John McCullum

Googie and johnwere married for 62-years. They were married in 1948 at St. George’s Church, Hanover Square, London. It is the same church where Alfred P. Doolittle ties the knot in My Fair Lady, and which John directed in Australia.

Shockingly, Googie and John lived together for a time before they wed. They had to keep their living-in-sin a tight secret from the press because it would have ruined their careers. From John O’Groats to Land’s End, Googie would have been denounced from the pulpit. John would have been transported back to Botany Bay—in chains.  

By any standard of creative reckoning, GOOGIE WITHERS was the most fascinating actor whom I came to know, with whom I worked, and spent time.  Also, she was one of the most talented. I never tired of standing in the wings watching her captivate her audience. Never once did she phone-in the performance. Her closing night was as fresh as the opening night performance.

When JOHN MCCALLUM, wrote her biography—LIFE WITH GOOGIE—we were together in Chichester. It was a glorious summer, and they were starring in The Circle. John wrote the book in longhand, sitting in the shade of the large Oak at the bottom of the Bottle Cottage garden in Almodington. He wanted to call it GOOGIE—The Sonsie Girl. “It’s an old Scottish word. It means sassy,” he said, “and Googie is certainly that!”  He said of her, “she has more moral courage than any person I know, and she will stand-up for her rights, regardless of the consequences.”

Googie and Michael Redgrave starred in a production of The Complaisant Lover on Broadway 1961—the Ethel Barrymore Theatre—together with Richard Johnson, Gene Wilder, Sandy Dennis—during one performance the elastic snapped in her knickers and they ended-up down around her ankles—and Nicholas Hammond who later played Friedrich von Trapp in The Sound of Music. It was directed by Glen Byam Shaw.

The play was not as successful as it might have been and Googie was incensed when the Broadway producer Irene Mayer Selznick—looking to apportion blame—complained it was because Googie was looking fat on stage. They were staying at the same hotel. Googie knocked on the door of her room, went in and stood in the middle of the room.  She dropped the fur coat she was wearing and standing stark naked said: “Have a look and tell me which bit you think is fat.”

Googie with John McCallum, and his father John McCallum Sr

Googie in her dressing room, 1952

I came to realise Googie was a bit like marriage—not to be tangled with wantonly or lightly. Those who challenged her were met with the full implacability of her personality. She was not lacking in confidence. She knew her place in the theatre and she expected everyone to behave accordingly. On the first day of rehearsal a young actor—imbued with enthusiasm and excitement—walked-up to her and with a friendly, well-intended, “hello, Googie,” introduced himself. She said, shaking his hand: “How do you do, and I’m Miss Withers—until I tell you otherwise.” She never did—tell him otherwise, that is. Years later he was still calling her Miss Withers.

Googie had a well-deserved reputation for being imperious—although she disagreed vehemently—even when told it by her daughter, Joanna. Certainly, she was not beyond pulling rank—as Ed Deveraux learned when they worked together on the Australian play, 1966, The Desire of the Moth—written by James Brazill, directed by Raymond Westwell, and designed by Anne Fraser. It was not a success and proved a great disappointment to both Googie and John. They were keen to champion Australian talent. Years later, John said to me, “they complained JCW never did Australian plays. When we did the critics panned it. The reviews were dreadful and audiences were not interested.”

There was a serious contretemps in rehearsal. Googie and Ed clashed. Googie reminded Ed—in the plainest of terms—it was foolish to lock horns with the leading lady who just happened to be the wife of the producer. To amplify her clout, she added and pointed, “who is sitting upstairs in his office.” Neither harboured a grudge—but they did not forget. Years later, John was to cast Ed as the father in the television series, Skippy.

Publicity still for Desire of the Moth

Glamour shot of Googie

Googie, John, and Frank Thring, had been friends for many years. John had cast Frank as the villain of the piece. His role was to capture Skippy, to kill him, and eat him! Naturally, Skippy always escaped—leaving Frank wallowing in his wake as the pesky marsupial took-off in his helicopter, or soaked Frank with a spume of water as he escaped in a speedboat.

Frank arrived on the set for rehearsal and he noticed a sugarbag. When it began moving Frank enquired: “What’s in the bag.” Someone said, “Oh, that’s Skippy.” Without missing a beat he quipped. “If that’s the star’s dressing room, I can’t wait to see mine!”

Over the years I worked with Googie on some ten plays—including The Cherry Orchard directed by John Sumner, and An Ideal Husband directed by George Ogilvie at the Melbourne Theatre Company. Frank Thring and Googie were in both.  He played her brother—Gaev—in The Cherry Orchardand was pitch perfect. One of the best things we did together. Paradoxically, Frank was very good at playing whimsical—given it was so unlike him.

I first became aware of Miss Withers when I was working with Harry M. Miller. He had the rights to the stage play, Butterflies Are Free, and Freddie Gibson offered her the role of the mother. Googie read it and declined. Having come to know her as I did, I am surprised Freddie made the offer. The lead character, Don Baker, is blind and it is his play. The role of the mother—which was, ultimately, played by Miriam Karlin—is supporting. Sean Scully played Don, and Wendy Hughes played Jill. Stewart Faichney played Ralph. Best looking juvenile cast you saw—ever!

At the same time I was working on The Secretary Bird with Patrick Macnee at the Palace Theatre in Sydney, Googie was appearing two blocks away at the Theatre Royal, Castlereagh Street, with Alfred Sandor in Plaza Suite, directed by John McCallum. It was Alfred Sandor’s first Australian show. He enjoyed it so much he stayed and married the theatre publicist, Barbara James.

We met at the Melbourne Theatre Company. Googie telephoned me on the Sunday evening before the first day of rehearsal for The Cherry Orchard. She asked a lot of questions and said she was looking forward to meeting with me. I lived in Palmerston Place, Carlton, in a one-bedroom—outside bathroom and loo—in a semidetached workman’s cottage. It was wonderful. When we came to know each other she invited herself—and Irene Inescort—to dinner—several times.

Googie as Mrs Cheveley in An Ideal Husband

Googie in The Cherry Orchard

Harry M. Miller had taught me how to deal with stars so I was not in awe. I do recall the first reading. I discovered over the years, Googie always arrived “well prepared”.  She spent a couple of months working on the script in preparation and on the first day she more than half knew the part. I do not remember she ever called for a prompt in rehearsal. She was a star—and she knew exactly how she was going to play Lubov Andreyevna Ranevskaya. From then it only got better. En passant, I happened to mention the tapping of the breast three times as an Act of Contrition might be meaningful in a particular scene. The next rehearsal it was in.

John Sumner scripted her a wonderful version of The Cherry Orchard. Between them (actually it was John McCallum and not Googie) they wrote the Act II speech—“oh, my sins”—and she did not miss a beat. They gave her good words and she used them and her haughty sexuality to advantage. George Fromby said she had "a voice like Cointreau being poured over cracked ice." Dressed in cream silk chiffon designed by Kristian Fredrikson, and with a glorious hat made by Marjorie Head, and an ivory-handled, silk parasol, she was sensational.

Typically, Googie insisted the MTC provided her a wig from Wig Creations in London—where she was working prior to starting rehearsal on The Cherry Orchard. The Melbourne Theatre Company offices, rehearsal rooms, and workshops were on the corner of Normanby Road and Montague Street, South Melbourne. It was a dirty, sprawling space with a tin roof and no air-conditioning. The large rehearsal room on the first floor was appalling. We froze in the winter and cooked in the summer. The heating/cooling unit hanging from the ceiling in the centre of the room made so much noise it could not run while we rehearsed. Sometimes in the summer it was so hot we had to stop at regular intervals and run the system for relief from the heat.

