Stormy Was the Weather
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| Genre | drama play |
|---|---|
| Running time | 70 mins[1] (7:30 pm – 8:40 pm) |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Language(s) | English |
| Written by | Ruth Park |
| Directed by | Frank Harvey |
| Recording studio | Sydney |
| Original release | January 26, 1948[2] |
Stormy Was the Weather is a 1948 Australian radio play by Ruth Park about James Cook and his voyage to Botany Bay. It was produced again in 1953.[3] The latter was part of the ABC's 21st birthday celebrations.[4]
It was part of a series of historical radio plays by Park set at sea in Australia's past, the others including I'll Meet You in Botany Bay, Early in the Morning and Far from the Land. Leslie Rees later called them:
Eloquent and fine-tempered dossier of studies bearing on our past. They combine the presentation of factual incidents with a keen imaginative perception of character under stress, an ironical feeling for the tears and anguish and disillusionment of persons born to a place in history, an appreciation of pioneering courage balanced by a sense of the failure of life to fulfil its ultimate expectations. These plays have the salt tang of the sea, the roll and pitch of wooden ships breasting through uncharted waters, as well as vivid personal emotions.[5]
Reviewing the original 1948 production The Age said it "told a most interesting story.It pictured Cook as a rather dourman, whose life was his work. Certain sentimental scenes were thrown In by way of contrast, and, to coun ter the dourness... Rather too much was made of Sutherland's death at Botany Bay. Authors seem to love a death scene better than anything."[6]
The Sydney Daily Telegraph called it "an endurance test... it is hard to guess why most actors who are quite competent in fictitious roles, should suddenly start to talk like officiating bishops when they are called upon to assume the character of a national hero."[7]
Reviewing the 1953 production the Adelaide Advertiser said the piece "rightly belonged to the Schools' Broadcast Department or Features, but not to Radio Repertory... Captain Cook was played as a cross between Horatio Hornblower, Lord Nelson and Gregory Peck... I was not enthralled."[8]
However the Adelaide Mail thought there "was a fine simplicity about it, a lack of histrionics that made the play magnificently real... the subject was handled as well as it could have been."[9]
