Alexander Archdale

Serving in WW2. In London, 1951, Alex Archdale suffered a serious heart attack. Consequently, to convalesce he came to Sydney to visit his sister, Betty, 1952. Embraced by the local theatrical community he enjoyed a halcyon period of stage and television roles. He loved the country and stayed. A product of the British weekly-repertory system, which spawned so many of England’s great actors, he harboured a passion to establish a permanent repertory theatre company on the North Shore. The Community Theatre, Killara, was the manifestation of his implacable ambition. He attracted a team of loyal supporters but even they were not enough to bring it to total fruition. Often there was no money to meet the technical staff and front-of-house operating-costs. Such was his magnetism, his capacity to engender loyalty, they worked for nothing. A month-to-month proposition, Alexander Archdale’s Community Theatre survived on the goodwill of his staff and a sometimes-ambivalent public.

Interestingly, Alex attracted a contingent of enthusiastic, teen-age students who arrived, always, every performance for the theatre experience. They worked gratis as ushers, café staff, programme sellers, cleaners, and general roustabouts. They stuffed flyers into envelopes which were sent-out for every production. They were an important part of the Community Theatre, and without whom it would have been impossible. It was a thriving training ground, and Alex shared his knowledge with willing. Consequently, some of them went on to join the profession.  

The want of success was not from a lack of commitment or theatrical prowess. It deserved to be a success—if only for him.

Alex Archdale on the set of Richard III

Characters in Romeo and Juliet

Having arrived recently from Western Australia, I was working as an assistant stage manager (1968) for the fledgling Community Theatre, Killara, under the artistic direction of Alexander Archdale—the brother of educationalist and cricketer, Betty Archdale. Alex, who enjoyed a successful radio, stage, and film career in England, was settled in Australia. The 1906 building which he converted into the Community Theatre was, originally, a soldiers’ Memorial Hall. Located in Marian Street, on a steep suburban block near to Killara railway station, Alex lived in an attached flat, originally the caretaker’s cottage, at the rear of the building.

Too much of the minutiae from the first two-seasons of the Community Theatre has not been recorded. Much is lost. It took Archdale nearly seven-years to galvanise local support and formally establish his company. Alex was redolent of the actor-manager tradition. His reasoning was to “bring the theatre to the people”; to provide work for actors; and to teach. The company structure was non-profit, limited by guarantee, with the aim of attracting 5,000 subscribers each contributing £5.

Originally, the theatre was located in St. Alban's Church Hall, Lindfield and the first production was Alex Archdale in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. The reviews were effusive: “If the company is able to keep-up the standard of this first offering, it will be a most exciting addition to the theatrical life of Sydney.”

The company moved to Marian Street, Killara, 14 September 1966, with a production of Romeo and Juliet with Darlene Johnson as Juliet, Mark McManus as Romeo, Edwin Hodgeman played Tybalt, Max Meldrum was Mercutio, Donald Crosby, Friar Lawrence, Bill Pearson was the apothecary, Diana Bradbury the nurse. Archdale directed and played Capulet. The reviews were not good …

Kirsty Child

Joan Bruce, Anne Haddy and Alex Archdale in Oh, Killara

A combination of financial support from Ku-ring-gai Council, and a one-off subsidy of £9,500 (today $190,000) from the state government, provided Archdale with the required capital to convert the hall into a theatre. By the beginning of 1968 the stage was modified and equipped with twin revolves, one of the few theatres in the country to have such a facility; the auditorium was refurbished; the floor was raked; and seating provided for 311 people. A vestibule was constructed at the entry with box-office facilities and administration space. The former undercroft supper-room was renovated to create a restaurant/coffee shop, kitchen, two dressing rooms, a green room, props room, and space for set construction. The stage had limited wing space. The electrician’s bio-box hung above the prompt corner and was accessed by a wall ladder. Today it would be outlawed by Health and Safety regulations.

