by Nick Place
After a long search, both across Australia and internationally, the part of Boney was given to a white New Zealander, James Laurenson, much to the anger of Aboriginal actors and advocates.
This isn’t the first time an Aboriginal actor has been overlooked for an Aboriginal role. In the short-lived TV series The Battlers, the main part of Aboriginal man Wayne Small went to white actor Vincent Gil who, to look the part, had to adopt a fake tan and wedge pegs in his nose to broaden it.
Then, in the feature film Journey Out of Darkness the role of the Aboriginal tracker was played by Ed Devereaux, while the Aboriginal fugitive he was pursuing was portrayed by Ceylonese singer Kamahl.
Bruce McGuinness, a director of the Aboriginal Advancement League, was outraged by the casting of Laurenson.
‘It’s the usual tale. People automatically seem to think that the Aboriginal is stereotyped and incapable of doing anything well – even acting,’ he said. ‘But there are plenty of actors in Australia capable of playing the part. And it is completely wrong to have a white man playing Boney.’
But producers insist Laurenson was the best man for the job, based purely on merit. And initial reviews bode well for the casting decision, with critics praising Laurenson’s performance as accomplished and entirely believable.
Newsman David Johnston is branching out from This Week Has Seven Days to compere Tattersalls’ new game, Tattslotto. Given the kind of things he had to get up to on TWHSD – such as this mice experiment – we think Johnston will welcome the change.
A nest of beauties
February: You could be forgiven for thinking Seven’s new comedy-drama, The Virgin Fellas (also known as Birds in the Bush and Strike It Rich), was plotted simply as an excuse to bring together a bevy of gorgeous girls.
It stars former Miss World Ann Sidney, Briony Behets, Sue Lloyd, Jenny Hayes, Kate Shiel, Kate Fitzpatrick, Elli Maclure and Nicola Flamer-Caldera as the inhabitants of a tumble-down property west of Sydney. Britain’s Hugh Lloyd plays Hugh, a good-natured water-diviner who inherits the outback property, and actor-comedian Ron Frazer is Ron, his money-hungry, scheming relative.
The series was a co-production with the UK, and will also air on the BBC.
Adventure Island vanishes
December: They say there ain’t no sadder sound, so when Adventure Island’s resident clown (John Michael Howson) shed a few tears at the filming of the show’s final episode, it was right in keeping with the solemn mood of the occasion.
In September, the ABC announced it was going to axe the top-rating, award-winning children’s favourite, much to the despair of the show’s cast, crew and legion of fans. And they weren’t just going to sit back and take it. A ‘Save Adventure Island’ committee was even set up by three prominent members of the ALP to add weight to the chorus of protest, but the ABC refused to budge.
Adventure Island’s final episode aired last week, bringing to an end its record-breaking run of five shows a week for five years and four months. Producer Godfrey Philipp ended the episode with the message: ‘This is not the end, this is only the beginning.’ Let’s hope he’s right.
Goodnight Australia, once and for all
July: The curtains close this month on one of Australian TV’s most loved institutions, Bandstand.
Since beginning its 14-year run, the show has endeared the original Mr Nice Guy, former radio man Brian Henderson, to thousands of viewers, and helped launch the careers of major stars such as Olivia Newton-John, Peter Allen, Lana Cantrell, the Bee Gees and Col Joye. But in recent times Bandstand has been labelled out-dated, stodgy and a far cry from the happy-go-lucky, youthful music show it started life as.
Earlier this year, in a bid to boost ratings, the show returned to using a live audience, but not even the extra warmth that injected into the production could save the program from the network’s axe.
MEMORIES
> Sitcom The Group, axed last year by Channel 7, wins the Logie for Best Australian Comedy.
> The exercise queen of Australian TV, Sue Becker, goes to London to produce a series of exercise programs for screening on the BBC.
> Paul Hogan, has been awarded a Certificate of Merit from the Royal Humane Society for saving a man from jumping from the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
> HSV-7 signs a million-dollar contract with Crawford Productions to put Homicide into colour.
> ATV-0 installs a new cartridge video machine – the first of its kind in Australia.