Anyone who has worked with John Sumner will tell you—he did not use a deodorant. In the height of summer he hummed! Googie said to me: “Darling, Roland, John’s body odour is so bad, when he puts his arm around me I think I am going to faint. I have to hold my breath. You have to tell him.” I laughed. “He’s your friend,” I said. “You tell him.”  She never did—tell him, that is—and she never fainted. She just went on holding her breath.

For whatever reason, Googie was having no truck with a local wigmaker working from the former D.W. Bingham & Co. manufacturing plant. Eventually, John Sumner acquiesced and Googie arrived clutching her wig. I seem to recall a cost of £250. She went to the wig department. Kathryn Denniss—with Kristian Fredrikson watching—fitted her in front of the mirror. The three of them stared. No one spoke a word. Finally, Googie said, “it’s awful!” Without a moment of hesitation, Kristian, in his inimitably understated manner, said, “yes, it is.” Googie was deeply embarrassed. “What do we do?” she said. “I can’t wear that.” Kristian said, “no, you certainly can’t.” It was Kathryn who saved the moment. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll pull it apart and remake it.” Kathryn’s wig was a triumph. When the show went on tour Googie insisted Kathryn travel with the company. 

Googie played Mrs. Cheveley in the MTC production of An Ideal Husband directed by George Ogilvie. The set and costumes were designed by Hugh Colman. The costume designs were glorious. Hugh—who has impeccable taste—made one of his rare mistakes with Googie’s Act I costume. 

Googie was not overweight but she was a solid size 10-12. In Hugh’s design she wore an elaborate satin and lace creation in muted blues/greens/and pinks—rather like hydrangeas—and with small posies of flowers around the hips and the top of the train. It was the most beautiful gown; however, it did not well-serve Googie’s shapely form. The heavy train allowed Googie several opportunities to show her costume-wearing prowess and flick it with one foot—causing it to fall behind her in perfect array. On several occasions it earned her a round of applause.

John McCallum came to a dress rehearsal. In the first interval there was much discussion about the effect of the elaborate costume on Googie’s figure. I was asked to fetch Hugh to her dressing room. John Sumner, George Ogivly, Betty Druitt, John McCallum and I were all standing and staring at Googie, who was staring at herself in the mirror. John McCallum was being extremely charming with Hugh and making suggestions. Finally, Googie said, “Darling, Hugh, I look like the widow Twankey!” It was exactly the right thing to say about herself and everyone laughed.

An Ideal Husband was Hugh’s first “big” show, although we had done Galileo together at the Russell Street Theatre, directed by John Sumner. Hugh took the suggestions with good grace and removed the offending floral adornments from the skirt and made adjustments. It was not the most successful example of his brilliance. Hugh later agreed it was a mistake not to have followed the “scarlet woman” tradition for the Act I costume. It was, visually, the most beautiful production—thanks to Hugh’s designs.

The composite set—with steps and pillars—was blue/grey and white marble—actually it was superbly painted canvas. I cannot remember from where, but I secured a magnificent large, ballroom chandelier. I think it cost the company a couple of tickets to see the show—and a credit in the programme. Those were the days …

Googie and John in The Loves of Joanna Godden

Googie in a scene from On Approval, with costumes by Cecil Beaton

Googie said the hat Hugh designed for her in the Act II tea scene with Lady Chiltern—played by Diana Shearing—and Lady Markby—played by Irene Inescort—was the most beautiful she had worn—ever, “and that includes Cecil Beaton’s hats, and those from the film, The Loves of Joanna Godden.” The MTC’s Marjorie Head was a superb milliner.  Kathryn Denniss made a glorious red wig for Googie as Mrs. Cheveley. It was the most flattering colour.

When it came to gloves in An Ideal Husband Googie was adamant. She would not wear elasticised evening gloves. They had to be 21 button opera length white kid leather. I was dispatched to George’s in Collins Street to purchase two pairs for $50. They were expensive. I was earning $120 a week—the same as Wendy Hughes—who never had any money! Some actors were only earning $80 a week.

Having lived with musical theatre star Evie Hayes in Alexandra Avenue, South Yarra, I knew she had the most superb collection of diamond paste jewellery which she had worn in Call Me Madam. The MTC had no such collection in their stockpile and it was needed for Mrs. Cheveley in An Ideal Husband. I called Evie and she kindly gave me a stage jewellery roll of bracelets, brooches, chokers, tiaras, and fabulous necklaces. They were worn by all the women in the cast—after Googie had claimed the lion’s share—including a fabulous necklace/collar of faux diamonds. It was so superb it looked real.

Talking of diamonds—Frank arrived at rehearsal wearing around his neck a dazzling bauble the size of a chicken’s egg.

“What’s that?” said Googie—pointing and waving her fingers as she did.

“It’s a diamond,” said Frank—his eyes twinkling.

“Darling,” said Googie. “If that were a diamond it would be in a Queen’s collection.”

“It is!” said Frank. Googie laughed for five minutes!

Evie’s generosity proved to be one of the few occasions I frowned at Googie’s behaviour. Evie was in the early stages of multiple sclerosis. She was still in public denial. “A skiing accident,” she told everyone. She had to be brought into the theatre in a wheelchair and helped into her seat. On opening night, and in return for the loan of the jewellery, Evie was seated centre, front row of the stalls. Sadly, managements—for whom she starred in musicals and kept the box-office ticking over—were already forgetting. She was so excited to have been invited. Evie was, at this time, a judge with Ron Tudor on Channel Ten’s, Young Talent Time.

Googie was a gifted raconteuse. She told theatrical stories with great relish—about everyone and herself—and she knew how to deliver the punchline. Whenever she was invited as a guest speaker she was always a great hit—audiences loved her. Like all theatrical stories—apocryphal or not—Googie never let the truth stand in the way of a good tale. 

After the opening night of An Ideal Husband, Googie—thinking she was being amusing—was regaling her friends and making a joke of Evie in the front row of the Comedy Theatre. “There was Evie Hayes, sitting there—looking up at me and smiling—the whole time. I half expected her to give me a mark out of ten for my performance.” Everyone laughed. I thought it unworthy of Googie. I am not sure why, but it was not the only time I heard Googie being dismissive of Evie’s talent.

Frank played Lord Caversham. He was at his comedic best. When Frank dropped his shoulders in crest-fallen dismay he was brilliant. One performance he was standing beside me in the prompt corner. There was something different about his appearance.  “Look at me,” I said. “What?” he replied in that tone-of-voice. It only took me a second. “You silly old goat,” I said. “You’ve glued your eyebrows on for your moustache, and your moustache for your eyebrows.” He shrieked and said. “I can’t tell the fucking difference.”

John Sumner taught me how to light a play. At the start of Googie’s Act II soliloquy he took down the ambient and brought-up the crosslighting specials of surprise pink and steel. Seated on a wooden bench, Googie became the focus of centre stage.

I watched her at every performance. Everyone on stage—including her—sat quite still. It was just her voice. She stared into the distance. At the end of the speech came a sound effect. She cut through the atmosphere like a hot knife through butter. She cocked her head—opened her mouth slightly—did that familiar look of surprise which I came to recognise—and said: “Do I hear music?” The timing of the cue was critical. The audience needed a pause to take a breath but Googie couldn’t be left holding the moment for too long. We never got it wrong. It was magical. 

The Cherry Orchard and An Ideal Husbandwere used as part of Premier Dick Hamer’s Decentralisation Plan for Victoria. The cast of both plays—headed by Googie and Frank Thring, together with Wendy Hughes, Simon Chilvers, Dinah Shearing, and Dennis Olsen went on tour to Wangaratta—we played in the town hall with a flat floor—and to Albury/Wodonga at the War Memorial Civic Theatre. It was a triumph; however, the greatest triumph came at the Wednesday matinee of The Cherry Orchard for a house full of secondary school children at the Civic Theatre in Albury.

