Described in radio broadcast listings as both a 'melodious trifle,' and 'a musical play,' The Duchess was Furious, was first produced in early 1936 by the Australian Broadcasting Commission's (ABC) Revue Company. Sydney periodical, The Land, provides insight into the storyline and setting:
The chief recreation of the "deah [sic] Duchess" was putting the 'common people' in their place, and when she went to the French Riviera with her young" and pretty daughter, the Lady Vera Manners, she promised herself an orgy of snubbing and rebuking of all mere mortals except those in whose arteries ran the ultra marine fluid. But the poor Dowager had a distressing brainstorm when she discovered that Lady Vera had fallen madly in love with a stranger she met on the train, who later turns out to be the jazz-band conductor at the very hotel where the Duchess has booked accommodation for Lady Vera and herself. 'What a too, too ghastly muddle!' groans the Duchess, reaching for the aspirins and her smelling salts. So runs the story of "The Duchess was Furious," to be produced over 2FC on Saturday night, February 1' ('The Duchess was Furious,' p.15).