The Community Theatre signed a formal lease with the Council and opened its first season, 27 March 1968, with John Osborne’s The Entertainer,starring Archdale as Archie Rice. Under Archdale’s tenure it presented Noël Coward’s Hay Fever; Bernard Shaw’s Misalliance; Tennessee Williams’ 1940s prize-winning, The Glass Menagerie; Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night;Out of the Crocodile by Giles Cooper; and Pauline Macauley’s The Creeper, a contemporary thriller. The second season comprised Congreve’s The Old Bachelor; Waterhouse and Hall’s Say Who You Are; Noël Coward’s Fallen Angels; Shakespeare’s Richard III;Shaw’s Arms and the Man; Patrick Hamilton’s Gaslight; Billetdoux’s, Tchin-Tchin; David Storey’s The Restoration of Arnold Middleton; Colin Free’s Cannonade of Bells.

The revue, Oh, Killara,was devised and directed by Peter Batey. It opened 4 November 1969. The cast were Joan Bruce, Anne Haddy, Alex Archdale, Kirsty Child, Alistair Smart and Staley Walsh. The writers were Peter Batey, Reg Livermore, Alex Archdale, John Ritchie, Herbert Farjeon, Anthony Keith, and Alan Bennet. Musical Director, Peter Narroway, and second pianist, Sybil Graham. Costumes and settings were by Jennifer Carseldine. It was so successful the season extended—no thanks to the Bulletin magazine critic, Rex Cramphorn. Snidely he wrote: “I have no doubt someone could make even these topics witty and surprising, but Peter Batey and Reg Livermore (between them responsible for half the scripts), maintain a doggedly conventional tone, setting their sights on a taste level so basic as to be insulting to almost any audience.” It was typical of his haughty reviews.

At the same time he was playing Berger in HAIR, Reg Livermore directed the revue Help,with a cast of Ronald Falk, Alex Archdale, Ken James, Lois Ramsay, and Jenny Welch. Sandra McKenzie wrote the music, and played piano. It was not so successful. 

Tony Youlden

Max Meldrum in Hay Fever

Sadly, community support for the theatre was not always forthcoming. Archdale, starved of any government subsidy, struggled valiantly to keep-open the doors. The production of the comedy, Say Who You Are, and its revival, saved it from ever-looming insolvency. He sold a parcel of land in Western Australia to keep the theatre afloat. The theatre was three-weekly repertory. Company members were contracted for varying periods. Joan Bruce, Anne Haddy, and Max Meldrum were the founding artists. Actresses were, according to the Equity agreement, paid less than actors. I was paid per performance. It totalled about $40-a-week—about half the union rate. The late Ian Tasker was stage manager; Tony Youlden was lighting designer. Ross Major did sets and costumes for a many of the productions.

*In 2014 Tony Youlden suffered a stroke. He died August 2022. He calculated he had designed the lighting for 450-productions across the country.

Anne Haddy

Peter Adams

The cast of the comedy, Out of the Crocodile, comprised Joan Bruce and Ronald Falk playing husband and wife; Peter Adams and Kirsty Child as the romantic leads, and Anne Haddy playing a 16-year-old—complete with gym tunic, long plaits, and painted-on freckles.

Of the production, I wrote in The Actor Who Laughed which I co-wrote with Frank Thring:

The cancellation of an opening night is something which has rarely happened in Australia, but it occurred one night at the Community Theatre in Sydney (now the Marian Street Theatre).

At about 6 p.m., Sydney was hit by torrential rain, and the entire metropolitan area seemed to be covered by six-inches of rushing water. Transport stopped, cars were washed-away, and electricity supplies were cut-off everywhere. For several hours the entire city ground to a halt as the rains continued to bucket-down.

With little or no relief in sight, the actors set-out for the theatre, which is located in Killara on Sydney’s North Shore, about ten-miles from the centre of the city. Ronnie Falk found himself stranded on Milson’s Point railway station. Peter Adams was stuck in a train in the Wynyard tunnel. In desperation he jumped-off and ran back along the tracks to the station. A stupid action in hindsight as he could have been killed by a train travelling in the opposite direction.

