Phillip Street Theatre
Encyclopedia
The Phillip Street Theatre (succeeded by the Phillip Theatre) was a popular and influential Sydney theatre and theatrical company of the 1950s and 1960s that became well known for its intimate satirical revue productions.
-born impresario William Orr had a background as a director and theatre administrator in London before coming to Australia. Orr felt that there was a market in Australia for the new British theatre craze, the intimate topical satirical revue and he pioneered the format in Sydney in the early 1950s. Actor Gordon Chater praised Orr as a champion of Australian theatrical talent:
Between 1954 and 1971 Orr promoted a series of 'Phillip Street Revues' which featured many noted Australian performers including Gordon Chater
, Margot Lee, Barry Creyton
, Jill Perryman
, Noeline Brown
, Robina Beard (the sister of Chris Bearde
), Judi Farr
, Kevin Miles, Charles "Bud" Tingwell
, Ray Barrett
, Ruth Cracknell
, June Salter
, John Meillon
, Barry Humphries
, Reg Livermore
, and Gloria Dawn
.
In 1953 Orr premiered a small revue, Metropolitan Merry-Go-Round at the Metropolitan Church Hall in Reiby Place, Sydney. This production marked the first professional credit for John McKellar
, Jerry Donovan and Lance Mulcahy, three budding writer-performers who met at school and developed their writing skills in university revues. The trio worked together on several subsequent Phillip St productions and McKellar became the driving force behind most of the Phillip St revues of the '50s and '60s
Also at this time, British-born actor Gordon Chater
was appearing in the Sydney production of Hugh Hastings' play Seagulls over Sorrento
. Chater's character did not appear in that play until the end of Act II, and because it was being sent up in the Metropolitan revue, Orr managed to convince Chater to come over to the Metropolitan to introduce the sketch, which was in the first half of the revue, giving Chater enough time to make it back his performance in Sorrento.
Orr's next revue at the Metropolitan, Maid in Egypt was again written by McKellar, Donovan and Mulcahy, and starred Leonard Teale
and Patty Martin.
In 1954 Orr and his partner Eric Duckworth were given the use of the Workers' Education Hall
in Phillip Street, Sydney, as a theatre, and they renamed it the Phillip Street Theatre. It was here that Orr staged his next revue, Top of the Bill, written by McKellar, Donovan and Mulcahy and featuring Charles "Bud Tingwell
, Margot Lee and an (unnamed) American actor, with Gordon Chater making a guest appearance in each half of the show. During rehearsals the American actor repeatedly turned up drunk, so he was sacked a week before the premiere and Chater was asked to step into the role. The revue included a sketches about the Petrov Affair
, with Chater and Tingwell as David Jones
floorwalkers and Chater in a solo turn as Australian dress designer "Pierre of Balmain" (a play on words that conflated the French fashion house Pierre Balmain
and the Sydney suburb of Balmain
, which was at that time a run-down working-class enclave). Orr planned to stage three shows a week, but the new revue proved a great success—within days they were playing six shows a week plus Friday and Saturday matinees, and in his memoir Chater recounted that "there were queues around the corner of Phillip Street down to Castlereagh, and the production ran for two months.
Orr established a board of directors for the Phillip Street Theatre that included author Morris West
, journalist Betty Best, charity fundraiser Nola Dekyvere and (later) lawyer John Kerr. Despite the success of Top of the Bill and its follow-up Hat Trick, the board decided that the next show would be a straight production of Hamlet
, which flopped. This was followed followed by a production of Sheridan's
comedy The Duenna
, set to music by Julian Slade
and directed by British director Lionel Harris, who had been brought to Australia to direct a local production that featured visiting British actors Lewis Casson
, Sybil Thorndyke, Ralph Richardson
and (his wife) Meriel Forbes
. Harris asked Chater to play the role of Mendoza and also cast the young Ruth Cracknell
. The production was well-received but it was terminated in the middle of its run by the hall's owners, the Workers' Education Association (WEA), who took legal action against the theatre company to regain use of the hall.
