by Stephen Vagg

Copies of most early Australian television plays no longer exist – particularly those pre-1962. This limits the ability to discuss them, which is frustrating since so many are culturally important: like, say, The Sub-Editors’ Room (1957), the first locally written TV play ever broadcast on Australian TV, or Lola Montez (1962), the small screen version of the Australian musical.

One never knows when a copy is going to pop up of course, but if that isn’t an option, the historian is forced to take alternative action. Fortunately, there are other sources: contemporary reviews, scripts at the National Archives of Australia, interviews at the National Film and Sound Archive, contracts, original source material and so on.

Today, I’d like to look at two television plays, neither of which I have actually seen, but for both of which I’ve managed to collect a fair amount of information. These are The Square Ring and Night of the Ding Dong, both written by Ralph Peterson (1921-1996).

Peterson is one of those Australian writers who should be better remembered than he is, having contributed to several cultural classics. First was the hugely popular radio comedy series Yes, What? (1937-41), which Peterson starred in and helped write; this show, about the antics of teachers and students at a school, was so beloved that “best of” tapes of it were released years later, and my father (a big fan) forced me to listen to them. (Side note: why did they never adapt Yes, What? into a TV series? It would have seemed a natural.) Second was My Name‘s McGooley What’s Yours? (1966-68), the first hugely popular Australian sitcom; Peterson wrote most of the episodes.

They were just chapters in a long career. Peterson grew up in Adelaide, starting in the business as a child actor for radio. After war service, he returned to that medium as an actor and writer, also doing some work on stage (he was in the cast of an early production of Rusty Bugles). He wrote a radio feature (semi-documentary) called The Problem of Johnny Flourcake (1950), which impressed its star, visiting British actor Anthony Quayle, who encouraged Peterson to try his luck in the UK.

The young man went there in 1950 along with his wife, actor Betty Lucas, and wound up writing for Tony Hancock and Benny Hill, among others. Peterson would go back and forth between the UK and Australia over the next fifteen years, his credits during this period including episodes of Whiplash!, the Australian film Three in One (1957), and The Square Ring and Night of the Ding Dong.

The Square Ring (1960)

The Square Ring began life as a boxing-orientated Australian radio serial by Peterson, Come Out Fighting (1950). When in England, he used that material as the basis of a stage play, which takes place in real time over the course of one evening in the change room of a British boxing stadium. We meet various boxers before they go out to fight and then when they come back, including ex-champ Docker Starkie, who is trying to make a comeback; Eddie Burke, a new boy on the way up; Harry Coombes, a future champion; Rick Martell, who is planning on throwing a fight; Sailor Johnson, a broken-down has-been; and Rowdie Rawlings, who likes to read books before a fight. In the shocking climax (SPOILERS), Docker gets beaten so badly he dies in the dressing room.

Peterson’s play debuted in England in 1952 and was a critical and commercial success. Film rights were bought by Ealing Studios who turned it into a 1953 film directed by Basil Dearden starring Jack Warden and Robert Beatty.

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While the play had an all-male cast, the film included some female characters, played by Kay Kendall and Joan Collins among others. It’s a pretty good movie, not one of Dearden’s most famous, but solid drama with strong actors and atmosphere, and a gut-wrenching finale.

The play was filmed for British TV in 1959 with Sean Connery, Alan Bates and George Baker – how’s that for a cast? It was done on various Australian stages – Frank Thring’s company did a production in 1953 – and adapted for British and Australian radio, as well as into a novel.

The Square Ring was also adapted for Australian TV by the ABC in 1960; according to Peterson’s papers at the State Library of NSW, the national broadcaster paid him a hundred pounds for the rights. I’ve read the script (available at the National Archives of Australia) and it seems to have been a faithful version of the play, with the same (all-male) characters, structure and ending. I wish Peterson had set it in Australia, but the drama remains very potent.

The cast was extremely good for the time, including Jack Fegan, later of Homicide (as Docker), Guy Doleman (Harry Coombes), Don Barkham (Eddie Burke), Ken Goodlet (Sailor Johnson), black American dancer Joe Jenkins (in his drama debut) (Rowdie Rawling), Owen Weingott (Rick Martell) and Edward Hepple (Danny Felton, the handler). Sydney boxing trainer Ern McQuillan was the technical advisor and Ray Menmuir, probably Australian TV’s best director, was in charge behind the camera. (Peterson insisted that Menmuir be the one who directed.)

No copy exists, but with that cast, director and script, I cannot imagine this was anything less than excellent. The Square Ring has disappeared from cultural memory now – even film buffs are not likely to be aware it was written by an Australian. But it still holds up, on paper at any rate.

Night of the Ding Dong (1961)

Night of the Ding Dong was also based on a stage play by Peterson, though one very different in tone. It’s set in 19th century colonial Adelaide when the local populace is gripped by fears of a Russian invasion (a very real “stupid fear” all around Australia at that time – a lot of old-time forts such as Fort Denison were constructed to scare off possible Russian gunboats).

The main personal conflict revolves around Colonial Administrator Colonel Beauchamp, who trains a volunteer defence corps at the weekends, and whose daughter is in love with an idealistic schoolteacher concerned with free education.

This play toured English provinces but never made it to London. It’s very fun and bright and the subject matter is strong – similar to the successful Hollywood film The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming (1966).

I think the reason Ding Dong never enjoyed the success of that or The Square Ring was because the drama lacks underlying stakes – there is no threat (in The Russians Are Coming, there are Russians lost on shore and if they get caught, they will be in serious trouble). I think if Ding Dong had some actual Ruskies turn up in act three, Peterson would have had a big hit; the initial idea is so clever and the characters so lively.

Still, the play was popular with Australian theatre companies, was published in book form, and was adapted for British TV in 1958, three years before the ABC got around to filming it in Melbourne. The cast for the latter included Michael Duffield (Col Beauchamp), Madeline Howell (Victoria Beauchamp), David Mitchell as Marcus Higson and Anne “Madge from Neighbours” Charleston (Louise) in the lead.

It was Charleston’s TV debut [pictured]. Jeff Underhill adapted Peterson’s play for the small screen and William Sterling directed.

I have read the script. It was cut down to under an hour, which normally I’m not a fan of, but in the case of Ding Dong actually is a good thing – the aforementioned absence of stakes isn’t as noticeable. Again, I would love to have seen this. A contemporary review is here.

Peterson returned to Australia permanently in the mid ‘60s, where he had his greatest success with McGooley and its sequel Rita and Wally (1968). For all of his career, Peterson alternated between TV, film, theatre and books, finding the going harder towards the end of his life – his papers at the State Library of NSW are full of rejections from publishers in the 1990s, proving that in the arts you can never be too old or successful to be ignored.

Ralph Peterson’s career was at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s – which was also the peak time TV executives would whine that “there are no good writers in Australia”. He disproved that time and time again, two of his finest exhibits being The Square Ring and Night of the Ding Dong. Not that I’ve ever seen them!

The author would like to thank Graham Shirley and the staff at the State Library of NSW for their assistance with researching this piece. All opinions are my own.

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