Eugenie Duggan

Bert Bailey as ‘Dad Rudd’ (with false beard) 1912. Photo by May Moore.

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Bert Bailey sans beard. Photo by May Moore.

From The Lone Hand, 1 Nov. 1918, p.525

By GAYNE DEXTER

HAD Bert had his way, there never would have been a beard.

Clean-shaven, big-nosed, thin-cheeked, a man who would have passed in any crowd, pushed into Cinesound Productions office high in the State Theatre Building 23 years ago.

“I’m Bert Bailey,” he announced. “I’ve just fixed up a deal with Stuart F. Doyle to film On Our Selection and you’re going to direct it.”

Ken G. Hall, then a youngster with part of one silent picture to his directorial credit, gulped. On Our Selection, which had played in theatres, tents, and barns until even the Townsville goats had grown tired of eating the posters off the fences, was to be Australia’s first talking production! To cover his horror, Hall could think of only one defence: “You'll have to grow a beard.”

Bailey came around the table and thumped it.

“Now listen, boy. Every night for 30 years I’ve been putting on make-up and a beard. If you think I’m going to grow a real one for pictures, and have all the kids calling me Ziff” —crash went the table again— “I won’t do it!”

Hall explained how the screen would show up a false beard; it had to be real. “Not for me, it doesn’t!” insisted Bert.

THERE was no comment when he returned for script conferences the next week wearing a rogues-gallery stubble, which grew into a herbaceous border and at last into the beard with a capital B—the insignia of irascible, loveable, warm-hearted Dad. 

Even then it wasn’t safe from the shears. He suffered the hoots of small boys who later were to follow him in admiring crowds.

Finally in roaring disgust he strode into Hall’s office a week before shooting. “I’ve stood everything for you, Ken; but now I’ve got to cut it off. Coming down in the William Street tram just now, what d’you think happened—a lady got up and offered me her seat!”

But the Beard stayed on. Its origin set a formula for a comedy situation that carried through every picture. Dad’s best laughs came when Mum, Dave or omnipotent circumstances were forcing him to some action against his will. He roared defiantly: “I won’t do it!” Quick cut to next scene—and Dad was doing it.

Produced with locally made recording equipment, a silent camera miraculously adapted and a clothes-prop for a sound boom, On Our Selection had to stick close to the original play.

“None of us had any sound picture experience.” Ken Hall says, “Nominally I was director, but Bert was the producer, simply photographing a play with a sure knowledge of where the laughs would come, no matter how hopeless the situations seemed to the studio crew. How right he was! Even under those crude conditions we felt his strength. In our later productions when I took over the real job of direction, his personality over-shadowed the cast. Fred MacDonald, equally famous as Dave, was the only actor who could hold his own.”

The Cinesound film crew, including (seated) Bert Bailey; director, Ken G. Hall; script girl, Margery West and technical supervisor, Bert Cross, with Walter Sully on camera.

A scene from the 1932 film version of On Our Selection with Bert Bailey, Alfreda Bevan, Lilias Adeson and Fred MacDonald recreating their original stage roles.

THE success of On Our Selection is a legend of the industry now. It cost £6,000 and earned £60,000. 

Bailey supplied book, actors and sets; Cinesound provided technicians and studio facilities. Profits were split 50-50 between Cinesound and the firm of Bailey and Grant.

The second picture, Grandad Rudd (1934), cost £8,000, but earned a comparatively poor £18,000.  Bailey quickly understood what caused the drop. To give himself age, he had played Grandad with a clean-shaven top lip, though with the rest of his beard intact. The slight change took him out of character.

This and all subsequent pictures were financed by Cinesound, who paid Bailey £150 a week while shooting, plus 25 per cent. of profits to Bailey and Grant.

No written contract existed; there never was a dispute.

Dad and Dave Come To Town, filmed in 1937 for £12,000, reached the English market, playing the Odeon Circuit twice and earning £40,000. His last picture, Dad Rudd, M.P., cost £18,000, but in 1940 war fever left little demand for homely comedy, and earnings of £28,000 fell far below expectations.

Cinesound begged him to continue. He refused—too old, he claimed. Too old for anyone to want, was his favourite alibi. Yet three weeks before he died, American television producers, who had seen his films in a group of Australian products, called Bailey the year’s biggest TV possibility, and wrote demanding either more of his pictures or Bert himself. He received the news and grinned. “Ya know, Ken—these Yanks—they’re full of baloney!”

Twenty-three years of motion picture fame made Bert Bailey the most self-deprecating star the industry has known.

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“Dad” A Riot From First Night

By CLAUDE McKAY

IN his youth Bert Bailey was never happy away from the footlights. 

Had he so desired he could have peacefully enjoyed prosperity as a retailer, for his mother was Mrs. McCathie, founder of the vast store in Pitt Street [Sydney] which bears her name to-day. She never could make out why her son chose the precarious life of the theatre and did her utmost to rescue him from vagabondage.

When Bert first consorted with down-at-heel Thespians on Poverty Point—the kerb alongside the corner pub of the Criterion Theatre—they were a motley assortment.  Most of them were “resting,” a professional euphemism for being out of work.

Edmund Duggan who took Bert under his wing was an actor of the Vincent Crummles school. He was truly a superb actor off the stage. When engaging “artists,” as they always were to him, it was like bestowing the accolade. The moot and burning question of salary he dismissed with, “Laddie, leave it to me!”

Those were the terms Bert Bailey came to know. “The ghost never walked,” he would relate. “But we did often.”

“Have you ever noticed,” he would add, “how actors take a short step every few yards. That’s where the sleepers on the railway line are close together.”

William Anderson, who broke into theatrical management from bill-sticking, married Edmund Duggan’s sister, Eugenie.

From Edmund’s seasoned troupers he recruited a company to support her in melodrama. Edmund was stage manager and “doubled” in character parts. Bert Bailey was pressed into service as comedian.  Whenever he appeared, which was when their impending fate was unbearable to dwell on, there was a roar of applause. For comedy was so constructed in the Melville dramas of the day that the comedian was unconsciously on the track of the wrongdoer and finally, to his own amazement, unmasked him. 

They played consistently to packed houses and Bert Bailey in broad comedy roles was their abiding joy. Edmund Duggan saw to it that he underlined every situation that could get a laugh. Against the blood-soaked trail of the villain and the misery he wrought for everyone in the cast with a tinge of virtue, Bert was a welcome relief.

MELVILLE melodramas came from the Adelphi, London, and were cut to standard pattern. 

Eugenie Duggan (Mrs. William Anderson)

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Bert Bailey as ‘Archie McPherson’ in The Squatter’s Daughter (1907)

National Museum, Canberra

It struck Edmund and Bert that there was indigenous material from which four acts could be concocted. They got to work together and prepared a play. The Squatter’s Daughter, they called it. Beyond the Australian setting, it was Melville transported. But it captivated the Anderson public for months. Bert and Edmund drew author’s royalties and took the first-night curtain call for them.

The attraction of writing parts for themselves to display to the full their histrionic talents was not lost on either. However, their conflicting ideas about this put an end to collaboration. Edmund wanted a blank verse drama glorifying Australia. Bert left him to it, and the opus which Anderson staged was a flop. 

Bert, meanwhile, got hold of a script which Steele Rudd had been hawking round the theatres. I read it when it came to J.C Williamson’s. It would have played under an hour and had neither beginning nor end.

Beaumont Smith, then Anderson’s publicity manager, persuaded Steele Rudd to let him see what he could do with his book, On Our Selection, and over a period of months ran out a scenario. Then he gave it best, not, however, before Bert Bailey became interested in it. Bert worked on the skeleton plot for fully a year, peopling the farce with characters of his own comic invention.

ABOUT this time Cyril Maude had appeared in Australia as Grumpy, a sure-fire starring role in which he made a big fortune. Bert Bailey determined that “Dad” would do the same for him and all the time he could give he spent in contriving situations that Dad would dominate.

“I can play the old blighter as long as I live,” he said to me after the first-night triumph. Bert by then had parted from Anderson and with Julius Grant, Anderson’s treasurer for many years, formed a partnership in management. Year in, year out, up and down Australia and around New Zealand Bert as Dad Rudd toured.

He decided that London was waiting for him. The success of Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, a collection of oddities caricaturing American village life, helped him to his conclusion. But London was a misfire. Nonetheless, Bert himself was lionised by the acting profession. Leaders in the theatre feted him at a memorable banquet, when his speech was the hit of the night. When the old brandy was passed round and Bert was asked would he care for one, he said, “Not for me, but if the building won’t collapse when I say it, I would like a cup of tea.” Bert was a lifelong tee-totaller.

The Sunday Herald (Sydney), Sunday, 5 April 1953, p.12, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18514102

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The origins of On Our Selection were discussed in an article first published in the Adelaide Mail in 1912.

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A NEW FIRM

The Bert Bailey Company

Interesting Combination

The continued prosperity of the motion picture has done much for the drama. People who have always shunned the playhouse have, by accepting the moving picture play, been so interested by the silent acting that they have been impelled to find out what a real play is like. Therefore the cry that the new branch of entertainment is affecting the “legitimate” theatre must not be heeded. While the motion picture has progressed so has the older form of amusement, no matter whether it is light comedy, comic opera, pantomime, or farcical comedy. The playgoer has been so well provided for lately that he will accept only the best. The prosperity of the theatre has stimulated commercial instincts, and new firms continue to spring up like mushrooms at night.  So far the majority of the new combinations have consisted of popular artists who, probably encouraged by the success of the Plimmer-Denniston organisation, have started on their own account. Of the new entrepenuers who have lately come into competition with bigger firms one of the most notable, and certainly one of the most popular is the organisation known as the Bert Bailey Dramatic Company, consisting of Messrs. Bert Bailey, Edmund Duggan, and Julius Grant, who have been associated with Mr. William Anderson’s enterprises as far back as I can remember, the first two as artists, the last named as business manager. With a company of good, all-round supporting artists, proved successes in their repertoire such as On Our Selection and The Squatter’s Daughter, and their own popularity, it is small wonder that the new combination are meeting with nothing but success all along the line. In fact, I believed Mr. Bailey when he told me that he often failed to sleep at night through wondering why he and his partners had not launched out earlier.

The company are singularly fortunate inasmuch as Messrs. Bailey and Duggan are not only capable actors and producers but successful playwrigts, responsible for such meritorious plays as The Squatter’s Daughter and The Man From Outback, in addition to On Our Selection. The latter is taken from Steele Rudd’s book, true, but it is mainly through the craft of Mr. Bailey, his knowledge of stage technique, its limitations and scope, that the delightful stories of the Australian selector have been constructed into such a noteworthy play—the best Australian play yet produced in the Commonwealth.

When I suggested an interview to the gentlemen of the Bert Bailey directorate it was Mr. Bailey who was unanimously selected for spokesman, although he protested that he was not anxious for any more limelight than his partners.

Bert Bailey, Edmund Duggan and Julius Grant. Photo by May & Mina Moore.

From The Lone Hand, 1 June 1914, p.50

Commemorative program for the King’s Theatre, Melbourne

National Library of Australia, Canberra

“The popular play,” said Mr. Bailey, in reply to my query, “cannot be found by the manager; the public make the play for you. You can never tell when a piece will be successful, except, of course, in cases such as On Our Selection. It matters not what theatrical experience you have behind you, there is no other experience which counts for so little as that of the theatrical entrepenuer. A play to become successful must have the elements of success. All the puffing in the world will not make it popluar unless it has that.”

“To what do you attribute the success of On Our Selection?”

“To the human interest and its clean humour. There is nothing suggestive in the play; nothing to which anyone can take exception.”

“Did you have trouble in writing and producing your money maker?”