> Caroline Jones is the only woman in Australia to have compered a daily national current affairs program, when she stands in for Bill Peach on This Day Tonight.
> Telecast of the Logie Awards achieves an all-time ratings record, while sales of the Logies souvenir edition of TV Week notched up another record.
> Don Lane heads to the US, disillusioned with the Australian TV industry and the lack of opportunities.
> Number 96’s Johnny Lockwood releases a record called ‘Number 96’. The flipside features the track ‘In My Deli On The Tele’.
> Channel 0’s Judy Banks ends her long partnership with Fredd Bear to focus on teaching drama and stage work.
> Vikki Broughton and Rod Kirkham have both been dropped from Young Talent Time, having reached the cut-off age of 17.
> Nine’s drama series The Spoiler fails to grab audiences, and disappears before the year is out.
> Not even the combined comedic talents of Gordon Chater and Garry McDonald can make the TV version of Dad and Dave a winner.
> Channel 7 and Channel 2 share coverage of the Munich Olympic Games
> Gold Logie: Gerard Kennedy
> Outstanding contribution to TV journalism: Dateline ’71
VARIETY SHOWS
All-singing, all-dancing, all-consuming entertainment brought to you by some of the biggest stars in the game – that’s variety TV. And although it has fallen out of favour with audiences and TV execs in recent times, it’s home to some of the most memorable moments in Australia’s first 50 years of television.
The spice of life
If variety is the spice of TV life, then the early days of Australian television were an exotic feast. Borrowing heavily from the American-style Tonight shows, our variety favourites featured skits, interviews, comedy, music, dance and slapstick. But what usually separated a successful show from an ungraceful flop was a chameleon compere who could hold the madness together and get in a few quick-witted quips before the next guest took the stage.
At a time when watching TV was a group activity, variety shows were a shared experience for a city and the comperes often became popular heroes. In Sydney, Bobby Limb, Bob Rogers and Barry Crocker ruled the variety arena, while George Wallace and Gerry Gibson were at the helm in Brisbane. Lionel Williams and Ernie Sigley cornered the market in Adelaide, and in the west, local boy Rolf Harris appeared alongside Phillip Edgley in the premiere episode of Perth’s first variety series, Spotlight.
But the most celebrated of all was Graham Kennedy who, as the flamboyant host of In Melbourne Tonight, redefined the boundaries of television decorum and rewrote the advertising rule book. Whether crushing, chucking or mocking the sponsors’ product, his outrageous commercials were often funnier than the scripted comedy skits. Better yet, they paid huge dividends for advertisers. In one classic example, Gra-Gra tried to demonstrate the ‘pleasant taste’ of some cough medicine by feeding a spoonful to barrel girl Panda, but she spat it out, exclaiming, ‘Pooh! It tastes like ammonia.’ The station braced itself for the wrath of the sponsor, but the public response was so overwhelmingly positive that Panda was sent a gift of a pearl necklace instead. Many other TV personalities, including Mike Preston, Jimmy Hannan, Stuart Wagstaff, Ugly Dave Gray, Noel Ferrier and Bert Newton, later had a crack at IMT ’s top job, but none could re-create the magic of the King holding court.
Experienced overseas performers added an international flavour to local variety. Englishman Digby Wolfe hosted and co-wrote the popular Revue ’61 and Revue ’62, while Irish comedian Dave Alle
n was willing to try anything for a laugh on his Tonight show. On one memorable occasion, he flew head first from a trampoline onto the concrete studio floor, where he lay unconscious as the end credits rolled. American performers like singer Tommy Leonetti and comic duo Ken Delo and Jonathan Daly won many fans, and the international invasion was complete when Don Lane dropped in for a six-week engagement and ended up staying for over seven years. After a stint back home, the Lanky Yank returned to form a winning variety partnership with ‘Moonface’ Newton on IMT and later The Don Lane Show.