Orr's next production was another satirical revue, Two to One, starring veteran Australian musical star Max Oldaker, with Wendy Blacklock
and a rising young actor-comedian from Melbourne, Barry Humphries
. A couple of years earlier, while touring country Victoria with a theatre company headed by playwright Ray Lawler
Humphries had amsued his fellow actors with a parody of a middle-class Australian housewife; for the company's end-of-year revue he named her Edna Everage and played her in a sketch he wrote for the show, called "Olympic Hostess". Although he had originally assumed that his 'turn' as Edna was a one-off, he decided to revive "Olympic Hostess" for the Phillip Street revue and its success helped to launch what became a fifty-year career for the self-proclaimed "Housewife Megastar".
Orr's next successful revue was Around the Loop, which again teamed Oldaker, Chater, Blacklock and Humphries, plus newcomer June Salter
. Humphries revived the Edna character (for what he said would be the last time) and the revue proved to be a major hit, playing eight shows a week for 14 months. During this period Humphries was living near Bondi
and while out walking one day he had a chance meeting with an elderly man who had a high, scratchy voice and a pedantic manner of speech; this encounter inspired the creation of another of Humphries' best-known and most enduring characters, pensioner Sandy Stone
.
When the Phillip Street hall was demolished in 1961 (at the time of the Bobby Limb
and Dawn Lake
production Out on a Limb) Orr moved his company to the Australian Hall at 150 Elizabeth St, renaming it the Phillip Theatre. There he presented a string of successful revue productions, the best known of which was John McKellar's A Cup Of Tea, A Bex and A Good Lie Down
(1965), the title of which immediately passed into the Australian vernacular. Other known productions included a local version of the landmark British satirical sketch show Beyond The Fringe
, Stop Press, The Importance of Being Oscar, Flaming Youth and At It Again.
The topical satire featured in the Phillip St revues exerted a considerable influence on Australia's first satirical TV comedy series, The Mavis Bramston Show
(1964–68), and the Bramston show featured numerous cast and crew who had worked in these live revues, including Gordon Chater, Barry Creyton, June Salter, Wendy Blacklock, writer John McKellar and writer-producer James Fishburn.
The Phillip Street revues ended in 1971 when the Phillip Theatre changed hands and became the Mandarin Cinema (which has also since been demolished).
History
GlasgowGlasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
-born impresario William Orr had a background as a director and theatre administrator in London before coming to Australia. Orr felt that there was a market in Australia for the new British theatre craze, the intimate topical satirical revue and he pioneered the format in Sydney in the early 1950s. Actor Gordon Chater praised Orr as a champion of Australian theatrical talent:
- "To this day I think Bill Orr should have been honoured by this country for creating the first post-war entirely professional theatre employing all Australians -- the dancers, musicians, actors, lyricists and composers were all Australian."
Between 1954 and 1971 Orr promoted a series of 'Phillip Street Revues' which featured many noted Australian performers including Gordon Chater
Gordon Chater
Gordon Chater was a comedian and actor.Chater attended Cambridge University to study to become a doctor but did not finish his degree. While at Cambridge he took part in many student revues.He arrived in Australia following World War II...
, Margot Lee, Barry Creyton
Barry Creyton
Barry Creyton is an Australian actor and playwright.Creyton began his professional career in radio and revue in Melbourne, in Australia and became well-known in Sydney starring in and writing popular comedy-melodramas at the Music Hall theatre-restaurant in Neutral Bay...
, Jill Perryman
Jill Perryman
Jill Perryman AM MBE is an Australian stage actress and singer, born in Melbourne. Her parents and her sister were all prominent in Australian theatre. At the age of 19, she joined J.C...
, Noeline Brown
Noeline Brown
Noeline Brown is an Australian actor and comedian. She has appeared in many films, television shows, plays and radio programs....
, Robina Beard (the sister of Chris Bearde
Chris Bearde
Chris Bearde is a comedy writer, producer and director best known for his work as a writer on the '60s zeitgeist hit Laugh In and for co-writing and producing TV specials for Elvis Presley, Bob Hope, Sonny and Cher, Bill Cosby, Steve Martin, Jim Carrey, Andy Williams, The Jackson Five, The...
), Judi Farr
Judi Farr
Judi Farr is an Australian theatre, film and television actor best known for several situation comedy roles on Australian television.She first became known for her role of Rita in the situation comedy My Name's McGooley, What's Yours?...