“Well, I have always loved [Steele] Rudd, consequently I completely saturated myself in six of his books, from which On Our Selection was based, until there were two men in Australia who knew more about Rudd than anyone else—Rudd and myself. With such a knowledge allied with the experience that I have gained through my tour in Northern Australia, I considered I knew a trifle about the play I was to construct. Both Mr. Duggan and myself have had a thorough stage training. We know its technique; its possibilities. When we conceive a scene or sensation we know exactly how to work it out, what to put in, and what to leave out. That is where we have the advantage of the playwright who has not had an actor’s experience. But, to return to On Our Selection. The script we got from Steele Rudd, and Beaumont Smith ran an hour and twenty minutes short of time. We had to rewrite it. It was no easy matter, for the dovetailing had to be done carefully. The construction had to make everything natural. You will yourself have observed how little things—improbabilities, yet not impossibilities—are introduced. For any man might sit down on a rake or be startled when he looks at himself in a mirror. But these, which, after all, are only trivial things, matter a lot. However, the action and movement of the play is so vigorous that they are not noticed. The characters are good, and I cannot imagine any other cast giving as good a performance. Steele Rudd’s descriptions of them, the illustrations in his book, and my own experiences, allied with the ordinary brains and intelligence of the artistes, have made them perfect types. There are frequently five different women on the stage at once, yet there is no resemblance between them.  Each is a different character. The great feature of the characters is that they do not know they are humourous. For instance, when Dad says— ‘Dave’s in love; I see it workin’ in him like yeast,’ he does not know that he is being funny. That is his way of expressing a fact. It is the same with Dave and Lily’s lovemaking. To them it is serious; to the audience laughable. You must hold the mirror up to Nature and see its reflection if you want to laugh.  When a man slips on a banana skin people laugh because it is so funny. Yet it is no laughing matter to the man who falls. Thus the chief charm of On Our Selection lies in the fact that the characters are unconcious of the humour they create. Even Maloney doesn’t know that he is funny.”

Arthur Hoey Davis aka “Steele Rudd” (1913). Photo by May Moore.

National Library of Australia, Canberra

“Bert Bailey, maker and producer of Australian plays”—Harry Julius caricature (1910)

National Library of Australia, Canberra

“What do you look for when writing a play?”

“Novelty, every time. That is what made our play The Squatter’s Daughter so successful. We had several good novelties. No one had thought of having sheep shorn on the stage, or of cattle duffing. Then we introduced bushrangers. That is to say they were merely introduced. They have little to do with the story, yet they were there all the same. Then The Squatter’s Daughter had the spectacular effects to help it. On Our Selection has none—it needs none.

“Do you think On Our Selection would have a fighting chance in London?”

“I think it would have a chance anywhere.  Any humourous play should.”

“For the reason?”

“That humour is still humour the world over.”

VAN ECK.

The Mail (Adelaide), 3 August 1912, p.12, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/rendition/nla.news-page5284164.pdf

The original cast members of On Our Selection in 1912, included:
standing (l to r)—Lilias Adeson (as Lily White), Laura Roberts (Sarah Rudd), Edmund Duggan (Maloney), Guy Hastings (Sandy), Alfred Harford (Billy Bearup)
seated—Fred MacDonald (Dave), Alfreda Bevan (Mrs. Rudd), Bert Bailey (Dad), Queenie Sefton (Mrs. White)
in front—Arthur Bertram (Joe Rudd), Mary Marlowe (Kate Rudd) and Willie Driscoll (Uncle Rudd). From Chronicle (Adelaide), Saturday, 27 July 1912, p.30.

Endnotes

by Rob Morrison

Poster for 1912 Christchurch, NZ season. National Library of Australia, Canberra.On Our Selection received its Australian premiere at the Palace Theatre, Sydney on 4 May 1912 for a limited run of 12 performances, which concluded on 17 May. Its immediate success had exceeded all expectations playing to crowded houses during its initial season, which prompted the Sydney Referee to comment (on Wednesday, 15 May 1912, p.16): “… the business head of the Bert Bailey Company [Julius Grant] must have felt sorry that the firm had not secured a three months’ lease of the theatre.” Succesful performances were then given in Newcastle, Toowoomba, Brisbane, Adelaide, Bendigo, Geelong and Ballarat before its Melbourne season commenced at the King’s Theatre on 14 September 1912 for a run of 42 performances. Following a visit to New Zealand, where it premiered at His Majesty’s Theatre, Auckland on 18 November 1912, the play returned to the Palace Theatre, Sydney for an extended run commencing on 19 April 1913 and continued to enjoy a successful career on-the-road as part of the Bert Bailey Dramatic Company’s touring repertoire throughout the 1910s. A sequel entitled Gran’dad Rudd dramatised by Steele Rudd himself and recounting the further adventures of the Rudd family some 15 years later, premiered at the King’s Theatre, Melbourne on 22 September 1917, and also proved to be initially popular, but did not enjoy the sustained success of the original play.

In August of 1920 Bert Bailey fulfilled his ambition of staging On Our Selection in London with an Australian cast.  Although the authorship of the play in Australia had been credited to “Albert Edmunds” (the pseudonym adopted by Bailey and Duggan as joint collaborators) and Beaumont Smith (in recognition of his contribution in preparing the initial scenario); in Britain, Steele Rudd was given the sole credit as author, evidently as a tribute to his creation of the original characters featured in the dramatisation.

The play was given its British premiere at the Palace Theatre, Ramsgate on Monday, 16 August 1920, for a pre-London trial season, but the opening performance was hampered by the fact that a large portion of the scenery (credited to artists Rigby and S. Witton) had not arrived at the theatre in time, as noted in the first-night review published in The Stageon the following Thursday. The review went on to state: “Mr. Bert Bailey, who appeared as Dad Rudd, gives a fine characterisation of the rugged old man who has fought life in the wilds with only his family to help. His fits of choler and turns of humour show him to be an actor of strong and varied feeling.”

Following its subsequent London premiere at the Lyric Theatre on Tuesday, 24 August 1920, the critics regarded the now 8-year-old play as rather old-fashioned, but lauded Bert Bailey’s performance as ‘Dad Rudd’ as a great comic creation. Nonetheless sophistitcated West End theatregoers did not take to it and On Our Selection closed on 18 September after a mere 31 performances, dashing Bert Bailey’s hopes of staging further plays from his repertoire in the British capital.

The Sydney World’s News for Saturday, 2 October 1920 had reported: “I have three other plays I would like to do here if your playgoers like our first sample of dramatic goods,” said Mr. Bert Bailey to a London interviewer. “One is a sort of sequel to ‘On Our Selection.’ It is called ‘Grand-dad Rudd.’ Another is called ‘The Squatter's Daughter’, and a third is entitled ‘The Man From Out Back’.  It Is a play all about cattle-duffing. What is cattle-duffing?  Well it means stealing your neighbor's cattle and getting away with them. I don’t feel that I can come here to startle Londoners. I want to do my best with my production.”

Back in Australia, Bailey’s touring production of his signature play continued to entertain both local and New Zealand audiences throughout the remainder of the 1920s and also garnered fresh fans when revived at the Jane Street Theatre in Randwick, NSW for a season from 20 June to 14 July 1979 in a revised version adapted and directed by George Whaley, which also incorporated interpolated musical numbers. The cast included Don Crosby as ‘Dad’, Geoffrey Rush as ‘Dave’, Kerry Walker as ‘Mother’, Mel Gibson as ‘Sandy Taylor’, Noni Hazlehurst as ‘Lily White’ and Barry Otto doubling in the roles of ‘Old Carey’ and his son, ‘Jim Carey’. Its success prompted a spate of revivals Australia-wide in the early 1980s including productions in Perth, Fremantle, Penrith, Wollongong, Brisbane, Townsville, Adelaide, Canberra and Auckland, New Zealand.

The Melbourne Theatre Company’s revival directed by Graeme Blundell was staged at the Athenaeum Theatre between 1 December 1982 to 29 January 1983 with a cast headed by Frederick Parslow as ‘Dad Rudd’ and Gary McDonald as ‘Dave’ (a character that he had previously played in the 1972 Australian TV series Snake Gully with Dad and Dave inspired by the Steele Rudd stories, in which Gordon Chater had played ‘Dad’). It was subsequently revived by the MTC at the Athenaeum for a further season between 7 December 1983 to 28 January 1984.

The nostalgic appeal of the play also resulted in a remounted film version in 1995, co-written and directed by George Whaley, with a cast that included Leo McKern as ‘Dad Rudd’, Dame Joan Sutherland(!) as ‘Mother Rudd’, Geoffrey Rush as ‘Dave’ and Noah Taylor as ‘Joe’, plus Barry Otto in a reprise of the character of ‘Old Carey’ now renamed ‘J.P. Riley’. The film also included original songs written and composed by Pete Best with vocals performed by John Williamson and The Bush Band.

Harry Julius caricature—The Bulletin (Sydney), 9 May 1912, p.10

SUNDRY SHOWS

For the first time in Australia a dramatisation of “On Our Selection” (“Steele’s Rudd’s” book) was produced, by the Bailey-Duggan-Grant management, at Sydney Palace, on Saturday night. It was an entire success, and one more Australian play can be branded as a sure money-maker. The dramatists had some difficulty in piecing together the incidents of life on the selection as “Steele Rudd” saw it, also they found it necessary to provide a special murder, for the sake of a concerted plot; but the dovetailing has been done well, and the general result may be termed good. On the whole, too, the well-known characters of the book are recognisable without the aid of glasses, and the scenery is typical of the bush. The old gag that Australian plays worth producing cannot be obtained, sags at the knees, and. when “On Our Selection” has been rounded off here and there, as experience dictates, and some improvement made in the cast, the hoary old remark will start down the track for the gully where lie the derelict statements concerning the inability of Australians to make their own boots, blankets, tweeds, jams and things generally, just as well as a cheap-labored, half-starved country, white, black, brown or piebald. There is more humor to the square inch of “On Our Selection” than to the square fathom of many allegedly humorous plays which are hauled hitherward, at more or less expense, from London or Noo Yark. On Saturday night, an audience which packed every corner of the house, rocked with laughter throughout. A large man, with a red face, leaned his head over THE BULLETIN’s seat, and gasped, “I wouldn't miss this for quids!” That was the first occasion on which this paper has agreed with a large man with a red face.

* * *

The honors and whatever else is to be dispensed amongst the players go to Bert Bailey, as Dad; Fred Macdonald, as Dave; and Laura Roberts, as Sarah. Bailey is Dad. It is probably the best thing he has done, and, if it is ever improved upon, THE BULLETIN will be glad to meet the improver. Macdonald’s conception of Dave Rudd, and Laura Roberts’s of Sarah Rudd, also stand very high. But there are one or two others in the cast who could be considerably improved. Chief amongst them is Mary Marlowe (the co.’s leading lady), who plays Kate Rudd. Her dressing of the part alone is absurd, and her reading of it throws her right out of the atmosphere of the piece. The fine character of Mum is in the not very capable hands of Miss Alfreda Bevan. Anybody who doubts this can go and judge for himself until further notice.

The Bulletin (Sydney), 9 May 1912, p.11

The Bulletin’s Melbourne-based theatre critic, Edmund Fisher also reviewed the show during its subsequent season at the King’s Theatre in Russell Street.

SUNDRY SHOWS

“On Our Selection,” which started an innings at the King’s (Melbourne) last Saturday, is assured of fine weather and a sound wicket wherever it plays. Its happy suggestions of reality, and the humor of its character drawings are not to be denied. One sniffs the pastoral odor of the unseen cow that trespasses on Dad’s lucerne patch. Dad and Kate and half a dozen others are true to their Australian types. The incident of Dave’s lonely dance rehearsal in the Barn is simply convincing—not wildly farcical. One’s faith in Dave extends to the object of his affections, notwithstanding the artificiality of Lily’s eyebrows, and young Sarah Rudd gives an air of probability even to Billy Bearup, her unfortunate admirer. Nothing in the new Australian play is stagey and conventional except the plot, and the plot doesn't matter much. There are no wicked people in “Our Selection.” The worst are only treated as though they were wicked. Carey, the harmful necessary mortgagee, suffers from surrounding circumstances. Everybody’s dislike being thrust upon Carey, senior, he naturally does what he can to deserve it. During the latter part of the play he is the sorrowing parent of a murdered son, yet the district treats him as an interfering beast for trying to place the murderer. As for Carey, junior, the only thing stated to his discredit—apart from his frankly dishonorable intentions re Mary Rudd, is the allegation that he lured a married lady from her allegiance to Cranky Jim. But it is clear that he acted as a hero and a benefactor in eloping with a distressed female. The awful unbarbered aspect of Jim the Avenger, and his mania for seeing snakes without the assistance of whisky, indicate hereditary rats in the garret. Therefore it is reasonably assumed that his wife of yore gave Carey, junior, the glad eye and the naughty smile, and practically implored the young man to divert her thoughts from her lawful lord.  Carey is one of the most-to-be-pitied villains of melodrama.