Anne Haddy was stranded on Pacific Highway with a broken-down car. She positioned herself on the median strip in the centre of the Highway and attempted to hail any car which would give her a lift to the theatre. Joan Bruce, who lived a short distance away, had a broken-down car. Alex Archdale set-out to pick-up Joan and ended-up bogging his car. Eventually, Joan’s babysitter drove both of them back to the theatre. Kirsty Child managed to arrive at the theatre at about 7.30—in a friend’s truck, and looking like a drowned rat!

Finally, by about 9.15 p.m. the entire cast had arrived. Of the invited 400-guests, only 70 managed to make it. Alex went-out onto the stage and made a short speech. He gave the audience a choice of either starting the performance at the late hour, or going into the foyer to have a drink and returning the next night.  The decision was unanimous—they had a drink and came back the next night.

When eventually the play opened the season proved a great success.

In David Storey’s The Restoration of Arnold Middleton Kirsty Child played Joan, the wife, and Stanley Walsh directed and played her husband. Others in the cast were Anne Haddy and Joan Bruce, Vicky Raymond, and Alistair Smart.

Alex directed Shaw’s Arms and The Man with Kirsty Child (Raina), Anne Haddy (Louka), Joan Bruce (Catherine Petkoff), James Condon (Sergius), Ronald Falk (Major Petkoff), and Peter Adams as Bluntschli. Anne and James were involved in a complicated and sometimes tempestuous romance. Their real-life tiff found its way onto the stage, and they were delivering obviously flirtatious dialogue between gritted teeth. It was embarrassing. Ronnie Falk, who could be formidable, was one of the most disciplined of actors. He was incandescent with rage. When they came-off stage he turned-on both of them, delivering a diatribe of spleen which included labelling them “fucking amateurs!” They were dumbstruck. It solved the problem.

Ronnie and I worked together on the Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of Danton’s Death. Again, I saw him deliver a similar tirade when he felt the director was losing control of the production, and the cast. This time was not so successful. A difficult play, it was beyond the limited ability of the director. The production was miserable.

Rod Mullinar as the Earl of Richmond

Alan Dearth as the Duke Buckingham

Alex was theatrically ambitious, and some programming choices failed, catastrophically, but not from any want of alacrity. The production of Richard IIIfulfilled Archdale’s lingering ambition to direct and stage the play. It opened on 13 May 1969; directed by Alex Archdale; original music by Richard Connolly; costumes courtesy of The Elizabethan Theatre Trust; production design consultant by Allan Lees, courtesy of the Old Tote Theatre.

The cast headed by Peter Adams as King Richard, and Rod Mullinar as the Earl of Richmond, were Joan Bruce as mad Queen Margaret, Anne Haddy as Lady Ann, Joan Boulken (by marriage the Baroness von Adlerstein) as Queen Elizabeth, Eve Wynne as the Duchess of York, Susan Lloyd as Edward Plantagenet, Brendan Lunney and Graham Dixon as the princes in the Tower, Fiona Paul, Cliff Neate, David Goddard, Robert Quilter, Roger Cox, Patrick Orde, Bob Karl, Keith Bierney, Derek Maguire, John Hall, Maxwell Sims, Stewart Isles, and Alan Dearth as the Duke Buckingham. Alan was an enigmatic man who now has some memory challenges. He remembers nothing of being in the production. He was a nice actor—a bodybuilder who rode a motorbike, and was never on-time for the half-hour call. He was unusually reserved. I liked him.

Anne Haddy as Lady Ann

Joan Boulken as Queen Elizabeth

Rod Mullinar came to Richard 111from the controversial Australian film The Set directed by Frank Brittain; produced by David Hannay; and adapted from the unpublished novel by Roger Ward. It was the first Australian feature film to rely on homosexuality as a primary theme. Rod Mullinar’s character, Tony Brown, has an affair with Paul Lawrence played by Sean Myers. Controversially, actress and television personality Hazel Phillips swam nude in a swimming pool. It was shot entirely on location in Sydney.