Who knows what happened—but it was magical. For the entire show you could have heard a pin drop. At the curtain call the children were standing and cheering. John Sumner was in the house. He came back and said: “Rock, what happened? What did you do that was different. It was perfect.” It never happened again—indeed it has never happened to me on another play. The planets in Albury on that day were in alignment. If only we had filmed it! In her own incomparable fashion, Googie recounted the performance: “The children were wonderful—they didn’t have streamers so they threw their rubbers and pencils onto the stage!” It did not happen—but it should have.

Googie and John’s wedding

Googie with John and Joanna on the occasion of John receiving his CBE

I loved being with John and Googie. We became friends. Both were wonderful company. They told the most marvellous stories—about everyone. John had an encyclopaedic knowledge of Australian theatre. He was a leading man to Gladys Moncrieff in The Maid of The Mountains. His father John McCallum Snr. owned the Cremorne Gardens/Theatre, South Brisbane, on the South Bank near the Victoria Bridge on part of the site where the Queensland Art Gallery now stands. It was a prominent, open-air vaudeville venue with seating for up to 3,000 patrons. It was destroyed by fire in 1954. 

On a visit to Brisbane, John took Googie to see the family home where he had grown-up in Brisbane. There was a painting hanging on the wall. Googie stared in disbelief. “Was that picture always there?” she asked of John. He nodded it was. Googie said, “my blood ran cold. It was the view of the sea from my bedroom window at our house in Dorset. John and I had grown-up staring at the same view.”

John was a much better actor than was sometime realised—or acknowledged. He trained at RADA and unlike so many of his contemporaries he was never declamatory—nor was he a luvvie. He was a fine actor and naturalistic before it became fashionable. Like Googie, he, too, always made it seem as if he were making-up the dialogue as he went along. John was very funny—and it was effortless. He was prepared to do—and wear—whatever it took to make the performance work for the audience. He did not have a nerve in his body. He drove Googie mad. 

When we were doing Stardust at the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne—and they were staying at the Rockman’s Regency Hotel across the road and the cricket was on the television—John would wander in at the 15-minute call (sometimes it was 5-minute call) —by which time Googie would be apoplectic. On one occasion to appease her I said he was in. Unusually, she went to check. “You told me he was in,” she said with a grin. John wore no make-up apart from a bit of eyebrow pencil. Sometimes he would say, “I can’t be bothered changing. They won’t know—I’ll just wear what I have on.” With that he wandered out onto the stage. He was always on the money.

Directly following John’s discharge from the Australian Imperial Force 1944—he fought in New Guinea during World War II—he joined the J.C. Williamson company. He was cast as the final leading man of Gladys Moncrieff in revivals of The Maid of The Mountains, and Rio Rita, 1944-45. Over her career, Moncrieff performed The Maid of the Mountains about 2,800 times and with 18 different leading men—John McCallum was officially the 18th and final one. 

John fondly recalled Moncrieff as “splendidly vulgar, loud, and cheerful” during their time touring together.

John and Googie in The Circle

Googie played Lady Catherine Champion-Cheney and John played her estranged husband, Clive Champion-Cheney in Somerset Maugham’s, The Circle, at Chichester, directed by Peter Dews. Susan Hampshire—later Jenny Quayle took-over—played their daughter, Elizabeth. It was a huge success and transferred to the prestigious Theatre Royal at the Haymarket. It ran for 12-months playing to capacity houses which says something about Googie’s popularity. Her career had been given a new revival after starring in the television series Within These Walls—which became mandatory viewing for some 18-million British television watchers.  Such was it popularity, policemen on point duty stopped the traffic to allow Googie to cross the road! Aged 57 she became a television star.

I remember when Googie sent the telegram accepting the role of Faye Boswell in Within These Walls. I gave her a huge box of Clarins products as a farewell and good luck gift. Not that she needed any good luck.

Googie shot 42 episodes over 3 series. Each episode was rehearsed like a play and then taped in sequence. She did it for two-years. She was at her zenith. Watching her work was a masterclass. Following her departure—“I was exhausted”—the critical and audience reception shifted noticeably. While the series remained a reliable rating success for London Weekend Television, reviewers and viewers felt the show lost some of its initial spark. Critics noted that neither Katharine Blake nor Sarah Lawson quite captured the unique, refined charisma Googie Withers brought to the screen. Her portrayal of the well-groomed, progressively minded Faye Boswell had anchored the series.

Googie went to HM Prison Holloway. She based her character—glamorous as it was—on the prisoner governors whom she met. “I found the governors to be extremely well-groomed.”

Reg Grundy offered her the same role in the Australian television series, Prisoner.It was a polite “thank you, but no thank you.” She had bigger fish to fry in the UK theatre—which was her fist love. The role went to Patsy King whose colouring was not dissimilar. Certainly, they copied her character’s style of dressing.

Bill Fraser played Lord Porteus in The Circle—the man for whom Lady Catherine Champion-Cheney left her husband Clive, and their daughter. Writing for The New Yorker during the West End run, critic Mollie Panter-Downes highlighted his specific physical comedy: “Bill Fraser gives a marvellously funny performance as the grumpy old paramour, Lord Porteous, whose new teeth keep slipping when he is in mid-bark.”

One of Googie’s more famous bon mots involved those false teeth. Googie—on her first galleon-in-full-sail entrance—and looking superb in a red wig—had some stage business which earned her an enormous laugh. Suddenly—and for no reason—the laugh started to come before she did the business. She was baffled. It happened for several performances. Suspecting something might be happening behind her—Googie glanced over her shoulder. Bill Fraser—following lugubriously in her wake—had—and much to the audience’s delight—started taking out his teeth with much comedy business. Googie was furious. They came-off after the scene and she turned to him and said: “Bill, darling, just remember you’re playing a Peer—not on the end of one!” He never did it again.

At the end of the Haymarket seasonThe Circlewent on a provincial tour. Joanna McCallum took over the role of the daughter, Elizabeth. Roger Davenport, later to become Joanna’s husband, also joined the cast.

Googie knew how to find a laugh—it was innate. Her timing was impeccable—and it was constant. Critics frequently noted how she tossed off Maugham’s sophisticated writing with absolute confidence, making the archaic dialogue feel natural, spontaneous, and bitingly funny. Specifically they focused on her supreme technical handling of the text, writing that as the eccentric, fading society dowager: “... Googie Withers throws away her epigrams with the ease and confidence of a master.”

Googie and John did The Circlein Australia in 1982-83. While they created the roles exactly as they had played them in the UK, the production was not an undiluted happy experience—nor did it enjoy the same degree of success. It was an excellent cast: Angela Punch McGregor, John Hamblin, Steven Tandy, Hugh Arnold, May Turner, Gordon Poole, and Gordon McDougall as Lord Porteus.

Googie with Hayley Mills and Ian Ogilvy in The Importance of Being Earnest, Chichester, 1979

To Googie and John, Somerset Maugham was Willy—Willy Maugham. William Douglas Home was another Willy. J.B. Priestley—who wrote They Came to a City for Googie—was Jack. She played in it for two years during the war. Ted Willis wrote the stage play Stardust for Googie and John.

I lived with them in London and Chichester. We ate together; travelled up-and-down the UK—and went to marvellous Sunday luncheons with friends. They knew everyone.

Twice I went with them to lunch with Susan, Lady Pulbrook at Partridge Green. She was the widow of Sir Eustace Pulbrook, the former chairman of Lloyd's of London. She died in 2011 aged 105. Lady Pulbrook and Rosamund Gould met by chance in 1956. Rosamund had trained as a florist under the great Constance Spry, who, also, co-created Coronation Chicken alongside chef Rosemary Hume—principal of the London Cordon Bleu Cookery School—for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation banquet in 1953.

Lady Pulbrook and Rosamund Gould established Pulbrook and Gould florist shop. Around 1956, they moved to premises at 181 Sloane Street, Chelsea. It was “THE” most beautiful shop. The banks of sweet peas were too beautiful. The scent was overpowering.

