Cirrus@Austlit

In response to the success of Lola Montez, Peter Stannard, Alan Burke, and Peter Benjamin were commissioned by ATN-7 and Shell to write a family-orientated musical for television. That production, Pardon Miss Westcott, was performed and broadcast live around Australia a few weeks before Christmas in 1959. Starring Wendy Blacklock and Michael Cole, it was orchestrated by ATN-7's musical director, Tommy Tycho, along with Julian Lee.

The musical begins in Sydney in 1809, just after Governor Bligh's departure and before Governor Macquarie's arrival, and tells the story of Elizabeth Westcott, a convict transported for serving a pompous magistrate at her father's inn in England his own lamb. She is assigned to work at Government House and quickly rules the roost. When she is granted a ticket of leave, Miss Westcott opens an inn in Pitt Street, with the help of an assortment of saints and sinners. A serving army officer, Richard, who was also on board the convict ship, is captivated by her and eventually overcomes the social gap between them by getting himself into trouble. All ends well.

A woman searches for her missing son, who may have been taken by her husband.

Two people recently released from gaol inadvertently become involved in a baby-kidnapping.

In Melbourne, a costing clerk spends his last day at work before his retirement.

'Set in a suburb of Melbourne, the play concerns a young Greek boy and an Australian girl who plan to marry. However, the boy's mother, adhering to tradition, arranges a marriage between her son and a Greek girl, who is coming to Australia from Greece.'

Source:

[Television guide], The Age, 21 January 1960, p.16.

A man's removal of his wife's housekeeping money from its blue vase causes conflict in both his marriage and his extended family.