Spoiled Darlings Explained

Spoiled Darlings
Format:drama
Runtime:60 mins
Start Time:8 pm
End Time:9 pm
Country:Australia
Language:English
Home Station:2FC
Director:John Cairns
Record Location:Sydney
First Aired:27 December 1940

Spoiled Darlings is a 1940 Australian romantic comedy radio play by Edmund Barclay that was broadcast nationally on the ABC.[1]

Its light hearted treatment of Australian history was unusual for the time. Leslie Rees write in 1940 that “I don’t know of a single Australian historical play other than Barclay’s that could be called jolly.”

The play was very popular and was produced again several times. There were productions in 1941, 1951, and 1954 (with Ray Barrett and Reg Lye).

Geoffrey Thomas, reviewing the 1954 production, called it "gay and charming... and, if it is, perhaps, a little overstrained in its mannerisms (I can’t believe that people were ever quite so flowery either in their rudeness or in their politeness to one another!) yet it is pleasant to pretend that even Sydney once had time for such leisurely behaviour." Leslie Rees referred to it as "a witty souffle of a comedy... a play of light intention, it doesn’t dissect or probe, it does chuckle!"

A copy of the script was published in a collection of Australian radio plays in 1946.[2] [3]

The ABC later used Ralph Darling's regime as a background to the 1962 mini-series The Patriots. Filmink magazine argued that Spoiled Darlings was a superior treatment of this period.[4]

Premise

A comedy in 1839, the time when Sydney was under the governorship of Ralph Darling. A young man from England, Jeffrey Lorimer, is mistaken for an assigned convict servant by the beautiful Anne Carmichael, daughter of a rich settler. Lorimer also goes to work for Robert Wardell and William Wentworth, whose newspaper articles greatly annoy Darling.[5]

Cast of 1954 production

Notes

External links

Notes and References

  1. Marion Consandine, 'Barclay, Edmund Piers (Teddy) (1898–1961)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/barclay-edmund-piers-teddy-9425/text16569, published first in hardcopy 1993, accessed online 24 August 2023.
  2. News: Drama On The Radio . . 31,238 . Victoria, Australia . 12 October 1946 . 24 August 2023 . 14 . National Library of Australia.
  3. News: Australian Plays For The Air . . 11,481 . New South Wales, Australia . 9 November 1946 . 24 August 2023 . 4 (STUMPS EDITION) . National Library of Australia.
  4. Filmink. Stephen. Vagg. Forgotten Australian TV Plays: The Patriots. 2021.
  5. News: THE WEEK IN WIRELESS -- . . 30977 . Victoria, Australia . 14 August 1954 . 24 August 2023 . 18 . National Library of Australia.