* * * *

The play having been constructed according to the mummer lights of Bailey and Duggan, the situations are as cheaply effective as the antique gags wherewith the dialogue is pimpled. The entertainment has the novelty of growing dull for a time in the third act, where dramas ordinarily do their darnedest to be exciting. In three other acts the moments fly on broad comedy wings. The staging is careful—so careful that the management could afford a lapse into further embellishment. An unnatural tinted shanty of flawless, even speckless, character, which is billed as “Dave’s Dilapidated Domicile,” might as well be rebuilt to suit the description. Also, a few supernumerary settlers introduced into the Barn dance, would give more weight and color to the joyous finale. The public rejoicing over Dad’s election to Parliament are limited to the family. No outside voters have been invited.

* * * *

Bert Bailey’s Dad establishes him as an Australian character actor. The make-up, the ripe elderly tone of voice, and the rugged force of his personality—these are notable factors in a successful show. The Dave of Fred Macdonald is another capital creation that holds together whilst Miss Laura Roberts, as Sarah, seems to be making the very best of a part which comes easy to her. Guy Hastings is a manly, unaffected lover to Miss Marlowe’s womanly and unaffected Mary. George Treloar, who shows artistic restraint as the orthodox villain, achieves a positive triumph of melodrama in springing forward to receive a knock-out, and Miss Adeson, J.P. Lennon and Driscoll call for honorable mention, as compared with two or three other people. Arthur Bertram, as Joe, overacts in a part where moderation is specially needed, and Edmund Duggan can consider himself reproved for kicking his fellow creatures in the rear. The crudest possible way of raising a laugh is to kick anybody for kicking’s sake, and when the kicker is an utterly superfluous character in the play, this method of asserting its importance seems cruder than usual.

The Bulletin (Sydney), 19 September 1912, p.11

Joe (Arthur Bertram) and Dave (Fred MacDonald). Photo by May Moore (1912).

Sarah (Laura Roberts) and Dad (Bert Bailey). Photo by May Moore (1912).

ON OUR SELECTION IN LONDON

The Sphere (London), 11 September 1920, p.241

“ON OUR SELECTION.”

AUSTRALIAN PLAY AT THE LYRIC.

By Steele Rudd.

Mr. Bert Bailey, an actor famous in Australia, has brought to London a play that has been very successful in Australia, and is there considered, as he told us in his speech on the fall of the curtain, to be a faithful picture of the types that it aims at portraying.

The types are those of the back country—the hardy pioneers of British stock, who have bravely and laboriously hewed a home and a living out of the wilderness. And, as Mr. Bailey himself presents Dad Rudd, the head of such a household is a comical, admirable, lovable old tyrant. His humours, his prejudices, his passions, his rough sense of justice, mixed up with wilful unfairness, are acted by Mr. Bailey with rich fun. And when Dad Rudd has come through his troubles, routed his enemy, championed one prospective son-in-law against the criminal code, blown a hole in another prospective son-in-law's breeches with a shot-gun, and been elected to Parliament, we think very
kindly of him as a fine old fellow and a good fund of racy humour.

If only he were set in a better play, and supported by a better company. The play is called a comedy; but it has strong affinity with what we call melodrama in its crudest form—murder, unjustly suspected hero, villains, comic lovers, and so forth; and it is not worked out on those lines with the consistency and force that we are used to at, say, the Lyceum. And for the company (we did not gather whether they were Australians, or English, or mixed), it was possibly the fault of the players that what seemed to be meant for rustic innocency looked more like congenital idiocy. None of them could hold a candle to Mr. Bailey; but Miss Eva Guildford Quin as the heroine, Mr. Graham Pockett as an old idler, Mr. J. Scott Leighton as a madman, and Miss Maureen Dillon as a persistent young lady of 17 or so, with a love-affair all her own, were those who appealed most strongly to the audience. The reception was very cordial, and the house rang with “coo-ees.”

The Times (London), Wednesday, 25 August 1920, p.8

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THE LYRIC

“ON OUR SELECTION”

Messrs. Bert Bailey and Julius Grant, of the King’s [Theatre], Melbourne, who gave “On Our Selection” its trial trip in this country at the Palace, Ramsgate, last week, began at the Lyric, on Tuesday, the London run of this piece by Steele Rudd, described officially as a comedy from Australia, typical of life in the back country. Steele Rudd is an Antipodean journalist, playwright, and author of stories, and this play of his has during the last decade been performed some 1,500 times throughout Australasia, with its present producer, Mr. Bailey, in the role, with name the same as that of the dramatist, of old Dud Rudd, with whose family, living on his “selection" in one of the back settlements, the action deals. There in a good dose of melodrama, including a murder and the threatened foreclosing of a bill of exchange, in Mr. Rudd’s play, which has, however, nothing of the old bushranger-element, as shown in such other Australian dramas seen here in the course of the last twenty years, as “Robbery Under Arms,” adapted by Alfred Dampier and another from Rolf Boldrewood's novel (Princess’s, October, 1894), “The Bush King,” (Surrey, November, 1893), “The Bushrangers” (Grand, May, 1904), and E.W. Hornung'’s “Stingaree, the Bushranger” (Queen’s, February, 1906). The characters include Dad Rudd, his wife, Mum Rudd, their two sons, Dave and Joe, and their two daughters, Kate and Sarah. Although Kate, who goes off to Brisbane in the first of the four acts, to return, sadder, if not wiser, in the second, has a stalwart lover in Sandy, she is pestered by Jim, son of the foreclosing John Carey; and Sandy’s knocking down of the younger Carey leads to Jim’s being recognised and strangled by Cranky Jack, a grief-stricken, semi-imbecile, whose wife the young reprobate had seduced. Following the long-accepted lines, Steele Rudd causes suspicion to fall on Sandy, who, thinking he is the murderer, has to go away for a time, his name being eventually cleared by Cranky Jack’s confession during one of his periods of lucid intelligence. The end of the play is worked out on more modern lines, with the political rivalry and struggle for Parliamentary honours between old Rudd, now become a prosperous man and no longer merely the humble occupant of "Our Selection," and John Carey, whose defeat and the rejoicings over Dad’s return at the head of the poll are shown in the fourth act.

The piece, which is given at the Lyric with almost exactly the same cast of mainly British performers as at Ramsgate, is presented here under the general management of Mr. Frank Gerald, the stage manager being Mr. Graham Pockett, who also plays Uncle Rudd, ugly and lazy, with considerable skill. This applies indeed to the performance in general of “On Our Selection,” which, with its copious if also artless and primitive humours and designedly quaint characterisation, might almost be termed an Australian parallel to that American comedy of similar type, “Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch.” Mr. Bert Bailey, who plays the irascible and also determined Dad Rudd as an elderly man with bald head and grey beard and plenty of grit in him, was greeted with hearty Coo-ees by his many Australian compatriots in the first-night audience, alike on his opening entrance, at his ready gag, “When you have done pushing my home down,” when a shanty was displaced, and in his sincere and well phrased little speech of thanks at the close of the performance, when he referred to the ambition of Australian actors and dramatists to appear and have their works performed on a London stage, for instance, in this play by “one of the best known of Australian humourists.” Mr. Bailey therefore, may be congratulated upon his own share in Tuesday’s successful performance, in which there was nothing better than the retort to the elder Carey, distraining upon Rudd’s cattle and effects, that he could not break the spirit of a man who, to make his home, had had “to cut a hole in the bush.”

Special mention should be made also of the bull-uttering “blue-gum Hibernian” of Mr. Alec Alves; the kindly and motherly Mum of Miss Constance Medwyn; the cleverly comical younger girl, Sarah, of Miss Maureen Dillon, with a lover of Harry Nicholls type in the Billy Bearup, with “small voice but big heart,” of Mr. Charles Sims; and the ably-acted Cranky Jack of Mr. J. Scott Leighton. Kate was played in fresh and sympathetic style by Miss Eva Guildford Quin, to the robust and straightforward Sandy of Mr. Matthew Boulton; and the Careys, père et fils, were represented suitably by Mr. Fred Constable and Mr. C. Douglas Cox. Old Rudd’s sons, both loafing louts, were made as amusing as possible by Mr. Donald Searle, as Joe, the younger, with a pet kangaroo drowned in a well used for drinking purposes, and by Mr. George Belmore (replacing Mr. Bartlett Garth) as Dave, of whose courting of Lily White and their at first uncomfortable married life a very great deal is heard and seen. Lily and her she-dragon of a mother were set forth uncompromisingly by Misses Ruby Loncraine and Celia Gordon; and the bush parson, Mr. Macpherson, who eats Mum’s single scone when the family have been ruined temporarily by the drought, was played briskly Mr. Arthur Laurence. “On Our Selection" may perhaps enjoy in the West End some measure of the popularity it has had “Down Under.”

The Stage (London), 26 August 1920, p.16

Dad and the kangaroo. Photo by May Moore (1912).

Lyric. “ON OUR SELECTION”

By Steele Rudd. Tuesday, Aug. 24.

Every now and then a play comes out of the soil of its people—“The Better ‘Ole,” “Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch,” “Bunty Pulls the Strings,” or the “Play Boy of the Western World,” for example—and, as a rule, the truer it is to type, the more simple it is in character.

Such a play is “On Our Selection,” a dramatised version of the works of Steele Rudd, the Australian novelist, whose books are read throughout the length and breadth of Australasia.

When Mr. Bert Bailey stood on the stage with tears in his eyes at the end of the first performance of this play in London last Tuesday, he put into words something which is in the mind of every author and actor in the British Empire.

“Myself and partner, Julius Grant, who is fifteen thousand miles away in Australia,” he said, “made up our minds to bring this play to England, hoping that London would be interested in an entirely Australian product. ‘On Our Selection’ is written by Steele Rudd, one of our greatest humorists. Its characterisation is typical of Australian life in the back blocks, and the ‘Dads’ and ‘Mums’ of the Australian Bush are living examples of the fact that, when it came to pioneering and colonisation, the British race stands alone in the world.

“I suppose that every author’s ambition is to get his play produced before a London audience, and every actor and actress in the English-speaking world has an ambition to play upon a London stage. It has been mine, and I have achieved it.”

Coo-ees and applause echoed through the theatre—the coo-ees which welcome every Australian actor or actress to the London stage, for there is no people more loyal to itself than the people from “down under.”

But not even their coo-ees were louder than the laughter which had punctuated the play, and which had made the theatre ring with merriment.

Crude in form as this farce-drama is, it is full of fun, and “Dad,” the big, bluff, simple-hearted, hard-working pioneer, played by Bert Bailey himself with an art akin to genius, is a part entirely new to the London stage.

Mr. Bailey has played the part in Australia nearly a thousand times, and to play it far away in the scarce-known regions of the north he has travelled thousands of miles in coaches with his company.

The scene is laid in the Darling Downs in Queensland, and the simple log cabin, which forms its main scene, is typical of many which the Prince of Wales visited during his long rides on horseback over the outlying spaces.

Some people came away from the theatre feeling that the characters were all too simple. There was a son of the old Selector, for instance, who gave superior London an idea of semi-idiocy, so unsophisticated was he in all his movements. But Empire knows that behind that simplicity was the character of a great pioneer, a farmer who knew his job, and a prospector of the type that has made Britain great. Hundreds of his kind lie now buried on the Gallipoli Peninsula, and to that spirit which runs all through the play—the spirit which makes a family brave a terrible drought and rise to comparative fortune—is the spirit which sent so many thousands of Australians flocking to our Colours when the war broke out.

“On Our Selection” is a play to be seen. It should be played throughout the Empire in place of the American crook dramas which are so common amongst us, and in place of the semi-French farces which neither instruct nor inform.

At the first performance nearly all the agents-general were present, and the welcome which they extended to the actor-manager from “down under” was no more exuberant than that which made the gallery applaud with enthusiasm and the stalls enjoy a very fine evening's entertainment.

HANNEN SWAFFER.

The Sunday Times (London), 29 August 1920, p.4

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“On Our Selection” at the Lyric Theatre.

“Well, if that is a sample of their plays, Joe,—!” said a lady, as the audience streamed out into Shaftesbury Avenue.

“Perhaps they like them like that," said Joe, tolerantly. They evidently do. “On Our Selection" has had a run of over 1,000 nights in Australia. It has been played amid rapturous applause in all the principal cities of Australasia. It is a kind of Colonial “Chu Chin Chow.” Mr. Bert Bailey's manner of receiving applause seems to show that in his own country he is something between an Oscar Asche and an “Abraham Lincoln.”

