Emergency (1959 Australian TV series)

Emergency is an Australian television series produced by Nine Network Melbourne station GTV-9 in 1959.

This article is about the 1959 Australian drama television series. For the 2020 Australian factual television series, see Emergency (2020 Australian TV series).

Emergency
GenreDrama
Directed byDenzil Howson
StarringBrian James
Syd Conabere
Judith Godden
Natalie Raine
Country of originAustralia
Original language(s)English
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes16
Production
Executive producer(s)Roland Strong
Production location(s)Melbourne, Victoria
Running time24–26 minutes
Production company(s)GTV-9
Release
Original networkNine Network
Picture formatBlack & White
Audio formatMono
Original release16 February –
1 June 1959

Synopsis

The series was set in the busy casualty department of a major fictional Melbourne hospital, and is notable for being one of the first-ever dramas shown on Australian television.[1]

Cast

Australian TV drama was relatively rare at the time.[2] Made by Melbourne's GTV-9 in co-operation with the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and based on Britain's Emergency Ward 10, Emergency starred Brian James as Dr. Geoffrey Thompson, Syd Conabere as orderly George Rogers, and Judith Godden as Nurse Jill Adamson. Moira Carleton also featured as Matron Evans.

Production

The series was produced primarily in the GTV-9 studio, with brief (usually pre-credit) exterior sequences shot on 35mm film by newsreel cameramen. The episodes were not broadcast live, but were kinescoped to meet programming requirements, and facilitate later screening in Sydney.

The series' premise was simple: a basic dramatic exploration of cases passing through the Casualty ward. Scripts were written by GTV staffers Roland Strong (series producer) and Denzil Howson (series director) under pseudonyms.

Sponsorship came from British Petroleum, and a contract was signed for 52 half-hour episodes. The series debuted on GTV-9 on 16 February 1959, and on Sydney's ATN-7 a week later. Critics initially appeared fairly neutral, however a highly negative article on the series in a Sydney newspaper caused BP to withdraw sponsorship 16 weeks into the series run. Faced with having to carry the production expenses alone, GTV-9 discontinued production, with the final episode airing in Melbourne on 1 June 1959.

Patricia Kennedy called it "exhausting but exciting."[3]

Reception

The Australian Women's Weekly called it "shudderingly bad."[4]

Cast roles after series

Following the series demise, the actors went onto other roles Brian James went on to lead roles in the ABC serial Stormy Petrel in 1960, and ATN-7's period drama Jonah in 1962, later appearing as George Tippit in the drama serial "Skyways" (1979–81), before becoming best known for his trole in cult series Prisoner

Moira Carleton appeared in guest roles in most of the Australian TV dramas on the 1960s and 1970s, with a permanent role as Olive Turner on Bellbird, whilst Syd Conabere starred in serial Sons and Daughters.

gollark: If stuff comes up in the wrong order it breaks horribly, but it somehow always avoids doing that.
gollark: I have a custom 500-line Python script which works as a webserver, HTTP client for 5 different things, and an IRC bot simultaneously.
gollark: Even the dynamic DNS thing, which just `curl`s every 5 minutes to a specific URL, broke for a few hours until I fixed it by... restarting it? And I have no idea why.
gollark: None of my setup is simple or unambigious.
gollark: I had issues porting my v1 config to the v2 caddyfile because the syntax was kind of ambiguous, and I posted on the forum and got a response eventually and stuff, but then it had annoyed me enough that I just renginced.

References
  1. Albert Moran, Moran's Guide to Australian TV Series, AFTRS 1993 p 160-161
  2. Vagg, Stephen (18 February 2019). "60 Australian TV Plays of the 1950s & '60s". Filmink.
  3. "Actresses Turn to Television Work". The Age. 21 February 1959. p. 7.
  4. ""JONAH" MAY BE A WINNER". The Australian Women's Weekly. 30, (20). Australia, Australia. 17 October 1962. p. 15. Retrieved 16 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)

See also


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