The house in Partridge Green was quite small and rather sweet. She had a local daily woman who came in to cook. I only remember the pudding. It was apple and rhubarb pie with clotted cream. She insisted I have two helpings. I liked it so much she made sure it was served the second time I came calling for lunch.

Googie loved to eat and she took me to all the best restaurants and hotel dining rooms in London. The Savoy Grill was a favourite. She always got the best table. On being noticed coming into the dining room it was not unusual for other diners to rise from their seats and to applaud. I have seen ladies curtsy to her. 

1740 Pittwater Road, Bayview

View from the back of the house at Bayview

They lived in Bayview in Sydney. Often when we were sitting on the back verandah—gazing out across Pittwater to Scotland Island—Googie would sit in a white cane chair with her crossed legs and resting halfway-up the wall. Having been a gymnast—she was a one-time British champion—she had great flexibility and she found it a comfortable position to sit and talk!

Googie had a three-legged milkmaid’s stool at the house in Bayview. When she was feeling a bit peckish, one of her favourite things was to sit in front of the fridge with the door wide open and eat what ever happened to catch her eye. According to Googie’s father—who told John when he came calling and asking for her hand in marriage—“Googie will make you a wonderful wife but there is something you should know.” John’s heart sank imagining the worst—“he’s going to tell me she can’t have children!”, he thought. It was nothing so dire. “Googie”, her father said to John with no hint of humour, “eats more food than anyone I know.” It was true. In restaurants she could not resist having a taste of whatever someone else was eating. If you left something on the plate—she finished it. “Darling, don’t waste that. Give it to me—I’ll eat it.”

Googie and John led busy social lives and were the most superb hosts. Googie kept a good table and they did throw the most wonderful parties. They had friends from every walk of life. 

Gordon Chater arrived with Gwen Plumb to be greeted at the front door by Googie saying: “Come in, darlings—how wonderful to see you. The house is full of people who love us—but never pay to see us!” 

Googie, John, and Frank Thring did The Kingfisher. On behalf of Malcolm Cooke I suggested the idea to them while we were at Chichester together and they accepted. Frank was the obvious choice for the manservant—they had been friends for so long and Googie and Frank worked together so agreeably at the Melbourne Theatre Company. I am not certain why but Googie and Frank were at odds. She did not enjoy working with him and Frank was equally indifferent; also, he was at a point in his career where he tended to imbibe more than was good for the sharpness of his performance. It was sad to see the talent withering and dying on the vine. John Frawley was Frank’s understudy and I am surprised he was never called to take-over.

John and Googie in The Kingfisher

The detail of Googie and Frank’s falling-out is not important but it did sour their relationship. There was one particularly unpleasant encounter and I am not sure their association ever recovered. At the end of his life, Frank was in dire health and was being difficult to his own detriment. At my behest, Googie phoned to try and encourage him to follow his doctor’s advice. Frank told her to “fuck-off” and hung-up on her. It was the last time, ever, they spoke. It was an unfortunate ending to a long friendship.

John Frost was the stage manager on The Kingfisher. It was his first time working with Googie and John. It proved the start of a most productive journey. John brought them to Australia in what was to be their last stage appearance in this country. “I have been many times to the well,” she said, “and it has been very good to me.” Googie was playing Lady Markby and John was playing the Earl of Caversham in Peter Hall’s production of An Ideal Husband. At the end of their careers Frost co-produced with McCallum, Lady Windermere’s Fan. Googie and John headlined a cast headed by Vanessa Redgrave and her daughter, Joely Richardson, and again directed by Peter Hall.

It played at the prestigious Theatre Royal at the Haymarket—the scene of one of Googie’s greatest London triumphs—The Circle.

It was a fitting end to a glittering career.

To be continued...

Celebrated French entertainer, Maurice Chevalier, interrupting a revival of his American film career, starred in a one man show for a month from 24 February 1960. The Phillip Street Revue, from Sydney’s Phillip Street Theatre, ran just over a month from 21 May, preceding Cyril Ritchard and Cornelia Otis Skinner in The Pleasure of His Company, a comedy by Samuel Taylor and Ms Skinner, which began its nine-week run on 2 July. The year ended with two serious plays: an AETT production of Brendan Behan’s The Hostage and Clifford Odets’ Winter Journey, which starred Googie Withers and ran two months to 25 January 1961. Then came Somerset Maugham’s The Constant Wife, also with Withers, until 29 March.

Program cover for Irma La Douce, 1961

Theatre Heritage Australia

Flyer for The Sentimental Bloke, 1961

National Library of Australia, Canberra

17 June 1961 brought that uncommon Comedy attraction—a musical—Irma La Douce, which had flopped in Sydney but ran here for over four months. This was followed by an even rarer bird—a successful Australian musical: The Sentimental Bloke, with book and score based on C.J. Dennis’s poems by Albert Arlen and his wife, Nancy Brown with Lloyd Thomas, which also ran for over four months from 4 November.

Program cover for The Miracle Worker, 1962

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for Woman in a Dressing Gown, 1962

Theatre Heritage Australia

Highlights of 1962 included an AETT production of The Miracle Worker, British actor Robert Speaight in A Man for All Seasons and—much lighter and more successful—Under the Yum Yum Tree, a comedy which played for over two months from 8 August. 9 November brought back Googie Withers in Ted Willis’s Woman in a Dressing Gown, which ran until 19 December. This was revived for a few weeks from 30 April 1963, following famed French mime, Marcel Marceau, who had been appearing for most of that month.

Program cover for Goodnight Mrs. Puffin, starring Irene Handl, 1963

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for Mary, Mary, starring Derek Farr and Muriel Pavlow, 1963

Theatre Heritage Australia

Who’ll Come A-Waltzing, a local comedy by Peggy Caine, ran six weeks from 22 May 1963, followed by another six weeks for British comic actress Irene Handl in Goodnight Mrs. Puffin, which was also revived late in November. Another fondly remembered English comedienne was Joyce Grenfell who brought her own show here for a few weeks from 29 August, followed by Muriel Pavlow, Derek Farr and Dermot Walsh in the comedy Mary, Maryfor eight weeks from 18 September.

Program cover for John Gielgud in Ages of Man, 1963

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for The First Four Hundred Years, 1963

Theatre Heritage Australia

1963’s most distinguished visitor was Sir John Gielgud, who performed his Shakespearian compendium, Ages of Man, between 9 and 28 December. A completely different but equally celebrated performer was American comedian Jack Benny, who played the Comedy between 16 and 26 March 1964. That year was also the quatro-centenary of Shakespeare’s birth, celebrated here by The First 400 Years—excerpts from the most famous plays starring Googie Withers and Keith Michell for three weeks from 23 April.

Program cover for Flanders and Swann in At the Drop of a Hat, 1964

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for Go Tell It On the Mountain, 1964

Theatre Heritage Australia

A couple of comedies—Never Too Late and Rattle of a Simple Man—the latter with local husband and wife John Meillon and June Salter—then preceded Britain’s Michael Flanders and Donald Swann in their famous revue, At the Drop of a Hat, for a month from 29 August. Go Tell It On the Mountain, an all negro folk-song entertainment, saw out the year and made way for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre from 16 February 1965.

Program cover for Difference of Opinion, starring Robert Flemyng, 1965

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for Barry Humphries’ Excuse I: Another Nice Night’s Entertainment, 1965

Theatre Heritage Australia

British actor Robert Flemyng starred in Difference of Opinion for two months from 25 March 1965, then came Googie Withers and Richard Wordsworth in Beekman Place, followed by the bare breasted Guinean dancers of Les Ballets Africains, and then another Britisher, Robin Bailey, in another drama, A Severed Head. That most original of all Australian entertainers, Barry Humphries, was given his first hometown season at a major theatre in Excuse I, which began a three-week run on 20 September and proved popular enough for a three week revival from 5 February 1966.