It is unlikely, however, that he will achieve the success of either of these gentlemen in his present surroundings. The play would have had a better chance a year or two ago, when London was full of Colonial soldiers. But now that they have returned home it is too remote from what the ordinary playgoer expects to find within a stone's throw of Piccadilly Circus to have much chance of success.

It is not that the play is without its value. Indeed, it is so instructive that all Londoners who have not been to Australia most certainly ought to go and see it. The only question is whether they will. A selection (for the benefit of those to whom the title suggests an advertisement of Selfridge's or Derry and Tom’s) is a clearing in the Australian bush. The programme claims that the play is “typical of life in the back country.” And so doubtless in many ways it is. The local colour is very convincing and no doubt correct. It gives a very fresh and clear idea of the struggles and hardships of life in the bush, the difficulty of making a clearing, building one’s own house, carrying water, looking after the stock, and a hundred other things which are mere names to us. It shows, too, the extraordinary lack of privacy which is one of the greatest hardships of a really simple life. The backwoods families appear to live in a kind of patriarchal way. Dave’s father says he does not wish his son to have to propose to his girl as he did, “with her brother under the sofa, her mother looking in at the window, and her father in the next room waiting to borrow a pound when she had said ‘Yes.’ ” But in spite of his father’s good wishes Dave’s proposal is interrupted every other minute by the irruption of one member or another of his family. This is partly, of course, owing to the necessities of the comedy and the dramatic virtues, but there is, no doubt, a great deal of painful fact underlying this cheerful fiction.

But the most striking fact illustrated by this play is one which we all know in theory—but find very difficult to realise that the Australian colonies are at a very different stage of civilisation from our own. The astonishment with which this play fills the ordinary London playgoer shows how very little we understand what “life in the back country” really means. The successful play of Melbourne is at least three or four centuries behind the average successful play of London.

“On Our Selection” is called a “comedy,” but is really a cross between melodrama and farce like most of the tragedies or tragi-comedies of our own 16th and 17th centuries. The hero, the heroine, the villains (father and son), and the madman all belong to the realms of pure melodrama. Jim Carey, the villain (played by Mr. C. Douglas Cox), would have been hissed at sight at the “Elephant” [and Castle]. Richard III. did not wear the marks of his villainy more plainly. He wore smart riding-breeches and top-boots, in contrast to the cowboy attire of the upright characters, and always carried a riding-whip in readiness to horsewhip the innocent. On his first appearance he swaggers straight up to the heroine and asks in a loud undertone what such a pretty girl as she is doing in such an out-of-the-way hole in the backwoods.    She must meet him in Brisbane, and he will show her what real life is. That shows the kind of young man he is. But he has his match in Sandy. Sandy, as played by Mr. Matthew Boulton, is a perfect melodramatic hero. He is tall, with broad shoulders, straight features, and a deep voice. His fists are usually clenched and his lips set, though occasionally unbending in a winning smile. He fells Carey to the earth with one blow and strides from the room in disgust. Unfortunately, Cranky Jack comes in and finishes the good work with a large silk handkerchief. Sandy is, of course, suspected of murder, and would have been hauled off to prison had not Cranky Jack turned up in the nick of time and told the whole story in his own lunatic manner.

But life in the back country is not all as serious as this. High spirits, not to say horseplay, flourish there as well as murder, love, and foul play. The younger members of “our selection” are almost all comic characters. There is Dave Rudd, a nice young man, though stupid, who after a grotesque courtship marries a grotesque wile, with whom he lives in a grotesque hut, and is bullied by a grotesque mother-in-law. There is also another young Rudd with a shock of red hair and a stammer which is considered facetious, and a young sister engaged to a fat fiancé, with a squeaky voice, who is fired off the selection by Dad’s air-gun.

Between the melodramatic and the farcical characters stands Dad Rudd, played by Mr. Bert Bailey of Australasian fame, he is serious with the serious characters and comic with the comedy figures. He slaps Sandy on the back and stands by him in his trouble. He tells in stirring tones the story of his own early struggles in the Bush. But he rushes out at Dave’s mother-in-law in his nightshirt, fires the gun at Sarah’s fiancé, and has his tooth pulled out by his friends on the stage.

Mr. Bert Bailey’s acting sets the tone for the others, and it is as energetic and simple-minded as the play itself. The serious characters start, shudder, bite their lips, and clench their fists—make long speeches to slow music with an energy which in this country is usually associated with melodrama or the cinema stage. The comic figures tumble round the stage and knock each other about, and wink at the audience with an abandon which our English actors have now left to music-hall artistes and circus clowns.

There is something attractive in such ingenuousness. One may not laugh a great deal oneself; but one can very well imagine how backwoods men and cowboys on a rare visit to town would split their sides at the witticisms of Dad and Joe. One can imagine their guffaws when Dad on being told that the cow is in the barley replies, with a wink at the audience, “Then I bet that by this time the barley is in the cow”; or when Sarah complains that the rain comes in through the roof of the hut in which she and Billy Bearup are to begin their married life and Dad replies, “Then let's hope he'll catch cold. It may deepen his voice.” There is, moreover, something very genuine and attractive about the way in which Dad describes his early struggles in the backwoods, when in middle age he thinks he is ruined by the drought and exclaims: “I can do what a man with health, strength, and determination can always do—begin again.” That is not the sort of thing we should say, but it seems to suit Dad.

Judged by its own standards the play is not quite serious enough in the right places. It is apt to turn against its own sympathetic characters. For instance, Dave is one of the most attractive members of the Rudd family, and though we have no objection to his mother-in-law being held up to ridicule we can hardly regard it as a legitimate subject of mirth that his wife should be so grotesque a figure. In the same way, it is hardly funny that their early struggles should have turned the two youngest members of the Rudd family, and also Dad's own brother, into complete half-wits. But these are small debits, and on the whole come from those exuberant high spirits which so often characterise extreme youth.

D. H.

The Woman's Leader (London), Volume: XII, Issue: 31, Friday, 3 September 1920, p.658

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THE PLAYHOUSES.

 “ON OUR SELECTION.” AT THE LYRIC

“ON OUR SELECTION,” which has succeeded the revival of “A White Man,” at the Lyric, purports to describe the life of an Australian squatter; but it is really a specimen of that almost extinct amalgam of farce and melodrama which used to be the staple fare provided at the Standard, the Surrey, and the Pavilion, East, some thirty years ago.  Nothing quite so naive as the adventures which Mr. Steele Rudd has provided for his hero, a kind of Antipodean “Old Bill” has hitherto been sent us even from America.  As an example of stage-craft, indeed, the play is quite preposterous; but thanks to the admirably robust acting of Mr. Bert Bailey as a rollicking and patriarchal bushman, it is quite worth seeing. Whether he is pursuing a prospective son-in-law through the bush with a shot-gun, collapsed on the floor in a violent attack of toothache, or standing for Parliament in opposition to the villain's father, Dad Rudd always makes a thoroughly popular appeal. And Mr. Bailey plays him with a zest, a humour, and a sense of character which make the old fellow seem thoroughly alive. The rest of the players have only minor chances of scoring. But mention must be made of Mr. Matthew Boulton, who shows himself a handsome and strapping young lover; and of Miss Eva Quin, a pretty young actress, who did her best with the part of the compromised heroine.

The Illustrated London News (London), Volume: 157, Issue: 4246, Saturday, 4 September 1920, p.32

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THINGS THEATRICAL

 BY WEST-ENDER

 OLD DAD FROM DOWN UNDER.

A new funny man made good in London on Tuesday. He came all the way from Australia to realise that ambition. His name it Bert Bailey. Bert was greeted with a cyclone of Coo-ees when he stepped on the stage of the Lyric Theatre in a comedy of Australian life, “On Our Selection.” It is impossible to determine from Bert’s personal appearance in that piece what sort of a man he may be out of the motley, or whether he is any good at his art outside his part in the Lyric. I put that point, because if Bert Bailey is half as good in other roles as he is as the old squatter in “On Our Selection,” London ought to see more of him. I hope, in that case, he will give us a further taste of his quality.

His Pants were Patched.

The squatter, whom everybody styled Old Dad, was a shrewd-tongued, irascible, but good-hearted and loveable old bird. His pants were patched, his manner was more forcible than polite, and, with his bald head and grey beard, he was everything but a beauty. A quaint compound of sentiment and harshness. Old Dad is no lay figure, but a human vital spark. No doubt, also, the portrait is true to type. Australia—and the rest of the British Empire—was made by these good Old Dads.

His Boots Talked

Bert Bailey played the part inimitably. The comedian has a deep-toned, rolling voice, and a method of deliberate utterance which drives every jocularity home. Hardly a sentence of his part failed to raise a laugh, while his by-play was such that on one fleeting occasion even the soles of his boots talked. I would like to see this actor in a play worthier of his prowess. Except for Old Dad and his wealth of humour, “On Our Selection” isn’t worth the proverbial tinker’s damn. It was curious to see at the lordly Lyric a piece presented like a melodrama of the No. 3 towns.

God Help Australia!

Nor are the characters in the concoction a particularly good advertisement for Australia. I was assured by an Australian in the audience that they are all veraciously limned. If that be so, the back country of our highly respected colony must be populated, largely, by imbeciles. Three of Old Dad’s four children have bats in the belfry. His brother (with a turned up nose) is properly off his dot, while other creatures of the entertainment are suffering from criminality, lunacy, and senile decay. If these people are types,
and not exceptions, God help Australia!

The Sporting Times (London), 28 August 1920, p.3

Filmography

Although Raymond Longford had adapted and directed a silent movie of On Our Selection, based directly on the Steele Rudd stories, for Southern Cross Pictures in 1920 (followed by a sequel, Rudd’s New Selection in 1921), a film version of the stage play starring Bert Bailey was the brain-child of Stuart Doyle, the managing-director of Union Theatres (subsequently reorganised as Greater Union Theatres) and it gained the distinction of being the first feature-length “talking picture” to be made by the Sydney-based film production company Cinesound, which utilised the new sound-on-film recording system developed by Tasmanian radio engineer, Arthur Smith. Australasian Film’s Bondi Junction studios (based in a converted skating rink that still served as a rink after hours), had a small sound-proof studio at its centre, which became the venue for the film’s interior scenes. However the difficulties in making the changeover to sound film production were many. Old-fashioned electric studio lighting that hissed was hardly suitable for sound movies and the right equipment was often hard to come by. The walls of the studio were heavily padded and huge generators supplied the 500,000 candlepower needed for the lighting, but the temperature inside rose to over 100° F (over 40° C) which left the actors visibly wilting after a period of time. The studio equipment included two microphones, but only one camera covered by a sound-proof ‘blimp’ so that the whirring of its internal mechanism wouldn’t be recorded on the film’s soundtrack. The camera frequently broke down through overwork and overheating and one of the heavy microphones developed a hiss, through moisture in the air, and had to be replaced. But work progressed, often on a make-shift basis. As noted, the microphone boom was improvised out of a wooden clothes-line prop and elevation shots were taken by placing the camera on a wooden platform that was raised and lowered by a rope and pulley system on heavily greased runners to keep extraneous studio noise to a minimum. With the picture half completed, the technicians still hadn’t come up with a solution to recording sound out-of-doors for the upcoming location shoot away from the studio’s power supply. However Arthur Smith subsequently devised a slip-ring motor for the sound recording system, which could be run off battery power and still maintain synchronisation with the camera.

In addition to Bert Bailey as producer and Ken G. Hall as director, the rest of the film crew included Walter Sully on camera with Sid Whiteley assisting, George Malcolm as editor, Bert Cross technical supervisor, George Gibson chief electrician, Jack Souter as production manager, Arthur Smith and Clive Cross on sound and Margery West as script girl. After commencing production in the first week of August 1931, progress on the film was reported in the pages of the weekly entertainment magazine Everyones (on which Gayne Dexter served as the Editor-in-Chief).

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U.T. Makes Fast Progress on “On Our Selection” Talkie

STUDIO work is now well advanced on Union Theatres talkie version of Steele Rudd’s “On Our Selection,” activities transferring from the Bondi lot to out-door locations in another four weeks.

From results to date and reviews of “rushes,” Ken Hall and Bert Bailey, respective director and producer, are well satisfied that the film will achieve all things expected of it.