Peter Adams as King Richard, with Rod Mullinar as the Earl of Richmond

Graham Dixon and Brendan Lunney as the princes in the Tower

Richard III was Archdale’s most extravagant undertaking, costing $14,000 to mount. It was on the year-five school syllabus, and students paid $1 to see the show. Archdale’s salary was paid for 40-weeks by the Australian Council for the Arts, and the production was subsidised further with a $2500 grant because it encouraged children to attend the theatre. Again, Bulletin magazine critic Rex Cramphorn wrote of Archdale’s production of Richard III with Peter Adams in the title role, had all the possibilities of being a very good radio play “except the voices weren’t good enough.” The 5-week season was so poorly attended, on two occasions the performance was cancelled because there were more people on stage than in the auditorium.

The production of Noël Coward’s Fallen Angels, with Joan Bruce, Anne Haddy, Ronald Falk, Chris Johnson, and Kirsty Child, proved a theatrical embarrassment. Alex directed and cast himself as the French ‘lover’, Maurice. An unprepossessing man, he was, at 63, craggy-faced, and jowled. He was 30-years too old for the role. Tightly corseted, sporting a very bad wig, and painted like a circus clown: “a touch of carmine to the ear lobes adds a certain youthful quality” he assured me, Alex was a caricature; a grotesque. It made a nonsense of the women’s anticipation, and Coward’s witty and suggestive dialogue. Both actresses were possessed of a superb lightness-of-touch; however, it was impossible to believe both their characters, Julia and Jane, had at different times enjoyed a pre-marital, scandalous dalliance with the Frenchmen—and still harboured a burning passion for him! As they sank into inebriation, and vitriol, Joan Bruce—whom I had known since her days as leading lady at The Playhouse, Perth, and Anne Haddy, were at their comedic best. Friends in life, Joan and Anne were very funny in Fallen Angels. Anne dried on the opening night. She looked through the window of the set, stared into the prompt court, and said in her inebriated state: “I can’t think what I should say to you next!” Ian Tasker gave her the line. Anne turned and said: “I’ve just remembered,” and the play went on. It was a seamless moment!

Anne Haddy and Joan Bruce in Fallen Angels

Stage manager Ian Tasker

Fallen Angelsis a stage management horror. It has breakfast and dinner served on stage. Breakfast for one was toast and marmalade, and scrambled eggs with bacon and tomato. Dinner was for three. The eye fillet was a piece of fresh, thickly-sliced brown bread, buttered and smothered in tinned mushrooms, and served with Deb instant mashed potato and steamed carrots. Pudding was profiteroles from the milk bar across the road. The food was not touched but devoured by the crew the moment it arrived back in the props area.

Kirsty Child had a line about a hair in the breakfast marmalade belonging to “Mr. Cooper of Oxford”. Kirsty pitched and timed it perfectly. I could never understand why it did not raise the big laugh it deserved!

Actors are never happy with food on stage. They complain constantly about it getting stuck in their throats, and spraying it over the other actors in the course of the dialogue. At the Melbourne Theatre Company, in a production of Brecht’s Galileo with Frank Thring playing Galileo, directed by John Sumner and designed by Kristian Fredrikson, Frank lost his lines. The reason he shouted at me was a glass of milk: “It was too fucking cold for me to drink!” The same temperature at the next performance was perfect!

I am not sure the audience, or the Governor Sir Roden Cutler who came to the opening night, knew quite what to make of the erotic production of The Old Bachelor, directed by Alex Archdale. The cast included Edwin Hodgeman, Judith Conrow, and Sean McEuan (Myers); however, a Restoration comedy was not what Killara, and its environs, considered amusing theatre.

Edwin Hodgeman, Sean Myers, Max Meldrum, Alex Archdale and Anthony Ingersent in
Cannonade of Bells

Colin Free’s Cannonade of Bells was set in colonial Australia with a cast including Anne Haddy, Alexander Archdale, Max Meldrum, Anthony Ingersent, Edwin Hodgeman, and Sean Myers.

Reviewing Tchin-Tchin, Rex Cramphorn wrote: “Anne Haddy’s performance is, as usual, well worth seeing; Alexander Archdale’s less so, and his direction lacks momentum.”

