Original cast
- Margaret Roberts
- Owen Weingott
- Jerold Wells
- Derek Stanley
| Naked Possum | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Barbara Vernon |
| Directed by | Noel Rubie |
| Date premiered | September 13, 1956 |
| Place premiered | Independent Theatre, Sydney |
| Original language | Australia |
| Subject | Malayan Emergency |
| Genre | drama |
| Setting | Malaya |
Naked Possum is a 1956 Australian play by Barbara Vernon. It was her first play performed in Sydney and is one of the few Australian plays to examine the Malayan Emergency. [1] [2]
Leslie Rees described it as "something of a damp squib." [3]
The Sydney Morning Herald called it "ripe old melodrama" with "stale situations and limping cliches". [4]
However The Bulletin said "it has a remarkably attractive set.. and a most impressive performance by Owen Weingott, while the plot has sufficient intricacy and suspense to keep one guessing." [5]
During the Malayan Emergency, Australian troops looking for Communists arrive at a temple in the jungle. They meet the widow of a murdered planter who tries to seduce the soldiers.
Autumn Affair is an Australian television series made by and aired by Network Seven station ATN-7, and also shown in Melbourne on Nine Network station GTV-9. Television in Australia had only been broadcasting since 1956 and Seven was the first commercial station to make drama a priority.
Independent Theatre, formerly known as The Independent Theatre Ltd., was an Australian dramatic society founded in 1930 by Dame Doris Fitton in Sydney, Australia. It is also the name given to the building it occupied from 1939, now owned by Wenona School, in North Sydney, cited as Sydney's oldest live theatre venue.
The Fire on the Snow is a 1941 Australian verse play by Douglas Stewart about the Terra Nova Expedition to Antarctica by Robert Falcon Scott. It premiered on ABC radio on 6 June 1941 to great acclaim and inspired a series of Australian verse dramas on ABC radio.
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The Multi-Coloured Umbrella is a 1957 Australian stage play written by Barbara Vernon. It was produced professionally, was adapted for television and radio, and inspired two prequels.
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Barbara Mary Vernon was an Australian playwright, screenwriter, editor and radio announcer.
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Alfred Noel Joseph Rubie was an Australian modernist painter, portrait and commercial photographer, playwright and pharmacy proprietor who worked in Sydney during the 1920s and into the 1960s. In addition to his work as a painter and photographer, Rubie was involved with the Independent Theatre as a photographer, actor, writer, and costume and set designer.
The Day Before Tomorrow is a 1956 Australian play by Ric Throssell. It debuted at the Canberra Repertory Company in 1956 with Throssell appearing in a lead role. The Canberra Times called it "absorbing". The Bulletin called it "a very good play". Leslie Rees wrote "This nightmarish vision of what might challenge humanity at any moment was projected with grim directness and without relieving humour or even bitter wit. The world of the 1950s, daily warned of the bomb, readily absorbed the lesson."
The Playwrights' Advisory Board was an Australian organisation established in 1938 to assist the cause of Australian playwriting. It was established by Leslie Rees, Rex Rienits and Doris Fitton. Its functions included negotiating productions with theatres, acting as an intermediary in the nomination and collection of royalties, advising theatres and playwrights on scripts, and holding script competitions. Members of the board included names such as Dymphna Cusack and Sumner Locke Elliott.
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Portrait of a Gentleman is a 1940 Australian radio play by George Farwell about Thomas Griffiths Wainewright. It was the first time Wainewright's life had been dramatised.