As Brian Henderson’s long-running Bandstand gave way to Mike Williamson, Mary Hardy and the trotting telecasts in The Penthouse Club, a Saturday-morning cartoon show was gaining popularity. Once the banter between Daryl Somers, Ossie Ostrich (Ernie Carroll) and John Blackman started to appeal more to adults than littlies, the cartoons were phased out and Hey Hey It’s Saturday got comfy in an evening timeslot. A 28-year run saw Ossie do for puppet co-hosts what Jeanne Little did for outrageous wigs on the successful daytime variety program, The Mike Walsh Show.
Since Steve Vizard did his best to channel David Letterman on Tonight Live, the newer breed of variety compere has been a little off the mark. Shaun Micallef was too obtuse, Mick Molloy too vulgar and Greeks on the Roof simply too pale an imitation of the much cleverer The Kumars at No. 42. Let’s not even mention The Eric Bana Show. Only Rove McManus seems to have aced the formula, by playing it safe with a blend of stand-up comedy, live music, scripted skits and celebrity interviews on Rove Live.
But these hosts emerged during a time when audiences were no longer content to just sit back and be entertained. Life-changing game shows, gritty forensic investigations, DIY lifestyle programs and far-fetched ‘reality’ scenarios sprang up where laughter, songs and gags used to reign. Though it’s likely that in the cyclical world of television, variety will one day again take centre stage, it does seem that the genre’s success was as much a product of its time as of the unforgettable comperes who made the medium their own.
Variety blunders
> The Bob Crosby Show (1966) – Bob (brother of Bing) Crosby’s inability to even say ‘Good evening’ without needing cue cards led to the demise of this variety and talk show within three months.
> Shivoo (1970) – Don Lane’s attempt to rival the production standards set in Melbourne with a big-production show, country style, was a ratings disaster and was axed after only four weeks.
> J.C. at 8.30 (1974) – Hosted by producer John Collins, this program lasted for only two weeks and was described by one critic as ‘exquisitely bad television, exemplifying the mindless desperation which drives commercial TV managements to the depths to try to get to the heights’.
> John Singleton (1979–80) – Ad man John Singleton had a go at a typical Saturday night variety and talk show, but it failed dismally. His follow-up current affairs show of the same name did much better.
> The Mick Molloy Show (1999) – This late-night program lasted just eight weeks on air. Molloy once said his short-lived experience with Nine was ‘like joining a major crime family and getting whacked on the first day’.
1973
Spin, spend, match and win! Quiz shows reigned supreme, as did a couple of uniquely Aussie characters. Variety was also back in favour, while a youngster stepped out of her older sibling’s shadow and another braced himself for a full throttle assault on colour TV.
Everybody’s favourite – if most violent – Aunty
November: She’s not your typical aunty. She wears John Lennon glasses, along with a thick moustache and pig-tails in her frizzy hair. She rides a motorbike and wears a boxing glove at the end of a beefy arm that looks like it knows how to throw a punch. She smiles sweetly and then declares that if you don’t do what she wants, whatever she wants, she’ll ‘rip your bloody arms off!’
Welcome to the world of The Aunty Jack Show, a surreal creation from Grahame Bond, an architect as well as a comedian, actor and writer. The show has proven to be a surprise hit on the ABC, with off-the-wall humour that has been compared to Monty Python’s Flying Circus, although Bond resents being categorised at all.
However you try to describe it, the show is reaching an audience of two million Australians happy to lose themselves in strange, long comedy sketches from the weirdest parts of Bond’s brain.
The ABC is so happy with the show that TV Week reported that The Aunty Jack Show had been entered in this year’s Montreux Festival. What the world will make of this freakish character remains to be seen.
Co-starring with Bond, as Aunty Jack, are Thin Arthur (Rory O’Donoghue), Kid Eager (Garry McDonald) and Flange Desire (Sandra MacGregor). All the cast also play other characters, such as McDonald’s unlikely and awkward television reporter, Norman Gunston, invented for this year’s second series to present the regular segment, ‘What’s On In Wollongong’.
TV Week described Aunty Jack as ‘unlike any program to hit the Australian public – a sort of upside-down reversal of everything considered to be good television viewing’. Bond said he created Aunty Jack as a children’s character, originally only performing the voice but then describing her as ‘10 feet tall, wide as a house and as bigoted in her own way as Alf Garnett’ when he created a couple of radio pilots.
