The Mavis Bramston Show

''The Mavis Bramston Show'' was a weekly Australian television satirical sketch comedy revue series which aired on the Seven Network from 1964 to 1968. Inspired by the British TV satirical revue TV shows of the period (notably ''That Was The Week That Was''),
"Mavis Bramston" was the first successful venture in this genre on Australian TV. At its peak it was one of the most popular Australian TV programs of its era and it propelled many of the 'classic' cast to national stardom in Australia, including original's Gordon Chater, Carol Raye (who was already a major star in England as a film star) and Barry Creyton, as well as June Salter, Noeline Brown, and Ron Stevens

Cultural impact

''The Mavis Bramston Show'' had a huge impact in Australia in the mid-1960s, heightened because of its unique place in the history of the Australian television industry. Australian television broadcasting since its inception in 1956, had rapidly become dominated by the socio-economic influence of the United States and (to a lesser extent) that of the United Kingdom.

At least 80% of Australian TV programming by the early 1960s was sourced from the United States and American TV series were consistently the top-rating shows.

The Vincent Report in 1963, on the Australian media industry found that 97% of drama broadcast on Australian TV between 1956 and 1963 was produced in America.

The few programmes that were made locally were usually low-cost copies of proven American talk-variety or quiz show formats.Stuart Cunningham et al, ''The Media and Communications in Australia'' (Allen & Unwin, 2001, ), p.175

The absence of government-mandated local content regulations, meant Australian TV producers faced enormous challenges in trying to compete against imported American and British programs, which benefited from high budgets, an international talent pool and huge economies of scale, thanks to their large domestic audiences and established worldwide distribution networks. These advantages were further enhanced by the fact that American producers and networks offered Australian channels attractive discount rates on bundled programming.

Despite the overwhelming dominance of imported programming, local production gradually increased in the mid-1960s for several reasons—the licensing of a third network in major cities (which ultimately became the TEN Network), the introduction of videotape technology (which permitted pre-recording and editing, and reduced production costs) and the enforcement of local production quotas on TV advertising, which helped to foster a local skill-base.

Premièring only months after Crawford Productions' landmark police drama ''Homicide'', ''Mavis Bramston'' demonstrated both that it was possible to make satirical TV comedy in Australia, featuring Australian issues and characters, and that there was a significant audience for such a show. As the first Australian-produced TV comedy series to become a national success with both critics and viewers alike, ''Mavis'' is therefore considered a milestone in the development of Australian TV. Many at the time expected that this honour would go to Graham Kennedy's '' In Melbourne Tonight'', which was although hugely popular in its home city, did not become a fully-fledged national hit until 1969. Writer Hugh Stuckey opined that this was in part because IMT faced strong competition from the shows it followed, the top-rating American variety series '' The Perry Como Show'' and ''The Andy Williams Show''.

''Mavis Bramston'' grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue —- most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s -— but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially by the contemporary British TV satirical comedy series ''That Was The Week That Was'' and '' Not Only... But Also''.

Cast members

The ''Mavis'' cast, which changed considerably over its three-year run, initially featured many imported or expatriate British alongside experienced Australian actors such as John Bluthal who was becoming well known in Britain, and Australian performers who were relative newcomers to TV but who, between them however, had decades of experience in theatre, cabaret and revue and music.

During its three-year run, other regular cast members and guests included Miriam Karlin (1965), Ronnie Stevens (1965–66), Neva Carr Glyn (1966), June Thody (1966), Peter Reeves (1967), singer Bryan Davies (1964) and comic Dawn Lake (1967). Barbara Wyndon and Al Thomas guest starred in some episodes.

Among the crew was a young production assistant, Peter Weir, who went on to become one of Australia's best-known and most successful film directors.

Show's title

There are several versions of the source of the ironic joke behind the show's title. The most frequently quoted account is that it derived from an Australian theatrical expression. The nickname "Mavis Bramstons" mocked a phenomenon common at that time on the Australian stage. In the years after World War II, overseas actors (many of whom who were considered second-rate or well past their best) were often imported to star in local productions, even though there were local performers available who were as good or better than their overseas counterparts. One of the most famous examples of this trend was the "discovery" of actress and singer Jill Perryman; while understudying the much-loved Evie Hayes for the lead role in a 1953 production of the musical ''Call Me Madam'', Perryman was able to make her critical breakthrough after Evie Hayes was sidelined by illness. Hayes and Perryman became great friends. Hayes later appeared as Perryman's mother in ''Funny Girl''.

The stock persona of an imported second-rate actress became the central conceit of the series. The opening scene of each episode showed "Mavis", now brought to life as a parodic character, arriving at Sydney airport to be greeted by the waiting press; the irony was that although the show was called ''The Mavis Bramston Show'', this was the only scene in which she appeared. Noeline Brown played the eponymous Mavis in the pilot and the first five shows.

Maggie Dence, however became the "face" of the series; she regularly featured in press articles and on magazine covers and was widely employed by the show's sponsor, Ampol, making well-attended promotional appearances all over the country.

