form y separately published work icon Send-off for Grannie single work   radio play   - One act
Alternative title: Sending Granny Off : A Radio Play
Issue Details: First known date: 1937... 1937 Send-off for Grannie
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Described in the Maitland Daily Mercury as 'a whimsical comedy of farm life' ('Radio Drama Week,' p.8), Simpson 'introduces a fine character in Grannie, a vigorous old matriarch, ruling a large and sprawling country family with an unbending authority' ('Australian Radio Drama Week,' p.6).

Notes

  • Broadcast in 1937 (under the title Send-off for Granny) as part of the Australian Broadcasting Commission's Australian Radio Drama Week.
  • The 1937 Hobart and Perth productions, although broadcast on the same day, were independently produced and performed.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Alternative title: Sending Grannie Off : A Radio Play
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Best Australian One-Act Plays William Moore , T. Inglis Moore , Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1937 Z304865 1937 anthology drama Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1937 pg. 231-252
      1937 .
      Extent: 16 leavesp.
      (Manuscript) assertion
      Note/s:
      • Typescript (photocopy).

      Holdings

      Held at: University of Queensland University of Queensland Library Fryer Library
      Local Id: H1627
    • Hobart, Southeast Tasmania, Tasmania,: Australian Broadcasting Commission , 1937 .
      Note/s:
      • Broadcast on relay throughout Australia from radio station 7ZL on 20 April. The play was presented by the Hobart Repertory Society and produced by James Pratt.
      Series: form y separately published work icon Radio Drama Week [1937] Australian Radio Drama Week Australian Broadcasting Commission (publisher), Australia : Australian Broadcasting Commission , 1937 9744955 1937 series - publisher radio play

      'Australian listeners will be forcibly reminded of the fact that Australian writers can write radio plays. The Australian Broadcasting Commission [ABC] is staging and Radio Drama' Week, on every night of which, a play written by an Australian' author will be produced at one of the studios and relayed to the other States. Each of the Eastern States will take its turn to provide the performance' ('Radio-Drama Week,' p.3).

      The plays, place of performance (Eastern States) and broadcast order were:

      1. Eureka Stockade (Barclay) Sydney, 2FC; 19 April.

      2. Sending Granny Off (Simpson) Hobart, 7ZL; 20 April

      3. Hester Siding (Turner) Sydney, 2FC; 21 April

      4. The Black Horse (Palmer) Sydney, 2FC; 22 April

      5. The Mingled Yarn (Barclay) Brisbane, 4QG; 23 April

      6. The Footsteps After (Porter) Melbourne, 3LO; 24 April

      7. The 25th of April (Hill) Melbourne, 3LO; 25 April


      'In selecting the plays,' writes L. C. Rees, the ABC's Federal Play Editor, 'It was preferable that they should be essentially Australian. By that, I do not mean a self-conscious insistence on backgrounds in which koalas, boomerangs, billabongs, sheoaks, drovers, cricketers, gins, waratahs, surf beaches, scrubber cows, and big timber are prominent. Such atmospherics do not make a play Australian. What we rather looked for was a work which seemed to be written sincerely, eloquently, and basically out of a personal experience of Australian conditions, a play which might in its material be similar to any number of oversea plays (since the material of life is much the same everywhere), but which in Its method, temper, and outlook stood on its own legs, was free from derivation, either conscious or unconscious. A hard thing about which to lay down the law, but you know it when you see it' ('Australian Radio Drama Week,' p.6).

      In its 'Radio Drama Week' article, Brisbane's Telegraph noted that the ABC was not suggesting that 'all of these plays [were] masterpieces but, with the exception of Vance Palmer's adaptation, all of the stories to be presented show the growing power of Australian writers in original work' (p.3). The Sunday Mail also suggested:

      While it is little use pretending that there are as many listeners to radio plays as there are to the musical forms of broadcast entertainment, Radio Drama Week should do much to swell the growing body of listeners to whom the broadcasting of plays and dramatic sketches stand out among other programme items as important and notable ('News About Radio,' p. 28).

Last amended 5 Apr 2019 08:50:22
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