“No attempt is being made to produce a sophisticated drama,” states Mr. Hall. “Experience has shown us that to-day the public wants bright, broad comedy for their most satisfying entertainment, and we are endeavouring to put just that into 'On Our Selection.’ The completed picture will be an admixture of comedy, romance and drama, and the humorous element will be the keynote of the production.

“We are determined to make this talkie one that not only will carry an assured local appeal, but one which will also prove equally acceptable as entertainment in every part of the world,” he emphasises.

Steele Rudd’s play has a sentiment which, in appeal, is not necessarily restricted to any one type of people, and an added factor is that the charm to be embodied in the bush location scenes allow every opportunity to amaze the world at the glorious beauty of the true Australia.”

Hall pays tribute to the efforts of Bert Bailey who, besides producing, is playing the role of “Dad,” a part in which he scored fame on the stage. To him and Hall fell the job of knocking the original script into suitable motion picture shape, and in addition his long association with the subject allows for complete smoothness in moving the action along to the best effect.

Both of them put much labor into the work before the studio activity commenced, notably had the story to be completely re-written and modernised in order to inject an appeal calculated to win universal response.

And then, of course, Bert went through the hazardous procedure of developing a full-length hirsute growth in order to give that touch of real-life to the beloved “old-man” of Rudd's creation.

In between times there was the all-important work of cast selection, photographic and vocal tests, to say nothing of the studio alterations consequent upon the change from silence to sound.

Yes, it certainly was a big job.

Any day at the studio you will strike Bailey in high delight at the advance thus far. “I believe Australia is in for a pleasant surprise when our picture is completed,” is his theme song, and we hope his belief is right. He is certainly putting plenty into the job and deserves a worth-while reward.

On the technical side, everything is in apple-pie order also, and sound results have earned praise for the Cinesound System and recording engineers Arthur Smith and Clive Cross. Splendid realism and clarity are stated to be the features.

Photographic supervision and lighting cares are well shouldered by Bert Cross who, with camera-man Walter Sully, is well versed in the great unseen mysteries of the filming craft.

The cast of the  picture, which includes many who have appeared in the original stage production is: “Dad,” Bert Bailey;  Dave, Fred Macdonald; Joe, Ossie Wenban; Maloney, Jack McGowan; Sandy, Dick Fair; Uncle, Willy Driscoll; John Carey, Len  Buderick; Jim Carey, John Warwick; Cranky Jack, Fred Kerry; Billy Bareup, Fred Browne; Kate, Molly Raynor; Sarah, Bobbie  Beaumont; Mum, Alfreda Bevan; Lily White, Lily Adeson; Mrs. White, Dorothy Dunkley.

In this project Union Theatres are tackling something which is big in every respect, and here’s a wish that the finished production achieves its purpose of at long last getting a break for Australia in the world of motion picture making.

Everyones (Sydney), 2 September 1931, p.25

The cast on location (l to r): Fred Kerry (Cranky Jack), Ossie Wenban (Joe), Alfreda Bevan (Mum), Bert Bailey (Dad), Jack McGowan (Maloney), Bobby Beaumont (Sarah) and Willie Driscoll (Uncle).

Completing “On Our Selection”

AFTER six months of production, Director Ken Hall and Bert Bailey will soon complete the talkie version of Steele Rudd’s “On Our Selection.” All interiors have been shot, and at present the company is at work on location at Penrith on the final exterior action.

Union Theatres Feature Exchange, who will release the film, state that the “rushes” reveal the talkie as something worthwhile. It is confidently expected to land it on to the world market as the first of several to be made by the unit next year, including a version of “The Silence of Dean Maitland.”

STEELE RUDD, upon whose book Bert Bailey based the first version of his play, was recently invited to witness some of the takes. Admitting that he went along with little or no enthusiasm, he had been disappointed too often in the past, the author frankly admits amazement at results. Just halt Steele Rudd to-day and mention the “Selection.” He gives you the impression that he was in at the birth of a masterpiece. Speaking of the clarity and evenness of the recording and of the ingenuity which Ken Hall has shown in grafting the never-failing laughs of the old play on to a modern setting with unbounded enthusiasm, Steele Rudd believes that there is triumph coming in the finished job.

Ken Hall has idealised the story, retaining the spirit and the humor of the characters, but placing them in an Australian atmosphere which is more familiar and certainly more pleasing, than the drought-stricken conditions which earlier writers seemed to consider a sine qua non of Australian stories.

One consequence of this wise decision is that “On Our Selection” can go forth to the world as something really typical of this nation.

Gordon Ellis informs that a representative of an European firm hung about the location for several days recently, watching operations and summing up on the general impression the unit's activities made on him he commented to Hall and Bailey that they were certainly working on right lines, and shooting the right class of stuff for which Europe was hungering. He opined that they were putting real Australians, living a real Australian life, on the screen and revealing at last the true spirit of this country. And Gordon states he has backed his opinion by having already opened up negotiations for the European rights of the picture.

Ken Hall is full of enthusiasm and plans to get the last ounce out of every moment, while in Bert Bailey he has an ideal collaborator—a shrewd Australian knowing every foible and idiosyncrasy of the man on the land.

And both are showmen, and neither it is stated, has lost sight of story value, of action and comedy in the making of a popular film. The original plot has been materially altered and strengthened.

It is significant what widespread interest the announcement that the film was to be made has created.  There is hardly a hamlet in Australia that Bert Bailey has not taken his stage company to with “On Our Selection,” and wherever he has gone he has made friends. And they have remained his friends. To-day they are flooding him with a huge mail of suggestions, offers and reminiscences and it all augurs well for the business that will be done when, at last, “On Our Selection” is released.

Everyones (Sydney), 25 November 1931, p.31

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The future of Cinesound was literally dependent upon the financial fate of the completed motion picture. A commercial success for On Our Selection would ensure future finance for further feature film productions by the company, but a failure meant that it would have to cease production in that particular field (while still having its newly-established cinema newsreel franchise, Cinesound Review to fall back on.)  Following trade screenings around the country in June the film was given its public premiere at the Tivoli Theatre in Brisbane on 22 July 1932 in recognition of the Queensland setting of Steele Rudd’s original stories. Demand for tickets was so strong that the Tivoli opened up its Roof Garden Theatre in order to accommodate the overflow and both houses were packed out at all sessions, which augured well for the film’s future and it subsequently went on to break all Australian cinema box-office records for a local production throughout the country that stood until overtaken by 40,000 Horsemen in 1940. (At the time of its initial release On Our Selection’s success at the local box-office was second only to the record that had been established by Cecil B. DeMille’s original 1923 American silent movie version of The Ten Commandments.)  

The film was subsequently released overseas by British Empire Films, under general manager, Gordon Ellis and proved to be equally popular in New Zealand, where it premiered at the Regent Theatre, Auckland on 28 October 1932, and went on to smash box-office records in that country as well. The film also fared well in Singapore, China and Great Britain, where its success—under the title of Down on the Farm—helped to mitigate the play’s failure in London some 13 years earlier.

The film’s £6,000 production costs ($584,287 in today’s currency) was recouped from its Australian box-office receipts alone and Cinesound subsequently embarked upon its second feature film in 1932, an adaptation of the Bert Bailey and Edmund Duggan play The Squatter’s Daughter (previously fimed as a silent movie in 1910 co-starring Bailey and Duggan) and there would also be further instalments in the Rudd family saga in the coming years, as well as cinema re-releases of On Our Selection throughout the 1930s and beyond due to popular demand. 

Grandad Rudd (1934)

Cinesound Productions—Screenplay by Bert Bailey, George D. Parker and Victor Roberts; Directed by Ken G. Hall; Cinematography by Capt. Frank Hurley; cast: Bert Bailey, Fred MacDonald, George Lloyd, Elaine Hamill, John D’Arcy, John Cameron, William McGowan, Kathleen Hamilton, Lilias Adeson, Les Warton, Molly Raynor, Bill Stewart. Marie D’Alton, Marguerite Adele, George Blackwood, Ambrose Foster and Peggy Yeoman.

Dad and Dave Come to Town (1937)

Cinesound Productions—Screenplay by Bert Bailey and Frank Harvey; story by Ken G. Hall; Directed by Ken G. Hall; Cinematography by George Heath; cast: Bert Bailey, Fred MacDonald, Shirley Ann Richards, Alec Kellaway, Sidney Wheeler, Billy Rayes, Connie Martyn, Peter Finch (in his feature film debut), Valerie Scanlon, Ossie Wenban, Muriel Ford, Leila Steppe, Marshall Crosby, Cecil Perry, Billy Stewart, Marie D’Alton, Leslie Victor and George Lloyd.

Dad Rudd M.P. (1940)

Cinesound Productions—Screenplay by Bert Bailey and Frank Harvey; Directed by Ken G. Hall; Cinematography by George Heath; cast: Bert Bailey, Fred MacDonald, Alec Kellaway, Yvonne East, Grant Taylor, Barbara Weeks, Connie Martyn, Frank Harvey, Ossie Wenban, Valerie Scanlon, Jean Robertson, Ronald Whelan, Letty Craydon, Marshall Crosby, Joe Valli, Field Fisher, Billy Stewart, Natalie Raine, Chips Rafferty and Raymond Longford.

Further Resources

Film clips on AUSTRALIAN SCREEN from the NFSA:

• On Our Selection, https://aso.gov.au/titles/features/our-selection-1932/

• Grandad Rudd, https://aso.gov.au/titles/features/grandad-rudd/

• Dad and Dave Come to Town, https://aso.gov.au/titles/features/dad-and-dave-come-to-town/

• Dad Rudd, M.P., https://aso.gov.au/titles/features/dad-rudd-mp/

• The Squatter’s Daughter, https://aso.gov.au/titles/features/squatters-daughter/

Ken G. Hall on Bert Bailey,  https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/1930s-golden-ken-hall/clip1/

Additional Sources

Eric Irvin, Dictionary of the Australian Theatre 1788–1914 (Hale & Iremonger, Sydney:1985)

Margaret Williams, Australia on the Popular Stage 1829–1929 (Oxford University Press, Melbourne: 1983)

Eric Reade, The Australian Screen—A Pictorial History of Australian Film Making (Lansdowne Press, Melbourne:1975)

Don Groves & Terry O’Brien, AHL: A Hundred Years of Entertainment (Amalgamated Holdings Limited, Sydney: 2010)

J.P. Wearing, The London Stage, 1920–1929: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel, [Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2^nd ed.; 2014]

Everyones (Sydney), 6 July 1932, p.10—“Selection” Premiere for Brisbane July 22; 27 July 1932, p.9—"Our Selection” Premiere in Brisbane; 14 September 1932, p.9—“Selection’s” Record Career: What Exhibs Say About It; 5 October 1932, p.26 – “Selection” Set For Singapore; 2 November 1932, p.22—“Selection” Opens to Records in N.Z.; 28 December 1932, p.6—“On Our Selection” Sold for China; 11 January 1933, p.11—“On Our Selection” Succeeds in England: Big Bookings

Internet Movie Data Base

AusStage

Australian actress. Sister of Edmund Duggan and JP Duggan. Married William Anderson (producer), 1898. Died 2 November 1936. Mother of Mary Anderson.

On stage in Australia from 1890, notably as leading lady in William Anderson’s dramatic company.

Riley/Hailes Scrapbook, page 281.

 

Following the finalperformance by the Hawtrey Comedy Company on 13 July 1901, actor-manager Robert Brough (of the Brough Comedy Company) took on a short lease of the Palace Theatre. Rather than producing a season of plays, he introduced British magician Charles Bertram to Sydney audiences.

Known as the ‘Court Magician’ or the ‘Royal Conjurer’, Bertram was a master of sleight of hand, appearing before Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle on 23 occasions.¹ Bertram’s Australian visit was part of a world tour that also took him through India, China, Japan, New Zealand and America. Robert Brough, who had had been performing with his dramatic company in India and China, had seen one of Bertram’s shows and agreed to manage his Australian visit.

