Burke and Wills (radio play)

Buke and Wills is a 1949 Australian play by Colin Thiele about the Burke and Wills expedition. The play was first performed at the Adelaide Drama Festival 1949.[2] This production was broadcast on radio in 1949.[3]

Burke and Wills
Genreverse drama play
Running time70 mins (7:30 pm – 8:40 pm)
Country of originAustralia
Language(s)English
SyndicatesABC
Written byColin Thiele
Directed byFrank Clelow
Recording studioAdelaide
Original releaseFebruary 28, 1949 (1949-02-28)[1]

It was a verse drama. According to Leslie Rees, the play "strongly influenced by The Fire on the Snow, uses the survivor King as a narrator speaking remarkably fine verse, while the characters address one another in prose."[4]

The play was published in The Golden Lighting (1951),[5] Colin Thiele, Selected Verse (Rigby, Adelaide, 1970) and On The Air: Five Radio and Television Plays (Angus & Robertson, 1959).

According to ABC Weekly "it retells the tragic story of the first explorers to cross Australia from south to north. The scenes mostly concern the fateful last weeks of the expedition, when first Gray,then Wills, then Burke died, leaving only King to tell the tale."[6]

The ABC produced the play again in 1951 and 1955.[7]

According to The Bulletin " the real merit of the piece was not in the occasional effective images of dust and death but in the play as a whole: though it was somewhat derivative it moved, and it was moving; and the harsh verse suited the theme. "[8]

References
  1. Australian Broadcasting Commission. (1939), ABC weekly, Sydney: ABC, nla.obj-1299739732, retrieved 11 October 2023 – via Trove
  2. Burke and Wills at Burke and Wills Net
  3. ""Burke And Wills" By S.A. Author". The Advertiser (Adelaide). South Australia. 1 March 1949. p. 3. Retrieved 11 October 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. Rees, Leslie (1953). Towards an Australian Drama. p. 147.
  5. "THIRD BOOK OF POEMS BY COLIN THIELE". Port Lincoln Times. Vol. XXV, no. 1, 392. South Australia. 25 October 1951. p. 1. Retrieved 11 October 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. Australian Broadcasting Commission. (1939), "Tragic explorers' drama in Adelaide Festival", ABC weekly, Sydney: ABC (Vol. 11 No. 9 (26 February 1949)), nla.obj-1343571379, retrieved 11 October 2023 – via Trove
  7. Australian Broadcasting Commission. (1939), "RADIO PLAYS for NEXT WEEK A. B. C.", ABC weekly, Sydney: ABC (Vol. 17 No. 4 (22 January 1955)), nla.obj-1698362345, retrieved 11 October 2023 – via Trove
  8. "The Red Page HUGO WOLF", The bulletin., John Ryan Comic Collection (Specific issues)., Sydney, N.S.W: John Haynes and J.F. Archibald (Vol. 73 No. 3754 (23 Jan 1952)), 1880, ISSN 0007-4039, nla.obj-540185307, retrieved 11 October 2023 – via Trove
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.