James Upshaw, who mostly specialised in variety shows, but did a bit of comedy: his other credits include adaptations of Noel Coward’s Red Peppers, and a version of The Four Poster Bed. (I have done pieces on non-comic plays directed by Upshaw such as The Big Killing, The Big Client, and Scent of Fear).

In the play, Daniel is meant to be a good looking fifty; Alexander Archdale was over sixty and looked it, and to be frank, he simply isn’t hot enough for Margo Lee, who plays his wife – this, for me, is the main flaw of the production. Lee, who is always fun, is far more comfortably cast; she’s bright and funny, and her scenes with Neil Fitzpatrick at the end are quite touching. Neva Carr Glynn is ideal as the former nude model. Incidentally, Archdale and Lee appeared in the first Australian TV drama ever broadcast – an adaptation of JM Barrie’s play The Twelve Pound Look.

Don’t Listen Ladies was part of the great counter reformation of Australian drama at the ABC, the period from 1962-64 when the proportions of locally written shows went into decline in favour of European works. I admit the whole time when watching it I was going “why are they doing this?” But the actors seem to be having fun.

The author would like to thank Chris Keating for his assistance with this piece.

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