Charles Bertram: Now on a grand tour of the world, 1901

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Charles Bertram, c.1900. Photo by Elliott & Fry, London

Following a short season in Melbourne (8 June 1901), Bertram visited Bendigo and Wagga Wagga en route for Sydney, opening at the Palace Theatre on 20 July 1901. Announced initially for ‘twelve nights only’, he stayed on for an extra week, during which time he introduced some new illusions including ‘The Vanishing Lady’. Yet despite his cordial welcome in Sydney, his overall Australian tour was not deemed a success. His skilful manipulation of cards, flags, rings and flower pots was better suited to a drawing room and too small for audiences accustomed to watching much larger shows.²

The author of several books, Bertram wrote a comprehensive account of this tour which he called A Magician in Many Lands.³

Henry Lee. From The World’s Entertainers Souvenir, Palace Theatre, Sydney, 1901.

John Clark collection.

James G. Rial. From The World’s Entertainers Souvenir, Palace Theatre, Sydney, 1901.

John Clark collection.

Following Bertram’s departure, Henry Lee and J.G. Rial took over the Palace with a season of ‘polite vaudeville’, opening on 10 August 1901. Their company, known as the World’s Entertainers, had been formed in America and comprised a number of clever and accomplished variety turns. Key among them was Henry Lee (seen at Palace in 1896 with Phil Goatcher’s Stars of All Nations company), who impersonated ‘Great Men, Past and Present’. Through the use of lighting and changes in costume, he morphed from Shakespeare to Bismarck, to Tennyson, to King Edward VII and Pope Leo XIII. Other artists included the acrobatic comedians Kelly and Ashby who stunned audiences with their billiard table act; Josephine Gassman from Louisiana who sang songs supported by two ‘quaint and diminutive’ piccaninnies; and Charles R. Sweet, the ‘musical burglar’ who amused with humorous ditties and anecdotes. Edison’s latest movie camera, the Projectoscope also made an appearance. All in all it was deemed a ‘capital’ bill of entertainment.⁴

On the final night of the season, 30 October 1901, photographer Talma took a flashlight photo of the audience.⁵

Hans the Boatman at the Palace theatre – as seen by cartoonist Zif.

From Sydney Sportsman, 8 January 1902, p.2

Dot Frederic and Charles Arnold in a scene from The Professor’s Love Story. Photo by Talma, Melbourne & Sydney.

National Library of Australia, Canberra

With the vaudeville season over, the theatre was made available to amateur groups and others pending the return of Charles Arnold and his company on 26 December 1901.

Arnold, who had played two previous seasons at the Palace opened with a revival of Hans the Boatman, a sentimental play with songs that he had first performed in Australia in the 1880s. Hanswas followed by a reprisal of plays from his current repertoire: What Happened to Jones and Why Smith Left Home. Mid-way through the season, on 18 January 1902, he presented a new play, The Professor’s Love Story by J.M. Barrie.

The Professor’s Love Story first saw the light of day in New York in 1892 when it was produced at the Star Theatre, with E.S. Willard in the lead. It seems it had originally been written for Henry Irving who turned it down. Believing the play to be worthless, Barrie subsequently sold the American rights to Willard for £50. After touring the play successfully for two years, Willard eventually brought it to London (opening at the Comedy Theatre in June 1894), by which time Barrie had acquired an agent who secured a flat-rate royalty for the play that also covered any future American (and presumably Australian) performances.⁶

Charles Arnold obtained the colonial rights from E.S. Willard and The Professor’s Love Story was performed for the first time in Australia at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne in June 1900.

Like so much of Barrie’s work, The Professor’s Love Story is a quixotic piece. Its central character is a Scots physicist, Professor Goodwillie, who falls in love with his secretary, but unaware of why he feels the way he does, he consults a physician. Critics and audiences were delighted by Arnold’s performance. The Sydney Morning Herald for instance observed:

Mr Charles Arnold showed himself a light comedian who could touch the pathetic stop with a sure hand, and his portrait of the old-young professor was true to the picture drawn by the author … [He] played throughout with extreme quiet and refinement, showing with much simplicity of manner the professor’s entire unconsciousness of his love for Lucy. His professor was, indeed a man of many winning and endearing qualities.⁷

Arnold was supported by Dot Frederic as Lucy, with other roles filled by Inez Bensusan, Hope Mayne, Agnes Knights and George Willoughby.

The close of the Sydney season on 12 February 1902 brought Arnold’s 96 week Australian tour to an end. During that time it was estimated he had played before 750,000 people. He was also said to have netted £24,000 from the tour, £4000 of which went to George Broadhurst, the author of What Happened to Jones, in royalties.⁸

In a sad footnote to the tour, November 1901 also saw the beginning of the second wave of bubonic plague in Sydney, with cases peaking in February/March 1902.⁹ Two members of Arnold’s company succumbed, Sallie Booth on 27 February and Ada Lee (a younger sister of Jennie Lee) on 1 March. Miss Booth had played Alvina in What Happened to Jonesand Lavinia Daly in Why Smith Left Home, and Ada Lee had been seen as Helma in What Happened to Jonesand Effie in The Professor’s Love Story.

The World’s Entertainers, 1901/1902

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Violet Elliott, pictured in 1904, after she had moved to London. Photo by Lizzie Caswall Smith.

On 15 February 1902 the World’s Entertainers returned for an extended season, with new artists having arrived from America on 8 February. They were now under the management of J.C. Williamson, Lee and Rial. In addition to Henry Lee, Charles R. Sweet, Josephine Gassman and Arthur Nelstone, new acts included Bunth and Rudd (eccentric comedians); The Marvellous Lottos (novelty cyclists); Carl Nilsson’s Troupe (in their Original Flying Ballet); George Lyding (American tenor); Mdlle Ilma De Monza (Parisian singer); and Mdlle Adele (‘The Lady with the Wonderful Fingers’).

Over the next four months the line-up changed with artist swapping between the Palace in Sydney and Bijou in Melbourne, or going on tour. Some local artists also joined the company including Violet Elliott, often referred to as the ‘Lady bass’. The World’s Entertainers filled the theatre for four months, closing on 28 May 1902.¹⁰

Frank Thornton’s 5th Australian Tour, 1902

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Vera Fordyce, leading lady with the Frank Thornton’s London Comedy Company. Photo by Lallie Charles, London.

Frank Thornton was one of the most popular comedians to ever visit Australia, making his fifth trip ‘down under’ in 1902. During previous visits he had introduced some well-known farces including The Private Secretary, Charley’s Aunt, The Strange Adventures of Miss Brownand The Bookmaker. On this visit, he had two new plays: Facing the Musicby J.H. Darnley and A Little Ray of Sunshineby Mark Ambient and Wilton Heriot.

He also brought with him his London Comedy Company of eight players: Vera Fordyce (leading lady), Phoebe Mercer (aristocratic old ladies), Leonie Norbury (ingenue), Katie Lee (character), Joseph Wilson (comedian), Alex Bradley (principal juvenile), Galway Herbert (juvenile), J.H. Denton (character), and Frank Wilson (stage manager). Katie Lee was perhaps the best known of these players being a sister of Jennie Lee and the late Ada Lee.

Thornton commenced his tour in Melbourne on 3 May 1902 with the Australian premiere of Facing the Music, relocating to the Sydney Palace on 31 May.¹¹

Like so many farces, Facing the Music has an absurd plot. It involves two ‘John Smiths’, one a curate and the other the owner of racehorses, two ‘Mrs John Smiths’, a Colonel Duncan Smith, and two housekeepers.

First performed in the English provinces during 1900 with Thornton as Mr John Smith, Thornton also produced the first London production at the Strand Theatre (10 February 1900) with James Welch as the star.

Facing the Music proved something of a hit with Sydneysiders, playing for six weeks at the Palace, but it was withdrawn prematurely to make way for the first Australian production of A Little Ray of Sunshine on 19 July 1902. This comedy was in a different vein to Facing the Music. Rather than relying on broad humour for laughs, it was more of a character piece, and closer in sentiment to a morality tale than a knock-about farce. It had been a success in London, with W.S. Penley as Lord Markham, an eccentric millionaire who having deserted his family as a youth returns to the family seat and through various acts of benevolence helps them into become better people.

A Little Ray of Sunshineplayed until the close of the season on 7 August. Although not as engaging as its predecessor, it seemed to please much of the audience.

In August, J.C. Williamson Ltd. sub-leased the theatre from Messrs Lee and Rial for a four months period . Once again the Pitt Street venue was coming to the rescue of a company that had lost its usual theatre due to fire. In 1899 with the destruction of the Tivoli, Harry Rickards turned to the Palace. Now JCW was in need of a new venue following the burning of Her Majesty’s Theatre in March. Williamson’s maintained two Sydney theatres, Her Majesty’s in Pitt Street, and the Theatre Royal in Castlereagh Street. With one theatre out of action they needed somewhere to present their new raft of musical comedy attractions.

JCW’s first offering was San Toy, an original musical play by Edward Morton, with music by Sydney Jones. San Toy had its Australian premiere at Her Majesty’s in Melbourne in December 1901 and since that time it had toured throughout Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland. When it arrived in Sydney, only one of the original twenty-seven principals remained, namely Ernest Mozar, who played Lieutenant Harvey Tucker.

The key roles were now performed by Rose Musgrove as San Toy (replacing Carrie Moore); Lillian Digges as Dudley (in place of Grace Palotta); Fred H. Graham as Li (rather than George Lauri); Arthur Crane as Captain Bobby Preston (for Charles Kenningham); Charles Trood as the Emperor of China (instead of Hugh J. Ward); and Lulu Evans as Poppy (succeeding Florence Young). Fred H. Graham had also taken over from Spencer Barry as stage director.

Lillian Digges and Arthur Crane in The Messenger Boy, 1902. State Library Victoria, Melbourne.

San Toy had its initial performance at George Edwardes’ Daly’s Theatre in London in October 1899, with Marie Tempest in the title role. It held the stage for over two years during which time the lead was also played by Florence Collingbourne. The musical’s oriental setting provided the opportunity for superb costumes (designed by Percy Anderson) and settings (painted by Hawes Craven and Joseph Harker), the latter being copied from London models by JCW resident scenic artists John Gordon and George Dixon.

The next production was a revival of The Belle of New York, a musical comedy that had first been seen in Australia during 1899 with a largely American cast headed by Louise Hepner. At the Palace, it played from 13 September 1902 to 7 October 1902, with Lillian Digges as the Belle.

On 3 October a potentially fatal accident occurred when a member of the audience fell from the gallery balcony into the stalls. Miraculously no-one was below and he survived the fall suffering only from shock and a fractured knee.¹²

 The final offering for the present season was The Messenger Boy, which was being performed in Australia for the first time. Due to the elaborate preparations necessary for the production, the opening night was postponed from the Saturday to the following Wednesday, 8 October 1902.¹³

Featuring a book by James T. Tanner and Alfred Murray, lyrics by Adrian Ross and Percy Greenbank, and music by Ivan Caryll and Lionel Monckton, The Messenger Boy had first been performed at the Gaiety Theatre in London during February 1900 following a try-out in Plymouth. With principal roles played by Edmund Payne, Harry Nicolls, Violet Lloyd, Maud Hobson and Connie Ediss, the musical was a ‘runaway success’, playing for 429 performance.

The Australian production featured artists from JCW’s comic opera company: Fred H. Graham as Tommy Bang (the Messenger Boy), Arthur Crane as Clive Radnor, Arthur Lissant as Hooker Pasha, Lillian Digges as Nora, Blanche Wallace as Lady Punchestown, Rose Musgrove as Rosa, and Fred H. Graham as the stage director.

The exotic locales in which the musical was set gave JCW scenic designer John Gordon the opportunity to impress with scenes of London, Brindisi, Cairo and Paris.

Henry Lee as Cyrano de Bergerac

From The Evening News (Sydney), 1 November 1902, p.2

Eugenie Duggan. Photo by Talma, Melbourne & Sydney.

Author’s collection

With the departure of the JCW company, William Anderson took over as sub-lessee and manager. He launched his season with Cyrano de Bergerac on 1 November 1902, with American Henry Lee (formerly seen with the World’s Entertainers) in the title role, and Eugenie Duggan as Roxane. This was the debut of Edmund Rostand’s play in Sydney. First performed in Paris in 1897, the play was adapted for the English-speaking stage in 1900 by Stuart Ogilvie and Louis N. Parker, with Richard Mansfield creating the title role in America and Charles Wyndham in the UK.

Anderson’s company had premiered the play at the Melbourne Bijou in August 1902, with Lee as Cyrano and Janet Waldorf as Roxane. It featured elaborate costumes designed and executed by Messrs Lincoln, Stuart & Co., and scenery by John Little and Alfred Tischbauer (Alta).

