The Square Ring | |
---|---|
Written by | Ralph Peterson |
Date premiered | October 1952 |
Original language | English |
Genre | boxing drama |
Setting | London |
The Square Ring is a 1952 play by Ralph Peterson. [1]
The story of several boxers who are fighting on the one night. They include Docker Starkie, a boxer making a comeback.
Peterson wrote an Australian radio play about boxing, Come Out Fighting which aired in 1950. [2]
Peterson moved to London in 1951 and wrote a stage version, The Square Ring, over a three-month period. He sent the play to Anthony Quayle, whom he had met in Sydney when Quayle was touring with the Stratford Players (Quayle had appeared in a radio play written by Peterson about Aboriginal issues, "The Problem of Johnny Flourcake"). [3] Quayle was going to put it on himself but then accepted another theatrical tour of Australia so he passed it to H. M. Tennents, the London theatre agency, who agreed to produce it. [4]
After several weeks of rehearsal, the play premiered in Brighton in September 1952 with a mostly male cast but one female, the wife of the central character. Peterson said "the play never seemed to jell. It got wacky and the girl seemed to be distracting attention from the main story." So he made it an all male story. He also changed it by "I've done away with the normal compression of time. The running time of the play is exactly the period it would take a boxer to arrive in his dressing-room, to wait for his bout, and to complete his fight. It goes on without a break." [4] [5]
Peterson said "The play's only philosophy is: What makes men fight? The answer is simply — money." [4]
The play debuted in London in October 1952 and was acclaimed. [4] [6] It was produced in Melbourne in 1953 at Frank Thring's Arrow Theatre with Thring in the cast. [7] The play received some criticism because of its language [8] but was such a success that the production was transferred to the much larger Princess Theatre. [9]
Joe Louis expressed interest in appearing in a production. [10]
The play was the basis of The Square Ring produced at Ealing Studios.
Peterson adapted the play into a novel which was published in 1954.
The play was adapted for radio in 1965.
Lionel Edmund Rose MBE was an Australian professional boxer who competed from 1964 to 1976. He held the undisputed WBA, WBC, and The Ring bantamweight titles from 1968 to 1969, becoming the first Indigenous Australian to win a world title. He later became the first Indigenous Australian to be named Australian of the Year.
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The Square Ring is a 1953 British tragi-comic drama, directed by Basil Dearden and made at Ealing Studios. It stars Jack Warner, Robert Beatty and Maxwell Reed. The film, based on a 1952 stage play by Ralph Peterson, centres on one night at a fairly seedy boxing venue and tells the disparate stories of the fighters and the women behind them.
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Fred Dyer born Frederick William O'Dwyer, was a Welsh boxing champion, boxing manager and baritone singer. Trained by vocal teacher Clara Novello Davies, Dyer was famed for singing to audiences after he had fought in a contest and was nicknamed 'The Singing Boxer'.
Ralph Wilton Peterson was an Australian writer, actor and producer of film, theatre, radio and TV. He went to London and achieved fame with the success of his play The Square Ring, which was turned into a film of the same name in 1953. He married the Australian actress Betty Lucas in 1946; their son, Joel Patterson (1957–2017), became a cinematographer.
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The Arrow Theatre was an Australian theatre in the Melbourne suburb of Middle Park. It was located at 1–3 Armstrong Street, opposite the Middle Park railway station. It seated only 200 persons but had a stage large enough for ambitious productions.
Come Out Fighting is a 1950 Australian radio drama by Ralph Peterson.
The Problem of Johnny Flourcake is a 1949 Australian radio feature by Ralph Peterson. It was written in verse.