Googie Withers in Desire of the Moth, 1966

Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

Terry McDermott & Darlene Johnson in Cactus Flower, 1966

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Other familiar faces in 1966 included Googie Withers, now partnered by Ed Devereaux, in a new local play, Desire of the Moth, from 5 March, and Irene Handl in a comedy-thriller, Busybody, from 16 April. The Melbourne premiere of the musical The Boys from Syracuse began on 8 June, followed by returns of Les Ballets Africains on 3 August and Joyce Grenfell on 31 August. Fresh attractions included the Phillip Street revue, A Cup of Tea, a Bex and a Good Lie Down, doing seven weeks from 20 September and Cactus Flower, an American comedy with a local cast, which closed just over a month after its 19 November opening.

Keith Petersen as Oscar in The Odd Couple, 1966

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Suzanne Steele as Aldonza in Man of La Mancha, 1967

National Library of Australia, Canberra

More successful was Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple, with Keith Petersen and Frederick Parslow, beginning a two-month run on New Year’s Eve. 11 March 1967 brought a much bigger hit with the British musical, Half a Sixpence, starring Scottish actor Mark McManus. This ran four months and was followed by a British comedy, There’s a Girl in My Soup, with expatriate Ron Randell (ten weeks from 14 July) and another musical, Man of La Mancha, with Charles West and Suzanne Steele, whose first four-month run here was later topped in the show’s numerous revivals.

Program cover for Black Comedy, 1968

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for Oh, What a Lovely War, 1968

Theatre Heritage Australia

British comic actor Alfred Marks starred in his London success, Spring and Port Wine, for two months from 10 February 1968. Black Comedy and White Liars, two Peter Shaffer one-acters, made an unexpectedly modernist Comedy attraction for three weeks from 23 May, and from 15 July Barry Humphries was back for a month in Just a Show. Also of note that year was a South African musical, Wait a Minim, which ran seven weeks from 26 September and the British musical satire, Oh, What a Lovely War, in a St Martin’s production that ran 25 nights from 23 November.

Program cover for The Boy Friend, 1969

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for Plaza Suite, 1970

Theatre Heritage Australia

Musicals again predominated in 1969: a revival of The Boy Friend, directed by its author, Sandy Wilson, ran for three months from 15 February, but Your Own Thing, a ‘mod’ musicalisation of Twelfth Night, flopped badly after four weeks from 7 June. More successful was the bawdy British Canterbury Tales, which did ten weeks from 16 August and was revived for a couple of months from 31 December. Prior to this Googie Withers and Alfred Sandor co-starred in Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite, which did seven weeks from 5 November and was also revived for a month from 9 May 1970. Another month-long revival from 1 July 1970 was The Secretary Bird, a comedy with Patrick McNee, which had originally played at the Princess.

Program cover for Sleuth, 1971

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for Jesus Christ Revolution, 1972

Theatre Heritage Australia

22 October 1970 was the advertised opening for Anthony Shaffer’s comic thriller Sleuth, starring Patrick Wymark, a formidable presence in several British TV series. Just 48 hours before this, however, the 44-year-old Wymark died suddenly in his Melbourne hotel suite and the season was cancelled. Entrepreneur Harry M. Miller rushed in a revival of The Boys in the Band to salvage the booking, but it was not until 30 June 1971 that Sleuth had its Melbourne premiere with Stratford Johns, also from British TV, now the star.

Sleuth ran for two months and was followed by another Miller attraction, a British Army drama called Conduct Unbecoming, with English pop singer Mark Wynter, which closed exactly a month after its 9 September opening. Another flop which opened on 8 January 1972 was The Jesus Christ Revolution, a locally-penned religious rock opera. Backed by erratic Sydney entrepreneur Harry Wren, this closed after three weeks, leaving its cast stranded and unpaid.

Program cover for Last of the Red Hot Lovers, starring Harry H. Corbett, 1972

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for The Mating Season, starring Sidney James, 1972

Theatre Heritage Australia

In September 1971 J.C. Williamson had amalgamated with Perth entrepreneur Michael Edgley to form a subsidiary company, Williamson–Edgley Theatres. Their first show at the Comedy was the farce Move Over Mrs Markham, with British stars Honor Blackman and Michael Craig, from 3 March 1972. Harry H. Corbett, another popular British TV, performer, followed them on 6 May in Neil Simon’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers, which also played two months. Googie Withers returned on 12 July in an MTC company with Dennis Olsen, Dinah Shearing and Frank Thring in The Cherry Orchard and An Ideal Husband. But the most popular performer that year was British film and TV comic Sidney James, who had a ten-week run in the farce The Mating Season from 30 September. The new management also installed bars and additional toilets in the theatre during the year.

Program cover for How the Other Half Loves, starring Robert Morley, 1973

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for Suddenly at Home, starring Michael Craig, 1973

Theatre Heritage Australia

Robert Morley, back for just 28 days in Alan Ayckbourn’s How the Other Half Loves, from 15 January, reopened the Comedy in 1973. Other highlights included Sir Michael Redgrave in John Mortimer’s A Voyage Round My Father (six weeks from 14 March) and another ten-week MTC season from 12 September, beginning with Alex Buzo’s Batman’s  Beach Head and ending with Lewis Esson’s 1912 comedy The Time Is Not Yet Ripe. In between came more familiar Comedy fare: The Love Game, a British farce with Bernard Cribbins, and Suddenly At Home, a thriller with Michael Craig.

Program cover for the English National Theatre production of The Front Page, 1974

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover As It’s Played Today, 1974

Theatre Heritage Australia

26 February 1974 brought more of the same with Eric Sykes and Jimmy Edwards in Big, Bad Mouse but an Old Tote Theatre Company production of David Williamson’s What If You Died Tomorrow?was followed by an immaculate English National Theatre production of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s 1928 comedy The Front Page on 14 May. Leslie Phillips in The Man Most Likely To... and a fortnight by Marcel Marceau preceded Barry Humphries in At Least You Can Say You’ve Seen It. This did well during its eight weeks from 21 August and was followed by As It’s Played Today, a contemporary satire written and acted by John McCallum, which did not.

Program cover for The Male of the Species, starring Edward Woodward, 1975

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for Why Not Stay for Breakfast?, starring Derek Nimmo, 1975

Theatre Heritage Australia

Patrick Cargill in the self-explanatory Two and Two Make Sex played eight weeks from 14 February 1975 and on 23 April came Edward Woodward and Michele Dotrice in Alan Owen’s The Male of the Species. Scapino, a farce adapted from Moliere, with Barry Crocker, arrived on 19 June then, after a month’s darkness, came Derek Nimmo on 5 September in Why Not Stay for Breakfast?, another farce which stayed for ten weeks.

Very funny British drag duo Patrick Fyffe and George Logan as Hinge and Bracket became the first night-time attraction of 1976 from 28 April. Hard on their high heels came a fortnight by Luisillo and his Spanish Dancers—their first season here since the early 1960s and their last ever at the Comedy. Eric Dare presented Lindsay Kemp and friends in Flowers, their striking paean to Jean Genet for a month from 18 June. Neil Simon’s Same Time Next Year brought back more conservative audiences for six weeks from 30 July; ditto Susannah York and Barrie Ingham in Private Lives for a month from 15 October. This was to be the last of the old style in-house productions by J.C. Williamson’s at the Comedy, for The Firm, which had been plagued by continual losses throughout the 1970s, now faced drastic reorganisation and reductions.