Creation and development

The show's creator and original co-star, Carol Raye, had enjoyed considerable success in the UK as an actor, singer and dancer, followed by a stint working for the national TV service in Kenya (where her husband worked for the Colonial Veterinary Service). In 1964 the couple had decided to emigrate to Australia, arriving in March of that year. Raye had asked friends in Britain for contacts in the Australian TV industry and this led to a meeting with (Sir) Charles Moses, then the General Manager of the ABC. He suggested that she should try her luck with Sydney commercial station ATN-7 and gave her a letter of introduction to Seven's general manager, James Oswin. That meeting was successful and Raye became one of the first female TV executives in Australia—she was appointed as Oswin's assistant in "Matters of Live Programming" and was given an office and a brief to watch local television and come up with ideas for new programs.

Inspired by the BBC's ''That Was The Week That Was'', Raye suggested a show based on TW3's format of topical satire, and although initially skeptical, Oswin agreed and allocated a budget of AU£1500 for pilot episode. Raye then set about recruiting performers to fill the roles of TW3's stars Millicent Martin, Bernard Levin and David Frost. By chance, she had also been given an introduction to Gordon Chater, who immediately accepted her offer on the expectation that the new show would be a TV version of the famous Phillip St Revues, in which he had been starring.

During this period, Raye was also drafted in to help develop a show to be sponsored by the Bradmill textile company, and she was taken to The Music Hall at Neutral Bay, a popular theatre-restaurant presenting Victorian-style comedy-melodramas that featured considerable audience interaction. The show Raye saw that evening, ''The Evil That Men Do'', co-starred the Music Hall's resident Villain and Villainess, Barry Creyton and Noeline Brown. Raye was impressed with Creyton's looks, his urbane style and his skills in handling the often rowdy Music Hall audiences, and immediately knew she had found her second co-star. Soon after this, Noeline Brown met the show's co-producer, Michael Plant at a party and he offered her the part of Mavis in the pilot episode.

To develop the script, Raye hired a team of writers including James Fishburn (who also acted as Executive Producer), John Mackellar, David Sale (who went on to write for the hugely popular 1970s soap opera '' Number 96''), actor-writer Jon Finlayson (who had written a successful intimate revue in Melbourne with Barbara Angell), Melvyn Morrow (a writer of revues and later Director of Drama at Stonyhurst College and writer of '' A Song to Sing, O'') and Ken Shadie, who had begun writing comedy sketches while working in Seven's engineering department; he also later wrote for ''Number 96'' and co-wrote the script of the hit Paul Hogan film ''Crocodile Dundee''.

At this stage Raye was intending to work only as the show's producer, and she still needed to find a female lead; Chater suggested June Salter (who agreed to a guest appearance in the pilot) and they also approached Judi Farr and several other actresses, but all were tied up with other work and could not commit to the lead role. Chater finally suggested that Raye should do the pilot herself, for fear that Seven would lose interest in the show and cancel, and although she was not keen to perform and co-produce, Raye agreed to do it.Johnson & Smiedt, 1999, p.165

Pilot episode and early shows, 1964

The production team needed to find a proper name for the new show (its working title was ''The Late Show'') and, as noted above, the final choice was inspired by their desire to satirise the cultural cringe that prevailed in Australian theatre.

The name "Mavis Bramston" was suggested by Jon Finlayson, who cited an old Melbourne theatre tradition in which "an actress who's really daggy or over the top, or up herself" was nicknamed a "Mavis Bramston". With this in mind, they came up with the idea of having a purported actress from England who is ostensibly brought in to star in the show, but in fact makes only a brief appearance.

During rehearsals it was decided that the show would open with Barry Creyton's song "Togetherness", which he had originally written for a Phillip St revue called ''At It Again''; there were also topical songs with lyrics by David Sale and music by Seven's resident musical director Tommy Tycho. It was filmed at the Macquarie Theatrette in Pitt Street, Sydney with Raye, Chater, Creyton, Brown and a guest appearance by June Salter.

The show opened with a heavily made-up Noeline Brown (as Mavis) in a mock interview with Jon Finlayson after which she performed a (deliberately awful) song-and-dance routine. The sketches included topical items about then Prime Minister Robert Menzies and the ''Voyager'' disaster; '' Oz'' co-editor Richard Walsh provided an "Oz News" segment; Gordon Chater performed his popular slapstick routine, in which he performed a comic monologue while covering himself with food then squirting the resulting mess off with a soda siphon; there was also a serious interlude with a reading of a poem written by Kath Walker, later known as Oodgeroo Noonuccal. The show concluded with the cast singing " Friends and Neighbours" off-camera, while footage of mob violence, war scenes and Ku Klux Klan rallies was played on screen.

The appearance of Richard Walsh is notable because it established an explicit link between ''Mavis'' and the Sydney satirical magazine '' Oz'', which at that time was the subject of a highly publicized censorship controversy. The three ''Oz'' co-editors—Walsh, Richard Neville and Martin Sharp – had recently been charged with producing an obscene publication, relating to satirical articles and photographs published in the magazine's early editions. In September 1964 the trio was found guilty of the obscenity charges, and there was a major public outcry when presiding magistrate Gerald Locke SM sentenced Walsh and Neville to six months' imprisonment with hard labour. When ''Mavis'' premiered the "Oz Three" were preparing their appeal against the verdict (which was ultimately quashed).