‘Unfortunately, the ABC considered the show a little bit frightening for the children, with Aunty Jack threatening to leap out of the set to break arms and legs,’ he said.
Old cops don’t look good in colour
October: Division 4 has begun hiring a younger cast in the lead-up to the arrival of colour filming for the series, with Crawford Productions’ Chairman Hector Crawford admitting he was looking to freshen up the cast.
The first hiring is Andrew McFarlane, who landed a 12-month contract with the show only a week after finishing a three-year acting course at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts. He replaces Ted Hamilton, who finished work in October after a dispute with Crawfords over his appearance in a TV commercial. The 22-year-old McFarlane admitted his sudden success was frightening. ‘For the past three years at NIDA I’ve been theatre orientated and I honestly don’t know much about TV,’ he said.
Patricia Smith’s contract has not been renewed and Terry Donovan was set to go on leave from the show, to appear in the planned ABC gold rush mini-series, Rush, before he decided he would be away from Division 4 for too long.
Division 4 will join Homicide in full colour production from the end of the month, as Crawfords prepares for the start of colour TV next year.
The King is back, and loving it
March: Graham Kennedy’s return to television after a three-year absence has been capped by winning the Victorian Logie for Best Male Personality and the Logie for the state’s Best Live Show. Kennedy admitted his success was a relief. ‘Since the show started we lost the spot only three times in the season. Once was to the Miss Australia finals – and no one ever beats that anyway.’
‘Tonight’ shows are back in a big way, with several other hosts also making a name for themselves. Ernie Sigley has proven to be an earthy, ocker hit in his show, while lanky American Don Lane is so popular that his show might be beamed from Sydney to Perth, and to other capital cities as well. Lane’s success seems to have been helped by rubbing off the rough edges in Las Vegas night clubs.
Carmen’s little sister is growing up fast
May: Pretty young Paula Duncan has become used to being known as Carmen’s little sister, but TV viewers will be seeing more of the younger Duncan this year. Paula has been signed for the ABC’s major production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s musical comedy, The Pirates of Penzance, to be filmed in February in Sydney.
Paula recently made the bold career move of turning down a leading role in a popular soapie because there was a nudity clause in the contract.
‘I’m by no means a prude,’ she said. ‘My main concern was that by stripping for this show I would be starting my career on the wrong foot.’
Big sister Carmen remains o
ne of Australia’s top actresses and was most recently seen in the Nine drama, The Spoilers.
ON DEBUT
> Certain Women – drama series
> Catch Kandy – drama series
> A Taste for Blue Ribbons – period drama serial following a Victorian family trying to keep their riding school going
> Evil Touch – an Australia–USA co-production series of drama-thrillers
> Frank and Francesca – serial following two migrant families in Melbourne
> Serpent in the Rainbow – period drama serial about a family feud during the late nineteenth century
> What in the World – children’s program
> Club Nine – Saturday-night variety program
> The Curiosity Show – long-running children’s program, a spin-off from Humphrey’s Curiosity Show, without Humphrey
> Discovery – documentary series
> Elephant Boy – children’s drama series based on Rudyard Kipling’s book, Toomai of the Elephants
> Germaine Greer Specials – series of discussions on sex in Australia, chaired by Germaine Greer
> Inner Space – series of underwater documentaries featuring Valerie and Ron Taylor
> In the Public Interest – series dramatising three Australian Royal Commissions
> Junior Jury – half-hour teenage program
> TV Kitchen – cooking program with Geraldine Dillon (below)
> Two on the Aisle – movie show
> With Gerald Stone – interview program with, yes, Gerald Stone
Hogan shock and delights on Nine
February: Exciting young talent Paul Hogan continues to create waves on Australian TV, with a controversial segment on A Current Affair lighting up the Nine switchboard.
Hogan, the former Sydney Harbour Bridge labourer who, in February, won the George Wallace Memorial Logie for the Best New Talent in Australia, performed a stunt at the Sunbury Music Festival that has landed him in hot water.