Program cover for The Two of Us, starring John Thaw and Sheila Hancock, 1977

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for The Pleasure of His Company, starring Douglas Fairbanks Jnr, 1977

Theatre Heritage Australia

Apart from a daytime panto in January, the theatre was left dark until 16 March 1977 when English husband and wife, John Thaw and Sheila Hancock, starred in four Michael Frayn two-handers under the title The Two of Us. ‘J.C. Williamson’s may be dead but the malady that afflicted it apparently lingers on,’ The Age commented, although it was a little kinder to the equally conventional The Pleasure of His Company, whose starry cast included Douglas Fairbanks Jnr, David Langton, Stanley Holloway and Carol Raye. Originally scheduled for two weeks from 25 April, it was extended an extra week when the cast was stranded by an air traffic controllers’ strike, and also returned for a couple of weeks late in November.

Program cover for Side By Side Sondheim, 1977

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for the Chichester Festival Theatre’s productions of Othello / The Apple Cart, 1978

Theatre Heritage Australia

The next attraction, a stage spin-off from British TV, was Doctor in Love, which ran six weeks from 14 June and was most notable as marking English entrepreneur and future owner of the theatre, Paul Dainty’s first association with the Comedy. Mike Stott’s comedy, Funny Peculiar, followed this for seven weeks then, on 1 October, came an Old Tote production of Patrick White’s Big Toys for five weeks. Year’s end brought the musical compilation Side By Side Sondheim, which ran eight weeks from 24 November.

An early highlight of 1978 was the 28 February opening of a company from England’s Chichester Festival Theatre. Headed by Keith Michell and including Roy Dotrice, Nyree Dawn Porter, Nigel Stock and June Jago, they appeared in Othello and The Apple Cart. But the most important event for the Comedy itself was its auction by J.C. Williamson’s on 2 May. An Age report of 22 April noted that the theatre now seated 1008, was valued for rating purposes at over $1 million and that ‘Land tax on the site for a single owner would be about $30 000 a year, but it might be possible for an owner to make $100 000 a year in rent from it if it could be booked almost continually.’ The Comedy was passed in for $800 000 and sold for this sum in June to the Paul Dainty Corporation while Love Thy Neighbour, another Dainty attraction from British TV, was playing.

Program cover for Barry Humphries’ Isn’t He Pathetic At His Age, 1978

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for The Kingfisher, 1978

Theatre Heritage Australia

Barry Humphries’ Isn’t It Pathetic At His Age? proved his most popular yet here with a nine week extended run from 24 July 1978, and from 1 to 25 November Norwegian film actress Liv Ulmann starred in Chekhov’s The Bear and Cocteau’s The Human Voice. Googie Withers and John McCallum returned as a duo for the first time in nearly twenty years in William Douglas Home’s The Kingfisher on 29 November. They enjoyed a run extended to 3 February 1979 but the series of other recent overseas successes with local casts that followed—Dracula, Bedroom Farce, Deathtrap, P.S. Your Cat Is Dead—all failed to equal this.

Program cover for The Day After the Fair starring Deborah Kerr, 1979

Theatre Heritage Australia

Terry McDermott and Sydney Conabere in Flexitime, 1979

Raymond Stanley collection, State Library Victoria, Melbourne

The acclaimed Philippe Genty puppet company from France stayed for three weeks from 7 August 1979, then came Deborah Kerr in The Day After the Fair for six weeks from 11 September, and three weeks of Roger Hall’s Flexitime from 30 November—a few months after its first success at the Alexander Theatre at Monash University.

Program cover for The Old Country starring Robert Morley, 1980

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for Shut Your Eyes and Think of England starring Derek Nimmo, 1980

Theatre Heritage Australia

Robert Morley, making his final Comedy appearance, failed to draw in Alan Bennett’s cerebral drama The Old Country, in February 1980, and the rest of that year showed something of the same patchiness that had afflicted the theatre in its last years under Williamson’s control. There was variety aplenty however: Spike Milligan was here late in April, and Derek Nimmo in the farce Shut Your Eyes and Think of England ran for seven weeks from 10 May. Vincent Price impersonated Oscar Wilde in the compilation Diversions and Delights for a fortnight from 28 July; Robyn Archer revived A Star is Torn for three weeks from 13 August; Jeannie Lewis starred in Pam Gems’ Piaf for seven weeks from 20 September and 10 November brought An Evening with Dave Allen.

Program cover for They’re Playing Our Song starring John Waters and Jacki Weaver, 1981

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for Chicago, 1981

Theatre Heritage Australia

Neil Simon’s musical two-hander They’re Playing Our Song, with John Waters and Jacki Weaver, opened on 9 January 1981 and played until 9 May, giving the Comedy its longest run in years. After this came Robert Coleby in the comedy of quadriplegia. Whose Life Is It Anyway? for six weeks from 13 May, then Warren Mitchell and Gordon Chater in The Dresser for five weeks from 8 July. A Sydney Theatre Company production of the musical Chicago, with Nancye Hayes and Geraldine Turner, scored the second longest run of the year with ten weeks from 5 September, and 23 November brought three weeks of Danny La Rue in Revue.

Program cover for Candide, 1982

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for Steaming, 1982

Theatre Heritage Australia

The Rocky Horror Show, with Daniel Abineri as Rocky and Stuart Wagstaff as Narrator, returned for fifteen weeks from 7 January 1982 and became one of the Comedy’s staple revival attractions over the next few years. Two flops followed, however—One Mo’ Time (‘the great New Orleans musical’) and a musicalised version of Candide. From 9 September the Comedy was screening films for the first time in over forty years, beginning with a revival double bill of The Life of Brian and The Elephant Man. Live theatre returned on 22 November when Nell Dunn’s Steaming was first produced here; although it initially ran only a month it enjoyed three revivals over the next eight years.

Program cover for The Circle, 1983

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for Born Yesterday, starring Jacki Weaver, 1983

Theatre Heritage Australia

Googie Withers and John McCallum in Maugham’s The Circle got 1983 off to a good start with an eight-week run from 18 January but the rest of the year provided very few highlights: Michael Frayn’s comedy Noises Off with Carol Raye, Stuart Wagstaff and Barry Creyton in the cast, began a five-week run on 20 April—and a revival of Born Yesterday with Jacki Weaver also did five weeks from 12 October.

Program cover for The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin, starring Gordon Chater, 1984

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for Children of a Lesser God, starring Elizabeth Quinn and John Waters, 1984

Theatre Heritage Australia

New Year’s Eve brought the Rice–Webber musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which drew until 10 March 1984. Gordon Chater’s brilliant solo performance of The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin was revived for a month from 16 March and two new plays—Mark Medoff’s drama of deafness, Children of a Lesser God, and Donald McDonald’s local comedy, Caravan, were both AETT subsidised attractions in the second half of the year.

Program cover for Stardust, starring Googie Wither and John McCallum, 1985

Theatre Heritage Australia

Program cover for Stepping Out, 1985

Theatre Heritage Australia

A Withers–McCallum vehicle which did less well than usual, although it was specially written for them, was Ted Willis’s Stardust, which managed only five weeks from 3 January 1985. A ‘monster musical’, The Little Shop of Horrors, followed for six weeks from 26 February and on 10 August came another musical, Stepping Out, with Rowena Wallace, Carol Raye, Collette Mann and Nancye Hayes, which did business for eight weeks. British TV comics Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones arrived for a week in Alas the World on 15 November and last up for the year was a short series of concerts by Renee Geyer—another attempt to fill the increasing gaps between more orthodox attractions.

Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs was the first show of 1986, doing six weeks from 1 February. Later came Alan Bleasdale’s vasectomy comedy, Having a Ball…!, also for six weeks from 11 June, and A Coupla White Chicks, with Rowena Wallace and Collette Mann, which ran a month from 13 August.

To be continued

Ready, Set, Go!

