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The script held in the Crawford Collection at the AFI Research Collection contains neither character notes nor synopsis.
Notes
This entry has been compiled from archival research in the Crawford Collection (AFI Research Collection), undertaken by Dr Catriona Mills under the auspices of the 2012 AFI Research Collection (AFIRC) Research Fellowship: see The Writer in Australian Television History.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
1975.
Script cover page (from the Crawford Collection at the AFI Research Collection)
SoloOneEp1Cover_FXRN.jpg
Extent:29p. (Manuscript)assertion
Note/s:
The Crawford Collection holds three copies of this script, all labelled 'Code: 01514'.
Copy 1 is on white paper. The program logo has been printed separately on cardboard and pasted to the front page of the script. The script’s cover page shows no sign of to whom this copy of the script was designated. The script is modified throughout with liquid paper, but the errors are at a copy-editing level, rather than comprehensive changes to dialogue or stage directions.
Copy 2 is copied on blue paper. 'Phillip' has been written in blue ink in the top right-hand corner of the cover page. The script shows some minor annotations in black felt pen, limited to underlining of key phrases. The focus appears to be on props: the phrases underlined on page 1, for example, are 'old screwdriver', 'a couple of sheep nibbling grass', and 'the sugar Hogan holds'. These annotations continue throughout the script. There are no signs of other kinds of annotations. (Note: The script for episode thirteen contains similar but more detailed annotations.)
Copy 3 is also copied on blue paper. There is no sign of to whom this copy of the script is designated.
This copy is annotated throughout in red ink and blue ink. The red ink annotation is the handwritten addition of Paul Cronin’s voice over for the beginning of the episode, written on page one of the script. The blue ink annotations are alterations to the dialogue. There is a fairly heavy degree of annotation throughout the script. These alterations have not been put into place on copy 2, so these two copies of the script are either contemporaneous, or copy 3 postdates copy 2.
The file also contains the following ancillary materials:
1. Cast list: a type-written cast list, with no confidential information. 2. A 9pp. copy of the script stripped to nothing but dialogue, copied on white paper. This script incorporates the alterations to dialogue made in copy 3 above.
A spin-off from Crawford Productions' Matlock Police, Solo One transferred motorcycle officer Gary Hogan from the fictional town of Matlock to the real town of Emerald in the Dandenong Ranges, where the program was filmed on location.
The program, an attempt to capitalise on Gary Hogan's popularity with child viewers of Matlock Police and less adult in focus than its predecessor, wasn't renewed for a second season, after Cronin moved on to Crawford's war-time drama, The Sullivans. Don Storey, in his Classic Australian Television, notes that the program 'was very successful and received much critical acclaim', but Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series, counters that 'Cronin, though lovable both to Crawford's and the Victorian Police, who were advisors on the series, was far too long in the tooth to be playing this kind of role'.
