| Director: | Raymond Menmuir |
| Country: | Australia |
| Language: | English |
| Runtime: | 60 minutes |
| Company: | ABC |
| Network: | ABC |
| Released: | (Sydney, live)[1] |
| Released2: | (Melbourne, taped)[2] |
If It's a Rose is an Australian television movie, or rather a live television comedy play, which aired in 1958 on ABC. Australian TV drama was relatively rare at the time.[3]
Duration was 60 minutes, in black-and-white. Archival status of the program is unknown. Annette Andre was a relatively unknown 18 year old.[4] [5]
A version had been performed on British TV in 1954.[6]
Set in Italy. Over the course of one day, Mario is courting Anna.
It was recorded live in Sydney.[7] It was an early television performance from Annette Andre who later recalled:
Even though I had been performing on stage from a very young age... I still had to overcome the exquisite torture of stage fright when I did my first TV drama. For some reason, my radio work was anxiety-free, perhaps because my ‘audience’ was only the other actors grouped around the microphone. My If It’s a Rose co-star was as nervous as I was and in Act II started calling me ‘Annette’ instead of ‘Maria’. If that wasn’t unsettling enough, the zipper on my costume got stuck and I had to play the rest of the scene facing the camera to hide the half-open dress. My ballet training came into play here, as I’d learned to overcome problems such as falling on stage and not let them affect my performance.[8]