It was the Grand Opera Season of 1924 (I had been with JCW for just one year). The cast was headed by Nellie Melba and included quite a galaxy of talent: Toti dal Monte, Dion Borgioli, Apollo Granforte and Lina Scavizzi. It was tremendous fun watching, and trying, without understanding the language, to interpret the arguments, the actions and the antics which were constantly waged between the producer, the chorus master, the prompter, and the musical director. It was a battle which never seemed to end. In the ‘Nile scene’ in Aida with Franco Paolantonio, the chief maestro of the orchestra conducting, there were three notes on the timpani the drummer just could not get right.

To you and me, ‘da-da-da’ just means ‘da-da-da’ and nothing else. To Paul Antonio’s super-sensitive ear, they were either off beat or out of tune—which, I never did discover. After three attempts and three failures to satisfy him, and after holding up the orchestra three times, Paul’s rage and frustration reached the point of explosion. With arms stretched above his head, he broke his baton in halves, tore at his hair, and burst into loud sobs. Astonishment kept everybody silent.

It always came to my mind along with memories of Hamlet ‘It then draws the season—Wherein the spirit held his want to walk’ whenever I crossed the darkened stage of the Princess Theatre. It was necessary to put out all the lights before leaving the paint room, the switch being at the top of the stairs. In total darkness, with a loose board creaking eerily, one watched one’s step, particularly if one had once crashed over a chair in the line of travel. It is quite an experience crossing one hundred feet in total darkness, recalling the ghost of the Princess. During one Grand Opera performance of Faustat Melbourne’s Princess in 1888 Federici (Federick Baker) as Mephistopheles, in a puff of smoke, falls through a trap from the stage to the cellar. Nothing seemed amiss during the performance, everything had gone according to plan, except that when he reached the cellar he was later found to be dead.

Federici (Frederic Baker). From TheAustralasian Sketcher, 22 March 1888.

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Cover of program for the 1924 Grand Opera season at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne

Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

Again about Grand Opera, and now in 1965, the Joan Sutherland Season will always be memorable for the repercussions on my department. There was a terrific amount of unnecessary work and worry which were all the result of inexperience. A very charming girl (Tonina Dorati, daughter of the great Antal Dorati) did the designs for all that season’s operas and although her charm was undeniable, alas, so was her inexperience. The first batch of designs came from London and they were for the first opera to be presented, which was Lucia di Lammermoor. The heads of departments were all called up to the Director’s office and were shown the sketches. As inevitably happens with such drawings, they had not been done to scale. This in itself was a frightful mistake and caused no end of complications.

The sketches showed sets of such gigantic dimensions that I remarked, somewhat sardonically I’m afraid, ‘If the curtain goes up at eight o’clock, the house will come out at two am.’ This sally received only a disdainful look. The design for the ‘mad scene’ was of such huge proportions that it swept from Opposite Prompt (OP) to Prompt Side (PS) and nearly touched the stage’s back wall. Everybody who knew the theatre (Her Majesty’s) and stage agreed that the set-up was completely and utterly impossible. However, some semblance had to be kept to the original in any of the alterations which we made.

The only yardstick for measurement was the recognized height of a step, which was about six or seven inches. Then, by counting the number of steps at these increases, it was possible to arrive at the height of the rostrum where the steps finished. From memory, I think I made this height to be seventeen feet—utterly impossible at the distance at which the back of the set was placed. Only the first rows of stall seats would see any action up there. All these sketches had been passed by the powers that be, so we had to get out of it as tactfully and safely as was possible. It was quite out of the question to use the drawings for construction and after a bit of anxious consultation, we eventually agreed on a ten-foot-high platform. This set, along with the others, was then constructed.

At one rehearsal, the Prima Donna made her entrance onto the platform from the OP side (left from the audience’s point of view). She was singing in full voice—the Mad Scene—and Joan Sutherland was at her truly magnificent best. The cast was standing gaping in amazed admiration. At the balcony, before descending the steps, Sutherland bent her knees and made the long descent in the same attitude. Arriving at the bottom, she waved her hand and asked ‘Can you see me at the back of the stalls?’

Each scene was rehearsed for setting and striking. Then the day arrived for a full rehearsal of all scenes and with the entire company. After cutting down the wall surrounding the platform of the first scene three times, both it and the platform were scrapped. The platform in the second scene was also thrown out—there simply was not time to set and strike it. Following that, one whole scene was thrown onto the scrap heap. Two thousand pounds worth of work and material careered merrily down the drain.

Covent Garden, 1959—Joan Sutherland’s first performance of Lucia di Lammermoor

 

19th century design by Hawes Craven for Faust

Miles Kenyon collection

There was the incident concerning a designer, with an extremely lofty and quite unjustified idea of his own importance, being especially imported from England to do an opera. He came with his sketches prepared and announced importantly to the quite mystified carpenters that his style was ‘free’! In spite of this blithe explanation, they continued to regard his drawings of bent columns and falling-over walls—doubtfully. He would come up to the paint room, pick up his sketch and insist that every brush stroke and variation of colour be faithfully copied. Incidentally, while he was in the paint room one night, putting some artistic touches to a cloak which needed to look old and rain-sodden, he had practically flooded the floor. I’m afraid I told him a few home truths.

It was inevitable that a man of his tyrannical type would wait his opportunity to catch me out. One day he decided that the time was right for getting his own back. Joyfully, he picked out a blob in the corner of a design, saying triumphantly, ‘This very nice piece of variation has been left out. Why?’ His triumph was short-lived. I explained to him very happily that that particular piece of decoration was simply a smear of colour we had put on ourselves when matching the hue. One hoped that his ego was at least a little dinted.

Wildflower (1924),Acts 1 & 3 set. JCW Scene Books, Book 07-0016, Theatre Heritage Australia.

We were taught never to try and get self-publicity by the design of our sets. If the sets are meant to produce atmosphere, they should take their place, do their job perfectly, and be forgotten. If they are so blatant that the audience is attracted to them, they are not serving their purpose. But sometimes the show opens with an empty scene, and it is then the scenic artist may let himself go, and maybe receive a round of applause. The opening scene of Wildflower(1924) with Marie Burke reproduced a village square at the foot of a range of mountains. As the lamplighter makes his rounds, putting out the lamps, the sun is rising. The effect achieved by Mr. Coleman was really spectacular. As the sun rose it hit the top of a mountain, then slowly illuminated the whole side of it, the lighting slowly fading in on the scene at the same time until the sun was fully up and the scene fully lit. Of course, in those days the scenic artist lit his scenery—today there are lighting experts who use, I think, dozens of spots in a less effective way than that of the old floods and light battens. Also, there is too much building of architraves, cornice moulds, etc. There are very few designers who have had paint room experience and served a theatre apprenticeship. The audience is of course aware that the background is only painted canvas on a wooden frame and accept it as such. This supposes always that the painting of the scenery is up to a standard. In my experience, not one person in a thousand cares two hoots about art in the theatre—they want entertainment, good acting and good music. (Editor’s note: I hate to think this is still true to this day!)

JCW staff, c.1920—including Coleman father and son, and George Upward

Miles Kenyon collection

Googie Withers and John McCallum

Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

One of the best sets I ever painted was the result of a disagreement between a team consisting of a husband and wife. The husband, John McCallum, was the producer, and he talked to me about the set for the show, its locale Scotland. It was decided that the timber interior should be painted a honey colour to represent Scotch Fir. This was done, and a lot of careful, very nice work went into the painting. When the scenery was set up on stage, the following dialogue took place:

Googie Withers: It should be grey.

John McCallum: But it’s a Scotch interior of pine wood.

GW: (Very decidedly) It should be grey.

JMcC: But it’s such a lovely set.

GW: (More decidedly) It should be grey.

JMcC: (Resignedly) Okay. But it will have to be repainted.

