"The Prowler" is the fourth
television play
A television play is a television programming genre which is a drama performance broadcast from a multi-camera television studio, usually live in the early days of television but later recorded to tape. This is in contrast to a television movi ...
episode of the first season of the Australian anthology television series ''
Australian Playhouse
''Australian Playhouse'' was an Australian anthology TV series featuring the work of Australian writers.
It ran for two series consisting of 40 episodes. Among the featured productions were works by Pat Flower who was the main writer havi ...
''. "The Prowler" was written by
Pat Flower
Patricia Mary Byson Flower (23 February 1914 – 2 September 1977) was an English Australian writer of plays, television plays and novels.
Biography
She was born in Ramsgate, Kent, England and moved to Australia with her family in 1928. She or ...
and directed by
Alan Burke
Alan S. Burke (September 15, 1922 – August 25, 1992) was an American conservative television and radio talk show host who was on the air primarily in New York City from 1966 to 1969 on WNEW-TV.
Life
He was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1922 ...
and originally aired on
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
on 9 May 1966.
Plot
A man, tired of hearing about his wife's dead first husband, decides to resurrect the man when rumours about a prowler begin to circulate.
Cast
*
Gwen Plumb
Gwendoline Jean Plumb AM BEM (2 August 1912 – 5 June 2002), was an Australian performer of international appeal, actress and comedian active in literally every form of the art genre, (except circus) including revue, pantomime, vaudeville, in ...
as Elsie Hopewell
*
Stewart Ginn
Stewart Ginn (born 2 June 1949) is an Australian professional golfer.
Early life
Ginn was born in Melbourne. He grew up behind the twelfth green of the Royal Melbourne Golf Club. Early in his life "he used to caddy at Royal Melbourne." He th ...
as her husband Fred
* Judith Champ as Jean Thurston
* Roger Box as Morgan Thurston
* Anthony Thurbon as detective
Reception
''
The Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...
'' critic called it "negligible and easily puffed up to pass half an hour at a fairly slow pace; but it was quite entertainingly watchable thanks to Miss Flower's clever way with turns of phrase true to suburban bickering" and some "beautifully relaxed and subtle comedy-acting of Stewart Ginn and Gwen Plumb."
The Sunday ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' critic, who thought Flower's "The Tape Recorder" was "brilliant" called "The Prowler" "a miss".
''
The Age
''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...
'' said "the play was well acted and well produced; but it did not add up to anything. It felt as though I had been reading a novel and skipping page after page just to get to the story only to find that it had not been worth the trouble."
See also
*
References
External links
*
*
*
1966 television plays
1966 Australian television episodes
1960s Australian television plays
Australian Playhouse (season 1) episodes
{{tv-episode-stub