, Kevin Miles, Charles "Bud" Tingwell
Charles Tingwell
In 1941, aged 18, he volunteered for war service overseas with the Royal Australian Air Force. Under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, personnel from Commonwealth air forces were part of a joint training and assignment system. Consequently, Tingwell trained as a pilot in Canada during 1942...
, Ray Barrett
Ray Barrett
Raymond Charles "Ray" Barrett was an Australian actor. He was one of the more popular leading men on British television in the 1960s, where he was best known for his appearances in The Troubleshooters . Back in Australia he was a leading man in many TV series over the years.-Biography:Barrett was...
, Ruth Cracknell
Ruth Cracknell
Ruth Cracknell AM was an Australian theatre and television character actress who appeared in many comedy roles. She was known variously as "Crackers", "Dame Crackers" and "Dame Ruth" throughout a career spanning 56 years....
, June Salter
June Salter
June Marie Salter AM was an Australian actress.-Biography:June Salter was born in Bexley, New South Wales, the youngest of six children. As a child she studied piano and elocution and attended Kogarah Secondary School...
, John Meillon
John Meillon
John Meillon was an Australian actor, most widely known outside Australia for his role as Walter Reilly in the films "Crocodile" Dundee and "Crocodile" Dundee II. He also voiced Victoria Bitter beer commercials until his death.-Biography:Meillon was born in Mosman, Sydney...
, Barry Humphries
Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE is an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the...
, Reg Livermore
Reg Livermore
Reginald Dawson Livermore AO is an Australian actor, singer, theatrical performer and television presenter.-Childhood:From a young age, Livermore demonstrated an interest in the performing arts...
, and Gloria Dawn
Gloria Dawn
Gloria Dawn appeared in numerous soft-core men's magazines in the 1960s. She began her career in January 1962, and modeled for photographers Peter Gowland, Ron Vogel, Donald G. Klumpp, Sam Wu, Elmer Batters, and Michael LeRoy among others. She retired from modeling in August 1963 but her pictures...
.
In 1953 Orr premiered a small revue, Metropolitan Merry-Go-Round at the Metropolitan Church Hall in Reiby Place, Sydney. This production marked the first professional credit for John McKellar
John McKellar
John McKellar was a businessman and political figure in Ontario, Canada. He was the first mayor of Fort William, Ontario , serving from 1892 to 1898....
, Jerry Donovan and Lance Mulcahy, three budding writer-performers who met at school and developed their writing skills in university revues. The trio worked together on several subsequent Phillip St productions and McKellar became the driving force behind most of the Phillip St revues of the '50s and '60s
Also at this time, British-born actor Gordon Chater
Gordon Chater
Gordon Chater was a comedian and actor.Chater attended Cambridge University to study to become a doctor but did not finish his degree. While at Cambridge he took part in many student revues.He arrived in Australia following World War II...
was appearing in the Sydney production of Hugh Hastings' play Seagulls over Sorrento
Seagulls Over Sorrento
Seagulls Over Sorrento is a 1954 British wartime drama film made by the Boulting Brothers based on the play of the same name by Hugh Hastings. The film stars Gene Kelly and was one of three made by Kelly in Europe over an 18 month period in order to make use of frozen MGM funds...
. Chater's character did not appear in that play until the end of Act II, and because it was being sent up in the Metropolitan revue, Orr managed to convince Chater to come over to the Metropolitan to introduce the sketch, which was in the first half of the revue, giving Chater enough time to make it back his performance in Sorrento.
Orr's next revue at the Metropolitan, Maid in Egypt was again written by McKellar, Donovan and Mulcahy, and starred Leonard Teale
Leonard Teale
Leonard Teale AO , born Leonard George Thiele in Brisbane, was a well-known Australian actor of radio, television and films....
and Patty Martin.
In 1954 Orr and his partner Eric Duckworth were given the use of the Workers' Education Hall
St James' Hall, Sydney
St James' Hall, sometimes written as St James's Hall, was a building which stood at 171 Phillip Street, Sydney, near King Street. It figured prominently in the history of small theatre in Australia...
in Phillip Street, Sydney, as a theatre, and they renamed it the Phillip Street Theatre. It was here that Orr staged his next revue, Top of the Bill, written by McKellar, Donovan and Mulcahy and featuring Charles "Bud Tingwell
Charles Tingwell
In 1941, aged 18, he volunteered for war service overseas with the Royal Australian Air Force. Under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, personnel from Commonwealth air forces were part of a joint training and assignment system. Consequently, Tingwell trained as a pilot in Canada during 1942...