It seems Henry Lee prepared the text himself. ‘Lee’s is a bad translation, in which much of the point and relish of the comedy was lost’, wrote one critic, ‘Probably the Sydney gallery would have been just as uneasy had the play been well done, but I must claim for them that the Cyrano of the performance leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.’¹⁴

In fact the behaviour of the gallery so incensed Lee that on opening night he stopped the play during the last act to address the audience, declaring: ‘This is my first appearance in Sydney in drama, and were it not that I am under engagement to Mr Anderson, and am in honour bound to fulfil my contract, it would be my last appearance.’¹⁵ The following Monday, Lee called in sick with gout and Edmund Duggan took over. Despite suggestions that Lee would be back, he was not, and the planned four-week season came to an abrupt close at the end of the week. As a result, William Anderson had to rush in a new show: Walter Melville’s melodrama The Worst Woman in London. As the titular character, Frances Vere, Eugenie Duggan was at her evil best, and with a plot brimming with dastardly acts of blackmail, murder, arson and robbery, audiences were kept on the edge of their seats. With Anderson’s lease ending on 28 November 1902, The Worst Woman in London was withdrawn at the height of its success.

To be continued

Endnotes

1. Advertisement, The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 July 1901, p.2

2. Charles Waller, Magical Nights at the Theatre, p.112

3. Charles Bertram, A Magician in Many Lands, G. Routledge & Sons Ltd., 1911. Bertram died in 1907 (aged only 53) and the book was finished by his wife.

4. The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 August 1901, p.3

5. The Evening News (Sydney), 30 October 1901, p.1. Unfortunately the photo does not seem to be extant.

6. Denis Mackail, The Story of JMB, p.203

7. The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 January 1902, p.5

8. The Critic (Adelaide), 22 February 1902, p.13; Brisbane Courier, 22 February 1902, p.9

9. The first wave of plague occurred in Sydney between January and August 1900, with 103 deaths. The second wave, which lasted six weeks, claimed 39 lives. See The History of Plague in Australia, 1900–1925.

10. For more information on the World’s Entertainers, see Australian Variety Theatre Archive, https://ozvta.com/international-tourists/

11. The Princess Theatre was required by George Musgrove’s company.

12. The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 October 1902, p.11

13. The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 October 1902, p.4

14.The Critic(Adelaide), 29 November 1902, p.13

15. Punch (Melbourne), 13 November 1902, p.31

References

Charles Bertram, A Magician in Many Lands, G. Routledge & Sons Ltd., 1911

Gerald Bordman, American Theatre: A chronicle of comedy and drama, 1869–1914, Oxford University Press, 1994

JHL Clumpston & F. McCallum, The History of Plague in Australia, 1900-1925, Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Health, 1926

Denis Mackail, The Story of JMB, Charles Scriber’s Sons, 1941

Charles Waller, Magical Nights at the Theatre, edited and published by Gerald Taylor, 1980

J.P. Wearing, The London Stage: A Calendar of productions, performers, and personnel, 1890–1899, 2nd edn, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014

J.P. Wearing, The London Stage: A Calendar of productions, performers, and personnel, 1900-1909, 2nd edn, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014

Newspapers

The Critic (Adelaide, SA); Brisbane Courier (QLD); The Evening News (NSW); Punch(Melbourne); The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW)

With thanks to

John S. Clark, Mimi Colligan, Judy Leech, Les Tod

With the new year, 1905, things got off to a rough start for the Palace Theatre. Following a meeting by the Sydney City Council on the 24 January 1905 concerning the state of Sydney’s theatres, it was determined that the Palace Theatre did not comply with current fire regulations. As a result its licence was suspended pending the implementation of necessary alterations of a ‘heavy character’.¹ At first the theatre’s Trustees² rejected the Council’s requests, but the authorities remained adamant and by April it was reported that the required changes costing in excess of £5000 (approx. $700,000 in today’s currency) had been carried out.³

Behind the scenes works included fireproofing of walls and gears and the installation of a fire sprinkler over the proscenium. Also, the boilers and engines had to be relocated to an adjacent building. The most obvious ‘improvements’, however, were the requested changes to Phil Goatcher’s auditorium, which had been declared a fire trap.

The Evening News (5 April 1905) reported:

Looking into the auditorium, … anyone who knew the Palace as a delight to the eye from its decorative beauties, is distressed to see what has had to be despoiled for fear of the fiend Fire.

The cupolas above the boxes have been demolished, and squab ornaments to take their place detract from the symmetrical ensemble of the past.

Elsewhere the steep rake of the gallery was curtailed for safety’s sake, and the number of seats reduced, notably the top most ones that were up against the roof. In addition a railing was introduced between each of the tiers in the gallery so that in case of emergency patrons would be prevented from jumping from one row to another.

Thus, with all these changes having been complete, the Palace’s licence was renewed in time for the Easter season 1905.

William Anderson, 1902

The Australasian Stage Annual 1902

Eugenie Duggan, c.1906. Photo by Talma, Melbourne & Sydney.

Author’s collection

The theatre re-opened with a season of melodrama by William Anderson’s Dramatic Company, with Eugenie Duggan as the star attraction. Eugenie Duggan (1870–1936) was an Melbourne-born actress and sister of actor/playwright Edmund Duggan. After making her stage debut in 1890, she performed with the companies of Dan Barry and Charles Holloway. In 1898, she married William Anderson (1968–1940), who in 1896 became joint manager of the Holloway-Anderson company. By 1900, he was managing his own company, with Eugenie as his leading lady. His usual theatre in Sydney was the Lyceum, which he shared with his friend and rival in melodrama Bland Holt, but as that theatre had recently closed following its sale to the philanthropist Ebenezer Vickery (1827–1906), he moved his operations to the Palace.

Advertising postcard for A Girl’s Cross Roads, London, c.1903

ebay

Anderson’s season commenced with the first Sydney production ofA Girl’s Cross Roads, a melodrama in four acts by Walter Melville, a melo-dramatist par excellence, who together with his brother Frederick was responsible for writing and staging some of the most popular melodramas of the late 1890s and 1900s. The titles of their plays were thrilling enough and their fertile imaginations, either singularly or in partnership, produced such plays as The Worst Woman in London(1899), Between Two Women (1902), Her Forbidden Marriage (1904), Married to the Wrong Man (1908) and The Bad Girl of the Family (1909), to name a few. Many of these plays were staged at their theatres in the East End, notably the Terriss (Rotherhithe) and the Standard (Hoxton).⁴ First performed at the Standard Theatre in October 1903, A Girl’s Cross Roads had its Australian premiere in Melbourne in February 1905. The cast was largely the same, but the role of the hero Jack Livingstone was now played by H.O. Willard rather than Vivian Edwards. A story of misery and despair, Eugenie Duggan was the heroine (or rather anti-heroine), Barbara Wade, the wife of Jack Livingstone, who on developing a liking for drink, loses the respect of her husband. When she leaves home and is believed to have perished in a shipping accident, Jack turns to a former sweetheart Constance Cornell (played by Ivy Gorrick) for comfort. On the day that Constance consents to marry him, Barbara is discovered to be alive, a slave to drink and drugs. Jack is determined to save his wife, but she is too far gone and soon dies in a fit of delirium tremens. The role of Barbara was a difficult one, but Eugenie Duggan, used to playing ‘wretched women’ delivered a realistic portrait of an unhappy soul whose life had been ruined by the demon drink.

Scene from the London production of A Female Swindler, 1903. One of a set of lurid postcards produced to advertise the play.

ebay.

Three weeks later, 13 May, A Girl’s Cross Roads was replaced by another new Walter Melville sensation drama, The Female Swindler. Anderson’s company had introduced this play in Melbourne in September 1904 and now it was Sydney’s turn. First performed at the Terriss Theatre on 12 October 1903 and subsequently at the Standard Theatre, with Violet Ellicott and Ashley Page in the leads, this play also spawned a series of lured advertising postcards.

As Lu Valroy (otherwise Miss Darwe), Eugenie Duggan had another unsavoury heroine to portray. In this play the title character is working as a maid in a rich household. When some valuable items go missing, a detective, Jack Coulson (played by H.O. Willard), is employed to track down the culprit. Against a backdrop of murder, theft and kidnapping, the detective pursues Lu Valroy and her sinister offsider, Geoffrey Warden (alias Captain Stanton) (played by Laurence Dunbar). In a struggle, Warden is killed, but just as Lu is about to stab the detective she is overcome by a new emotion—love—and instead of killing him the two fall into a passionate embrace. As the ‘fascinating adventuress’ Eugenie Duggan once again excelled.

The third play of the season, opening on 3 June, was Two Little Drummer Boys, an 1899 military drama by Walter Howard. With this play Eugenie Duggan was reprising her role of Margaret Rivers (aka Drunken Meg), a wretched woman filled with vengeance for the man who had ruined her life. An expansive story of jealousy, treason and murder set in a military barracks, and rival cousins, both drummer boys, who clash as their fathers did. Supported by H.O. Willard, this time playing the villain, Eugenie Duggan thrilled audiences with her portrayal of another desperately unhappy female.

The final offering, commencing on 17 June, was the oft performed East Lynne with Eugenie in the dual role of Lady Isabel and Madame Vine. The season closed on 1 July 1905.

With the departure of Anderson’s company the Palace entered a period of uncertainty. It is not clear why this was the case, but for the next twelve months the only tenants were amateur companies and short run entertainments. Why did the big companies and touring stars stay away? Perhaps the Palace was too small, seating only 1000 patrons, compared with the 1500 of the Theatre Royal or the 2000-odd that could be crammed into Her Majesty’s. When Anderson return to Sydney in July 1905, rather than return to the Palace, he opened at the Theatre Royal.

So instead of welcoming the likes of George Stephenson’s English Musical Comedy Company, J.F. Sheridan, or the Brough-Flemming Comedy Company (who were the big names of the current season), the Palace played host to one night stands by the Sydney Comedy Club (A Snug Little Kingdom, 3 July 1905); The Players (Dr Bill, 4 and 5 July 1905, 21 September 1905; The Weaker Sex, 16 November 1905; Lady Windermere’s Fan, 17 November 1905; A Gaiety Girl, 20–22 December 1905; Little Lord Fauntleroy, 6 July 1905; In Town, 9–20 September 1905); the Bank of New South Wales Musical and Dramatic Company (The Magistrate, 7 July 1905; Dandy Dick, 11 December 1905); the Academy of Dramatic Art (Under Two Flags, 25 August 1905); Sydney Liedertafel (the premiere of W. Arundel Orchard’s comic operetta The Coquette, 28 August to 2 September 1905); the Sydney University Dramatic Society (The School for Scandal, 28 September 1905); the Lands Department Musical and Dramatic Society (The Sleeping Queen, 29 September 1905); and the Sydney Muffs (Casteand ’Op o’ Me Thumb, 14 December 1905, with assistance from Nellie Stewart); as well as performances by Minnie Hooper’s dance students (18 December 1905) and the Students’ Operatic and Dramatic Society (19 December 1905). Although the commercial prospects of the theatre were not great, the Palace was providing the opportunity for students and amateurs to hone their craft in a professional theatre.

The Great Thurston

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Florence Lloyd

Author’s collection

In addition to the performances listed above, the Palace also hosted the Great Thurston’s farewell to Sydney when the magician presented a four week season from 22 July 1905 to 26 August 1905. He did however return for a second ‘final’ season from 23 December 1905 to 12 January 1906.

In mid-October, comedians J.J. Dallas and Florence Lloyd (under the management of Clyde Meynell and John Gunn) were seen in The J.P., the play having transferred to the Palace from Her Majesty’s Theatre for a week’s season.

Also, in late 1905, Lily Dampier (daughter of actor-manager Alfred Dampier) was seen in East Lynne and The Postmistress of the Czar. In the former, which was staged from 11–15 and 18–21 November, she played the double role of Lady Isabel and Madame Vine and in the latter, from 22 November to 2 December 1905, she appeared as Princess Olga.