So it was repainted although there was scarcely any time to have it back on the frame, as it was wanted for rehearsal. So, I had it laid out flat on the trestles, one piece at a time. We mixed a bucket of grey glazed colour and hurriedly slopped it over the flats. Before they were dry, they were taken off the trestles and stood up. The colour settled in puddles in some places, then it ran off here and there, occasionally missing some areas. By accident and without design, the set was wonderful. If we had spent weeks on the painting, the result would never have been half so effective.  Such lucky accidents do sometimes happen.

Oscar Asche, actor, producer and more. Photographer unknown. From a postcard by J. Beagles & Co., London.

Elisabeth Kumm collection

George A. Highland, 1925. Cartoon by Tom Glover.

National Portrait Gallery, Canberra

Perhaps the most outstanding, and the best of all the producers, was Oscar Asche (1871-1936). As well as being a superb actor and producer, he was a master of lighting. He disliked giving what he considered to be ‘unnecessary explanations’. For example, he would say to an electrician, ‘Put a row of lamps up here on the fly rails, and don’t ask me if I need any on the other side. The sun only shines one way.’

He was a big man in every way. His completely authentic thoroughness in production was evidenced at its best in The Skin Game (1925). In this play the script called for him to be drowned in a canal. The dour North Country man was drowned, and he stayed drowned—he never took a curtain call at the end of the show. This piece of realism added considerably to the play’s impact on the audience. He produced Chu Chin Chow (early 1920s) magnificently. Then there was Cairo (1922) and Julius Caesar (also 1920s) in which he was an unforgettable Marc Antony. Julius Caesar was presented in black drapery. I remember him coming up to the paint room to consult Mr. Coleman about the black velvet for the surround and he was shown three or four samples of velvet. Then he enquired, ‘Which is the most expensive?’ He was told and he said, ‘Well, that’s the one I want.’ He was indeed a perfectionist.

Gladys Moncrieff, centre, and full cast onstage in A Southern Maid, 1924. Photo by Talma, Melbourne. National Library of Australia, Canberra.

When he produced Southern Maid (1923) starring Gladys Moncrieff the rehearsal was not up to his standard of perfection. It was a rehearsal of the orange-groves scene and had been painted by Coleman. Oscar Asche ordered all the cast into the stalls and when he had them all there, he pronounced, ‘Take a look at that scene. Now, go back and act up to it.’ He never asked—he ordered. He was even known to use his not-inconsiderable weight to emphasize his meaning. He stood no nonsense from anyone.

Another producer who was a character in his own right was George A. Highland (1870-1954). He was another man who really knew his job, and how to get the best out of everyone. He himself was an arrant exhibitionist and invariably on a first night when he took his curtain call, he would partially undress and appear in a state of collapse. Though on one occasion his roughed-up appearance for his curtain call had been acquired the hard way. There was a platform which moved up and down the stage, pulled by a wire. In his haste to take his call, George forgot about the wire and tripped, falling headlong onto the stage. The boys rushed to pick him up and help him to take his call, but he was very shaken and had no need to simulate distress that night.

The stage staff who see all the shows, watching with the closest attention a tremendous variety of performers and performances, get a real education in the theatre, and they are never at a loss for an answer. Their repartee is usually terse and very much to the point. They develop over the years a very particular sense of humour, typical of and peculiar to, the stage. With a sprinkling of profanity, their descriptions are usually both trenchant and apt—they pounce on the funny side of any development and are always quick to turn any situation into a joke.

The Russian Osipov Balalaika Orchestra was rehearsing on stage for the first time (1937) and I stayed to listen for a few minutes. Going back to the paint room I was followed by one of the stage staff. He asked if I had heard the Russians playing, and was I there at the end of the number which happened to be the finale of the show...? I told him I had come away before the end. He grinned, then said that they had begun very softly, making only a faint sound and then worked up to a great crashing crescendo, only to stop abruptly. The conductor cut them off suddenly with a lightning fall of his baton. Then he turned around dramatically to the audience and roared ‘Ooos-a pop!’ A small voice from the back squeaked ‘I am.’ This bit of typical humour was apparently conceived on the spot.

An imported producer was rehearsing a show which contained a children’s ballet within its production. The kids had jacked up for some reason only known to themselves and were making no progress whatever. They seemed too dumb-struck and listless to try and get anything right. The producer made them go over and over the same thing with no appreciable results and, driven desperate by their non-co-operation, he made them an offer of two shillings each if they only got somewhere near the effect he wanted. He said, ‘Now let’s try it again.’ This time it was nearly perfect. The producer was heard to mutter, ‘I’ve come 12,000 miles to be taken in by a lot of bloody Australian kids...’

One very satisfactory painting job (in films) was the reproduction of an all-black marble hotel foyer—the St. Francis—in, I think, Los Angeles. On a sheet of glass, with various tones, from black to white, of plaster, we turned out slabs of very creditable and credible imitation marble. Pouring on the black, cracking the glass, we then poured on the grey and white mixtures. Viewing the job by a mirror under the sheet of glass, we were able to control the effect. The large round columns were more difficult, but we made them on a form quite successfully. Whilst on technique, practically anything from brick walls to palm trees can be replicated using plaster moulds, made from casts of the job.

The Lady of the Rose, Act 1 set

JCW Scene Books, Book 01-0050, Theatre Heritage Australia

The Lady of the Rose, Act 2 & 3 set

JCW Scene Books, Book 01-0050, Theatre Heritage Australia

As an example of the futility of building features of interiors I give the opening scene of Lady of the Rose (1925) as a classic. This set was completely fabricated by Wunderlich in pressed metal. All the columns’ bases and caps, cornices, friezes and architraves were in this pressed metal and it was an utter failure as the lighting flattened it all. Mr. Coleman gave me the job of climbing all over the set, painting in the darks and the highlights, on this reproduction of the entrance to the Royal Academy in London’s Burlington Arcade. This meant I had to paint between the acanthus leaves and volutes of the capitals, the ornamentation of the friezes and the flutes of the columns. Then I had to add the highlights for the lot—it involved my going up and down a ladder all day long, until the work was finished. This building of separate parts in set construction never works out successfully, because always, and I emphasize always, it becomes necessary to paint in the darks and lights afterwards. If this is not done, it all appears to be completely flat. Painted moulding is unquestionably the best way for stage presentation.

From my workroom I had a clear view of the hiring department, when I once spied someone handling a lion’s head—which brings me in on cue. One of the important people I had with me in the Production Studio was a man called Max Krumbach. He was the modeller and plaster expert, and a complete master of his job. He could extricate a plaster mould from a cast, nearly as thin as cardboard. His father was a sculptor mason, and Max related to me the following story. Incidentally, I later had the opportunity to verify every word he uttered. His father and another man were the sculptors who modelled the lion’s heads which adorn the base corners on each side of the Sydney Town Hall. The foreman builder on the job was an irascible old Scot and when he was making his rounds it was his habit to contort his face into a leering mask of disapproval as he observed the progress. 

Eventually the building was completed and ready for the opening ceremony. The last job was of course the cleaning up. At the end of the building, against the last corner, had been stacked a huge heap of timber. This was the last thing to be removed and when the workmen pulling the leaning boards away, there was the lion’s head. No-one seeing it could doubt that it was a clever caricature—there was the characteristic leer and grimace of the old Scot, carved into the lion’s visage.

The same Max Krumbach had modelled a huge whale for one of the floats in Sydney’s Sesquicentenary Celebrations. He had finished the wire netting and the plaster-work on the whale, and it was ready for painting. The man whom I deputized to paint the job was a rather bumptious type who had managed to get under Krumbach’s skin. Every time this chap attempted to commence painting, a stentorian voice would boom out ‘Keep off that bloody whale!’ In the interests of peace and progress, I had to replace this painter with someone more acceptable to Krumbach, the master.

Setting for Roar Like a Dove

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Set for a G&S opera—an example of the complexity of painting and modelling involved

Miles Kenyon collection

To be continued