, Margot Lee and an (unnamed) American actor, with Gordon Chater making a guest appearance in each half of the show. During rehearsals the American actor repeatedly turned up drunk, so he was sacked a week before the premiere and Chater was asked to step into the role. The revue included a sketches about the Petrov Affair
Petrov Affair
The Petrov Affair was a dramatic Cold War spy incident in Australia in April 1954, concerning Vladimir Petrov, Third Secretary of the Soviet embassy in Canberra.- History :...
, with Chater and Tingwell as David Jones
David Jones Limited
David Jones Limited , colloquially known as DJs, is a high-end Australian department store chain.David Jones was founded in 1838 by David Jones, a Welsh immigrant, and is claimed to be the oldest continuously operating department store in the world still trading under its original name. It...
floorwalkers and Chater in a solo turn as Australian dress designer "Pierre of Balmain" (a play on words that conflated the French fashion house Pierre Balmain
Balmain (fashion house)
Balmain is a fashion house that was founded by Pierre Balmain.In the period following World War II, Pierre Balmain was "a king of French fashion" and outfitted stars including Ava Gardner and Brigitte Bardot. His most famous client were Queen Sirikit of Thailand...
and the Sydney suburb of Balmain
Balmain
Balmain can refer to:Places:* Balmain, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, Australia* Electoral district of Balmain, an electoral division in New South Wales, Australia* Balmain East, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, Australia...
, which was at that time a run-down working-class enclave). Orr planned to stage three shows a week, but the new revue proved a great success—within days they were playing six shows a week plus Friday and Saturday matinees, and in his memoir Chater recounted that "there were queues around the corner of Phillip Street down to Castlereagh, and the production ran for two months.
Orr established a board of directors for the Phillip Street Theatre that included author Morris West
Morris West
Morris Langlo West AO was an Australian novelist and playwright, best known for his novels The Devil's Advocate , The Shoes of the Fisherman , and The Clowns of God . His books were published in 27 languages and sold more than 60 million copies worldwide...
, journalist Betty Best, charity fundraiser Nola Dekyvere and (later) lawyer John Kerr. Despite the success of Top of the Bill and its follow-up Hat Trick, the board decided that the next show would be a straight production of Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
, which flopped. This was followed followed by a production of Sheridan's
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester...
comedy The Duenna
The Duenna
The Duenna is a three-act comic opera, mostly composed by Thomas Linley the elder and his son, Thomas Linley the younger, to an English-language libretto by Richard Brinsley Sheridan...
, set to music by Julian Slade
Julian Slade
Julian Penkivil Slade was an English writer of musical theatre best known for the show Salad Days, which he wrote in six weeks in 1954 and became the UK's longest-running show of the 1950s with over 2,288 performances....
and directed by British director Lionel Harris, who had been brought to Australia to direct a local production that featured visiting British actors Lewis Casson
Lewis Casson
Sir Lewis Thomas Casson MC was a British actor and theatre director and the husband of Dame Sybil Thorndike.-Early life:...
, Sybil Thorndyke, Ralph Richardson
Ralph Richardson
Sir Ralph David Richardson was an English actor, one of a group of theatrical knights of the mid-20th century who, though more closely associated with the stage, also appeared in several classic films....
and (his wife) Meriel Forbes
Meriel Forbes
Meriel Forbes was a British actress. She was married to the actor Ralph Richardson.-Selected filmography:* Girls Please! * The Belles of St. Clements * The Day Will Dawn * The Gentle Sex...
. Harris asked Chater to play the role of Mendoza and also cast the young Ruth Cracknell
Ruth Cracknell
Ruth Cracknell AM was an Australian theatre and television character actress who appeared in many comedy roles. She was known variously as "Crackers", "Dame Crackers" and "Dame Ruth" throughout a career spanning 56 years....