The new year, 1906, got off to a reasonable start with a short return season by J.J. Dallas and Florence Lloyd beginning with a revival of The J.P. (27 January 1906 to 2 February 1906). This was followed by the first Australian production of There and Back, a three act farce by George Arliss (the British actor best remembered for playing Disraeli). Given a copyright performance in Bath in 1895 and produced in Bolton in 1900, this play received positive notices when it was staged at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London in May 1902 (transferring to the Shaftesbury in July 1902) with Charles Hawtrey as William Waring and Arthur Williams as Henry Lewson, two husbands whose wives go on holiday to Scotland, but pretend they are visiting a sick friend. The following year, it was performed at the Princess Theatre in New York with Charles E. Evans and Charles H. Hopper as the deceived husbands. In Australia, J.J. Dallas played the role of Lewson, a role he had performed when the farce toured the British provinces during 1902–03. He was supported by Aubrey Mallalieu as Waring and Florence Young as Marie Antoinette Smith. There and Back played for only a week at the Palace from 3–9 February 1906. On the same bill was a musical skit, The Bazaar Girl with J.J. Dallas and Florence Lloyd as Mr. and Mrs. Honeywood.

J.J. Dallas

The Australasian Stage Annual 1906

R.G. Knowles

National Portrait Gallery, London

The comedy season was followed by Canadian-American music hall artist R.G. Knowles (under the auspices of J.C. Williamson) with ‘songs and stories of the stage’ from 10–23 February 1906. This was a return visit to the Palace by Knowles, having been one of the headlining acts when Harry Rickards was in residence back in 1896-97. As on the previous occasion he was assisted by his wife, Mrs. R.G. Knowles (Winifred Johnson), the ‘delightful and brilliant banjo exponent’.

Julius Knight as Monsieur Beaucaire, 1903. Photo by Talma & Co., Melbourne and Sydney.

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Maud Jeffries, c.1903. Photo by Falk, Sydney.

Author’s collection

From 24 February 1906, the popular matinee idol Julius Knight, supported by Maud Jeffries, played a brief season under the auspices of J.C. Williamson. Knight was making his reappearance in Australia following a lengthy tour of New Zealand. His three week season at the Palace saw revivals of some of his most popular plays: David Garrick, Comedy and Tragedy, The Sign of the Cross, Monsieur Beaucaire, Pygmalion and Galatea, The Silver King and The Lady of Lyons.

On Saturday, 17 March 1906, Edwin Geach presented West’s Pictures and The Brescians, pairing the latest cinematic offering from T.J. West with a group of concert party singers. The two acts had been touring the UK since the 1890s and from April 1905 had been causing a sensation in New Zealand. Having made a quick trip to England to obtain new attractions, West landed in Sydney just in time for the start of the Palace season. His newest film was the ‘mighty, throbbing, wondrous’ Living London. Filmed in 1904 by Charles Urban and edited by playwright G.R. Sims, this epic depiction of London streets and its people created a sensation—for two reasons. Not only was the film a splendid depiction of London life, but the Palace season saw the release of the film one week ahead of J.&N. Tait’s presentation of the same film at the Lyceum Hall. A fierce advertising war followed with each of the exhibitors extolling the virtues of their version of the film. ‘West shows in 20 minutes what other take nearly 2 HOURS to do.’⁵

Living London was screened at the Palace for the last time on 6 April 1906 (moving to the Sydney Town Hall as a special Easter event). During the last three weeks of the season West’s introduced several new attractions, including, from 21 April, Living Sydney, ‘showing animated Photographs of Hundreds of Sydney Citizens’. ‘COME AND SEE YOURSELF AS OTHERS SEE YOU’⁶ The season ended on the 27 April and the following day West’s transferred their operations to the Sydney Town Hall.

A rather special event took place on Saturday, 28 April 1906, when a new romantic comic opera called A Moorish Maid; or, Queen of the Riffs by Alfred Hill (with libretto by NZ music and drama critic J. Youlin Birch) was given its Australian premiere. Mounted by George Stephenson’s English Musical Comedy Company, the title role was performed by the twenty-five year old Rosina Buckman. Still at the outset of her career, the New Zealand born soprano was yet to make her name on the international stage, having returned home following her graduation from the Birmingham School of Music in 1903 on account of illness. Advertised on the bills as ‘the famous English Dramatic Soprano’, this was her first appearance in Sydney.

Rosina Buckman (second from left) and others in A Moorish Maid, 1906. Photo by Talma.

National Library of New Zealand

In June 1905, A Moorish Maid was given its initial performance in Auckland, with Lillian Tree and Frederick Graham in the lead roles. The piece proved a critical and financial success, and a subsequent season was planned for Wellington the following September. When Lillian Tree fell ill, Rosina Buckman took her place. This performance ‘marked the beginning of an operatic career which was to take her to Drury Lane and Covent Garden, and earn special praise from the doyenne of Australian singers, Nellie Melba’.

Alas, despite the rave reviews of Rosina Buckman—‘Miss Buckman was most brilliant and altogether made a most remarkable first appearance in opera’—the Sydney season was not a success. The libretto had been reshaped by Bulletin writer David Souter. A new second act was devised and the tenor role was eliminated. The work had been transformed from a comic opera to an extravaganza. At the end of the short season Alfred Hill was left with the scenery and costumes.⁷

A Moorish Maid was played until 5 May 1906, a total of seven performances. The final nights of the short season saw George Stephenson’s company in The Skirt Dancer and Bill Adams. On the 12, 14 and 15 May 1906 they presented The Dandy Doctor for the first time in Sydney.

The 16 May 1906 saw the return of the Sydney University Dramatic Society for one night only with Pinero’s The Cabinet Minister. The Sydney Muffs appeared the following night, 17 May, in The Private Secretary.

From the 19–25 May 1906, The Players under the direction of Phillip Lytton revived Planquette’s comic opera Nell Gwynne, the otherwise amateur company augmented by the engagement of W.B. Beattie in the role of Lord Buckingham.

Leslie Harris, c.1900s. Photo by Hall, New York.

Digital Commonwealth / Boston Public Library

Lydia Yeamans-Titus

New York Public Library, New York

From 26 May 1906 to 13 June 1906, having already performed seasons in Melbourne and Adelaide, Leslie Harris and Madame Lydia Yeamans-Titus opened at the Palace. Performing as the Society Entertainers, they presented monologues, songs and sketches. With this engagement, Leslie Harris was performing in Australia for the first time, while Madame Yeamans-Titus was making her reappearance having toured in 1902 and 1904. Harris was a performer in the Mel B. Spurr style, a polished monologist and raconteur. Madame Yeamans-Titus was a seasoned vaudevillian, accompanied on the piano by her husband Frederick J. Titus. Often referred to as the ‘queen of the child mimics’, several of her ‘baby’ songs were included on the program. Towards the close of the season Madame Yeamans-Titus was indisposed and her place was taken by Rosina Buckman.

Following a performance of Maritana on 20 June 1906 by the Railway and Tramway Musical Society,

Spencer’s American Theatrescope Company enjoyed a month-long season from 25 June 1906 to 20 July 1906.

From 21–28 July, a series of charity performances in aid of the King Edward VII Seamen’s Hospital were given under the patronage of the Lady Mayoress (Mrs. Allen Taylor). These were given the title ‘Enchanted Palace’ Carnival.

On the 3 August 1906 and 1 September 1906, the Bank of New South Wales Musical and Dramatic Society revived The Pickpocket.

And on 25 August 1906, a single copyright performance was given of Three Little Waifs, an original five-act musical drama by Phillip Lytton and J.C. Lee. A short season to follow from 15–26 September, with Mark Williamson, a new English actor specially engaged to play the wicked uncle. In the role of Mona, one of the waifs, was Louise Carabasse (‘may be commended for a very pathetic picture’, wrote the Herald⁸), who as Louise Lovely would go on to become a film star in Hollywood.

On 8 September 1906, Annie Mayor (an Australian actress popular in the 1880s and 1890s) returned to the Sydney stage in Drama in Camera, comprising scenes from The Silver King, London Assurance and other plays including Shakespeare, which ran until 14 September.

Edison’s Popular Pictures made an appearance on 1 October.

Hilda Bevege, c.1902

HAT Archive

Program for the Trafalgar Eve Grand Historial Pageant, 20 October 1906

Mitchell Library Performance Program Collection, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

On 4 and 5 October a Grand Complimentary Performance was given by Sydney elocutionist Hilda Bevege when the short plays In Honour Bound and Milky White were presented.

The 20 October 1906, to commemorate Trafalgar Day (27 October), a Grand Historical Pageant, comprising ‘TABLEAUX VIVANTS and LIVING SCENES’ was staged.

The first Australian production of the farcical comedy The ‘Dear’ Doctor by Kim Brament followed from 27 October to 2 November 1906 under the direction of Blandford Wright. Despite being advertised as ‘the World’s Greatest Rib-tickler, in Three Acts’, nothing is discoverable about the history of this play or its author. The performances were given in aid of the Benevolent Society of New South Wales and St. Margaret’s Hospital for Women.

On the 3 and 5 November 1906, the Elocutionary Society performed Our Boys and My Friend Jarlet.

The week commencing 7 November 1906, saw the production of The Emperor, a comic opera by W.J. Curtis, with music by W. Arundel Orchard. Set in Ancient Rome, the piece included a ‘graceful statue ballet’ in the first act. Orchard had composed the score for The Coquette which had been performed at the Place during 1905.

The original ‘Little Stranger’, Master Edward Garratt

Wellcome Collection, London

Master Willie Parke, Australia’s ‘Little Stranger’

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

The year ended on a high note with the appearance of Meynell, Gunn and Varna’s New English Comedy Company. They opened on 17 November 1906 with the three-act farcical comedy The Little Stranger by Michael Morton. This piece had enjoyed some success in London earlier in the year, with Master Edward Garratt as the sixteen year old boy who is substituted for a baby. The play had its first Australian production at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne on 20 October 1906 with Master Willie Parke as Tom Pennyman, the ‘Little Stranger’ of the title. Billed as ‘the Child Wonder … direct from the Criterion Theatre, London’. Although Parke seems to have excelled as the wise-cracking, cigarette smoking youngster, he had not performed the role at the Criterion in London. Other principal roles were played by Violet Dene (Mrs. Dick Allenby), John W. Deverell (General Allenby), Pultney Murray (Captain Dick Allenby), Florence Leigh (Mrs. Allenby) and Harry Hill (Paul Veronsky). In London, Audrey Ford, John Beauchamp, Athole Stewart, Mrs. Kemmis and W. Graham Browne played the same characters.

Scene from the London production of The Little Stranger

Hippostcard

To be continued

Endnotes

1. The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 January 1905, p.6

2. In September 1903, George Adams, the owner of the Palace Theatre died aged 65. For the last decade he had been resident in Tasmania, having moved there in 1895 ‘for tax reasons’. With his passing, his estate was managed by a Trust made up of his nephew William James Adams, solicitor W.A. Finlay, manager D.H. Harvey, and solicitor G.J. Barry. Harrie Skinner continued as manager, a position he would hold for the next twenty years.

3. Evening News (Sydney), 5 April 1905

4. Elaine Aston & Ian Clarke, pp.30-42

5. Daily Telegraph, 20 March 1906, p.2. For a full analysis of the Australian screenings of Living London, see ‘The Living London Boom’ by Sally Jackson, Senses of Cinema, 2009.

6. Advertisement, The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 April 1906, p.2

7. John Mansfield Thomson, A Distant Music, pp.83-89

8. The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 September 1906, p.6

References

Elaine Aston & Ian Clarke, ‘The dangerous woman of Melvillean melodrama’, New Theatre Quarterly, vol. 12, issue.45, February 1996, pp.30–42

Allardyce Nicoll, English Drama 1900–1930: The beginnings of the modern period, Cambridge University Press, 1973

Sally Jackson, ‘The Living London Boom’, Senses of Cinema, issue 49, March 2009, https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2009/feature-articles/living-london-sally-jackson/#44

John Mansfield Thomson, A Distant Music: The life & times of Alfred Hill 1870–1960, Oxford University Press, 1980, pp.83–89

J.P. Wearing, The London Stage, 1900–1909: A calendar of prodctions, performers, and personnel, 2nd edition, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014

Newspapers

The Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), Evening News (Sydney)

Trove,  trove.nla.gov.au

Pictures

Digital Commonwealth,  www.digitalcommonwealth.org

ebay

HAT Archive, www.flickr.com/photos/hat-archive

Hippostcard

National Library of Australia, Canberra

National Library of New Zealand

National Portrait Gallery, London

New York Public Library, New York

State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Wellcome Collection, London

With thanks to

John S. Clark, Sally Jackson, Judy Leech, Rob Morrison, Les Tod