Cirrus@Austlit

'West Australian authorship Will be represented by Alexander Turner's Conglomerate, a dramatic descriptive story of life on the hard, hot, dusty West Australian goldfield. The commonplace and the picturesque are merged In an arresting pattern. Turner writes of what he knows. 'Gold, beer, heat, wool,machinery, corrugated iron, stones, mail trucks - there's your background tor Murchison' (Leslie Rees, 'We Shall Have Drama : Introducing Radio Drama Week,' p.6).

'It is a fantastic story of the history of the universe stretching back a million years or so before the earth and its sister planets were formed, and moving on millions of years into the future, to the time when the earth ends its existence' ('National Broadcast Features', Huon and Derwent Times, 5 May 1938, p.2).

Characters

SIMON MARTEL

CAROLINE MARTEL

JEANNE MARTEL

FRANCIS GILLAN

MRS. CARMICHAEL

PHOEBE MOON

RUFUS BELLAMY

CAPTAIN NORTH

CAPTAIN BLAINEY

LIEUTENANT PRIDEAUX

MRS. MOSS

LAURA MOSS

MRS. TURNER

SARAH TURNER

LUCY TURNER

ELLEN

BEAM

MRS. BEAM

Stiven's narrative explores the biblical story of 'Samson the Israelite, whose strength 'was as the strength of 100', until the Phillistines cut off his hair, and later put out his eyes.... The drama mounts from point to point until it comes the final climax of Samson's pulling down of the great feasting house on the heads of the mocking philistines' ('Samson.' Huon and Derwent Times 5 May 1938, p.2).

'The story treats of Peter Lacklove's pilgrim search for a talisman at whose touch men become, as gods. The period of the serial is the end of the Middle Ages and historical characters who enter into this particular, episode Include Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, La Giaconda and Cesare Borgia' (Leslie Rees. 'We Shall Have Drama', p. 6).

The Huon and Derwent Times (Tasmania) provides additional insight into the play:

Lacklove, whose hopes for the formation of an Italian Utopia appeared almost to have been granted at one stage, receives a sudden check in his negotiations with My Lord Sesare Borgia, Duke of Romagna, who has been endeavoung to absorb the Republican city of Florence. Because of the machinations of a vindictive woman, Peter's ideals are crushed but, undaunted, he journeys to Venice in furtherance of his quest for the fabled philosopher's stone' ('National Broadcast Features: A True Pilgrim,' p. 2).

'In A Sirius Cove, Lionel Shave satirises In a frolicsome way contemporary Bellevue Hill society. The comedy also pokes fun at those who attempt to deny the early Australian convict background' (Leslie Rees. 'We Shall Have Drama', p. 6).

The play is a. comedy of social life in the setting of a Bellevue Hill (Sydney) mansion, and involves a contest between a mother's ambitions and a daughter's desires. In the end a first fleet ancestor plays a useful part in the daughter's behalf ('Three Dramatic Sessions.' Daily Examiner, Grafton, 7 May 1938, p. 8).

'The play takes us back to the trenches of 1914-18 and the object Is to Illustrate ironically the reactions of four members of an 18-pounder gun detachment when a French mademoiselle, who ls Introduced Into their shell-broken billet, turns out to be not quite the person they think she is' (Leslie Rees. 'We Shall Have Drama', p. 6).