A Private Island
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| A Private Island | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Chris Gardner |
| Directed by | Henri Safran |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Running time | 60 mins |
| Production company | ABC |
| Original release | |
| Network | ABC |
| Release | 9 December 1964 (Sydney)[1] |
| Release | 30 December 1964 (Melbourne)[2] |
A Private Island is a 1964 Australian television play. It was written by Brisbane author Chris Gardner (real name Marjorie Gardner) and was directed by Henri Safran.[3][4][5]
Set in Sydney, Ben Clayburn is a real estate agent whose two children are grown up and settled. Ben decides to buy an island off the coast of Queensland and live there with his wife. His son Don has other ideas. His daughter wants to go to work to support her artist husband.[6]
Cast
- John Gray as Ben Clayburn
- Marion Johns as Viv
- Brian Young as Don Clayburn
- Lola Brooks as Jean
- Alexander Can
- Patricia Hill
- Roberta Hunt
- Guy Le Claire as Mark
Production
The show was shot in Sydney.[7] Marion Jones, who played the wife, had recently appeared in A Season in Hell for Safran. It was writer Chris Garner's third TV play after Dark Under the Sun and The House of Mancello.[8]
Reception
The Canberra Times said the play "was bogged down with a dull pedestrian script. The basic idea had possibilities but the writer needs to learn about his craft, especially the art of creating characters through the dialogue. The actors were uninteresting."[9]
The Sydney Morning Herald said "For stupefying banality of idea and sentiment it would have been hard to surpass Chris Gardner's homiletic Private Island", saying "the remorseless predictability of the play's action and dialogue must have ended even the most sympathetic viewer's attempt to accept it as other than a moralistic charade."[7]