The Oz-Mavis connection was reinforced on 15 November, four days after the pilot aired, when the ''Mavis'' stars appeared at the Sydney University Theatre as part of a benefit to raise money for the ''Oz'' defence appeal. They performed a parody song entitled "Poof The Tragic Queen", which sent up the folk-song staple "Puff, the Magic Dragon". The benefit also featured radical Sydney proto-punk band The Missing Links and ''Homicide'' star Leonard Teale, who recited a "surfie" parody of Banjo Paterson's ''Clancy of the Overflow''.

The ''Mavis'' pilot was broadcast on ATN-7 (in Sydney only) on 11 November 1964 and it was an immediate success, with the Sydney ''Sun'' newspaper praising it as "... a fresh new show" that brought "authentic, biting, saucy, swinging satire to ATN". The film recording of the pilot episode survived and is now preserved in the collection of the National Film & Sound Archive in Canberra.

Seven soon announced that they were commissioning a series. It was evident that the chemistry between the three stars was a crucial factor in its success, so Seven insisted that Raye should continue as co-star, whereas she had hoped to find a permanent female lead to replace her, so she could concentrate on production; as a compromise, Seven agreed to ease her workload by appointing Michael Plant as co-producer.

Five more episodes were made during late 1964, but these were screened in Sydney and Canberra only; the Collection database of Australia's National Film and Sound Archive suggests that only three of these first six episodes have survived.

Noeline Brown made a brief weekly appearance as Mavis in these first shows, but she soon tired of the one-joke role and was reluctant to take on the promotional duties required. Seven wanted her to retain her, but Brown intended to go to England and since Seven had neglected to sign her to a contract, she left the show, to be replaced by actress Maggie Dence, although she returned to the series after her visit to the UK.

National breakthrough, 1965

''Mavis'' was an immediate success in New South Wales and this was replicated when it was broadcast nationally from early 1965. It created a media sensation and at its peak it became the highest-rating Australian TV series ever made up to that time, pulling in unprecedented 59% of the viewing audience. Capping its ratings success, the series won the 1965 Logie Award for "Best New Show".

The popularity of ''The Mavis Bramston Show'' quickly became the stuff of legend – it is said that Qantas pilots tried to re-arrange their schedules to be home on Wednesdays for the weekly broadcast, and in the national capital Canberra local businesses reputedly contacted Seven, asking them to reschedule the show, because it clashed with late-night shopping and revenues were falling as a result of its popularity.Johnson & Smiedt, 1999, p.169 Around 45 episodes were produced during 1965; fortunately the majority have survived and these are now archived in the NFSA collection.

''Mavis'' almost immediately attracted controversy, but this only served to heighten its notoriety. Some local stations censored 'blasphemous' words and the term "kin oath" (a contraction of the Australian expletive "fuckin' oath") and in March 1965 Sydney Catholic clergyman Bishop Thomas Muldoon publicly announced that he intended to sell his shares in Ampol because it sponsored such an 'immoral' show. When one of the stars was quizzed by the press about the furore, they expressed surprise that a bishop would own shares, but this immediately generated more banner headlines declaring "Actor insults Bishop". According to Noeline Brown it was Barry Creyton who made the remark but another source quotes Gordon Chater as saying that he made the comment.

When the show went national Carol Raye quickly found that juggling performance and production with the demands of raising a young family were becoming too much, so Seven agreed to recruit a co-producer; on Gordon Chater's suggestion they hired Michael Plant, who had started out writing scripts for radio star Grace Gibson before moving to Los Angeles, where he worked in film and TV. He was also an experienced journalist, which assisted with the topical nature of the show's humour.

Despite the addition of a co-producer, Raye was soon exhausted by the frantic pace and she left the series midway through 1965. At this stage Seven still felt it necessary to import talent from the UK, and her place was taken by British TV star Miriam Karlin, who was well known for her role as the gravel-voiced, chain-smoking shop steward in the popular BBC sitcom '' The Rag Trade''. In 1966, when Chater departed, Seven brought in British actor-comedian Ronnie Stevens.

Although the show continued to top the ratings, it was dealt another unexpected blow in late 1965 with the sudden death of Michael Plant (from an accidental overdose of sleeping tablets). He was replaced by Peter Myers, who had previously worked as a writer of intimate revues in London.

During 1965–66 the focus of the sketches gradually shifted from topical political humour to broader social satire and more conventional revue-style material. Popular sketches included Chater's famous "Pie Eater" routine, in which he played a stereotypical Ocker character in a singlet and handkerchief hat, who crams pies into his mouth while extolling the virtues of the "June Dilly-Potkins School of Charm" (a joke on the real-life deportment schools founded by former model June Dally-Watkins). Another recurring sketch was devised by and featured Miriam Karlin who, with Gordon Chater, played an elderly couple who sit on a park bench and talk to each other without communicating.

During 1965 the cast of local performers expanded, with regular appearances by James Kenney, June Salter and Hazel Phillips

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