The production of Gaslight,directed by David Goddard, was an audience success. Peter Adams played Manningham, the husband; Anne Haddy was superb as his wife, Bella; Joan Bruce the housekeeper, Elizabeth; and Alex Archdale the detective, Mr. Rough. Kirsty Child was a triumph as the scheming maid, Nancy. Critics were fulsome in their praise. Taffy Davies, wrote of her: “Surprise of the night was the exquisite little character that Kirsty Child made out of Nancy, the second maid. Pert, snappy, saucy, bitchy, and on the make, Nancy could so easily have been the cameo that newspaper critics write about when they think they are offering praise. Ms Child made her somewhat more than that.”

Peter Adams and Kirsty Child

Rex Cramphorn

Within the company, Kirsty Child and the late Peter Adams began “stepping-out”—and ultimately, married; and Anne Haddy and James Condon were struggling to resolve the problems which had thwarted their marrying. Later, The Community Theatre changed its name to the Marian Street Theatre, and finally, to the North Shore Theatre Company. John Frost was a one-time general manager, and John Krummel was its longest-serving, and most successful, artistic director. It was an excellent repertory company, but, ultimately, it did not survive.

Rex Cramphorn (originally with an E) was an Australian theatre director, costume designer, theatre critic, theorist, and translator in the 1960s and ‘70s. Contributing critic for the Bulletin magazine, he was much lauded, revered, deified, and praised across the theatrical community. At the time of his AIDS related death (aged 50) the encomium was palpable. He was hailed as an all-round genius; or a pretentious, lofty aspirant who enjoyed an inflated opinion of his ability, and who wore his disdain for mainstream theatre as a badge of honour.

I met and worked, briefly, with Mr. Cramphorn in Perth. He designed the costumes for a production of Richard III at the New Fortune Theatre, directed by Dr. Philip Parsons and Aarne Neeme, and from which I was sacked after several weeks of rehearsal. Martin Redpath played Richard. I was cast as the Bishop of Ely. I looked at most, about 15. I was surprised to be cast in the first instance. I was bold enough to argue: “You cast me, and you can sack me—but you will pay me!” They did.

Alex Archdale in Hay Fever

Joan Bruce as Judith Bliss in Hay Fever

Mr. Cramphorn’s churlish reviews were a literary device more akin to a self-indulgent stream of consciousness espousing his hypothesis on everything theatrical. It was tantamount to Zeus hurling down his thunderbolts from Mount Olympus. I cannot recall any of his efforts being particularly supportive or praising of those production on which I worked. His scribblings were, for the most part, damning, dispiriting, cruel, and did little to titillate the box-office. Seemingly, few Australian creative efforts, however excellent, were incapable of satiating his exacting standards.

Alex Archdale was a man of theatre. It was his life. Described as a tall, spare, rather gawky man, slightly precious in manner, and with a shy giggle, he was a fine singer and classical musician, and an adept sportsman. Although a loner and a perfectionist, he was sensitive and could be amusing, endearing, and affectionate. He was not without an eye for the ladies. He was married and divorced (they had two sons together), and over the years proposed to a number of ladies—all of whom refused him. The single life taught him how to cook. He could, in an instant, whip-up paellas or a curry for 50-people. Also, he wanted his own way; liked to impress; and could be inflexibly argumentative—especially about the theatre. His wilful pig-headedness was directly proportional to the organisation’s impecunity. His wit could be cruel. Although theatrically skilled, he was steeped in pre-World War II British culture. He was not resistant to change—in many ways he was a modern thinker and an experimental practitioner; however, the application of the theory proved more problematic.

Alex Archdale

A car accident (1970) brought-on his resignation as artistic director of the Community Theatre, and ultimately the end of his dream.

He returned to England for two-years. He had been away too long. He struggled to find work of any consequence.

Back in Australia, until his demise he worked in television and film. Sadly, he is mostly forgotten in these times, but he made an important contribution to theatre in Sydney. I owe him. I worked with some of the best actors of the day. Unquestionably, for me he provided the time and opportunity to find my way around the Sydney theatrical labyrinth, before landing a much-coveted job with Harry M. Miller.

ALEXANDER MERVYN ARCHDALE: Born 1905–died 1986. He was aged 80.

Sadly, and for the most part, his death passed unnoticed.