. The production was well-received but it was terminated in the middle of its run by the hall's owners, the Workers' Education Association (WEA), who took legal action against the theatre company to regain use of the hall.
Orr's next production was another satirical revue, Two to One, starring veteran Australian musical star Max Oldaker, with Wendy Blacklock
Wendy Blacklock
Wendy Blacklock was an Australia-based theatre and television actor best known for her long-running role of Edith "Mummy" MacDonald in the 1970s television soap opera Number 96....
and a rising young actor-comedian from Melbourne, Barry Humphries
Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE is an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the...
. A couple of years earlier, while touring country Victoria with a theatre company headed by playwright Ray Lawler
Ray Lawler
Raymond Evenor Lawler is an influential Australian actor, dramatist and producer. His most notable play was his tenth, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll , which had its premiere in Melbourne in 1955. The play changed the direction of Australian drama...
Humphries had amsued his fellow actors with a parody of a middle-class Australian housewife; for the company's end-of-year revue he named her Edna Everage and played her in a sketch he wrote for the show, called "Olympic Hostess". Although he had originally assumed that his 'turn' as Edna was a one-off, he decided to revive "Olympic Hostess" for the Phillip Street revue and its success helped to launch what became a fifty-year career for the self-proclaimed "Housewife Megastar".
Orr's next successful revue was Around the Loop, which again teamed Oldaker, Chater, Blacklock and Humphries, plus newcomer June Salter
June Salter
June Marie Salter AM was an Australian actress.-Biography:June Salter was born in Bexley, New South Wales, the youngest of six children. As a child she studied piano and elocution and attended Kogarah Secondary School...
. Humphries revived the Edna character (for what he said would be the last time) and the revue proved to be a major hit, playing eight shows a week for 14 months. During this period Humphries was living near Bondi
Bondi
Bondi could refer to:-Places in Australia:* Bondi Beach, New South Wales, a beach and suburb in Sydney, Australia* Bondi Junction, New South Wales, a suburb and commercial centre in Sydney, Australia* Bondi, New South Wales, a suburb in Sydney, Australia...
and while out walking one day he had a chance meeting with an elderly man who had a high, scratchy voice and a pedantic manner of speech; this encounter inspired the creation of another of Humphries' best-known and most enduring characters, pensioner Sandy Stone
Sandy Stone (Barry Humphries character)
Sandy Stone is a male character played by Australian comedian Barry Humphries. Described by John Betjeman as "this decent man from the suburbs", Stone is one of Humphries' more enduring characters....
.
When the Phillip Street hall was demolished in 1961 (at the time of the Bobby Limb
Bobby Limb
Bobby Limb AO OBE was an Australian pioneering radio and television entertainer of the 1960s and 1970s.-Career:...
and Dawn Lake
Dawn Lake
Dawn Lake was an Australian television comedian, singer, entertainer and actor, whose career spanned more than four decades. Bert Newton described her as "our greatest comedienne - Australia's Lucille Ball"...
production Out on a Limb) Orr moved his company to the Australian Hall at 150 Elizabeth St, renaming it the Phillip Theatre. There he presented a string of successful revue productions, the best known of which was John McKellar's A Cup Of Tea, A Bex and A Good Lie Down
A Cup Of Tea, A Bex and A Good Lie Down
A Cup Of Tea, A Bex and A Good Lie Down was a comedy revue that opened at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in 1965. It was the longest running show at the Theatre in 1966. The cast included John Ewart, Gloria Dawn, Ruth Cracknell and Reg Livermore...
(1965), the title of which immediately passed into the Australian vernacular. Other known productions included a local version of the landmark British satirical sketch show Beyond The Fringe
Beyond the Fringe
Beyond the Fringe was a British comedy stage revue written and performed by Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, and Jonathan Miller. It played in London's West End and then on New York's Broadway in the early 1960s, and is widely regarded as seminal to the rise of satire in 1960s Britain.-The...
, Stop Press, The Importance of Being Oscar, Flaming Youth and At It Again.
The topical satire featured in the Phillip St revues exerted a considerable influence on Australia's first satirical TV comedy series, The Mavis Bramston Show
The Mavis Bramston Show
The Mavis Bramston Show was a popular and award-winning Australian TV satirical sketch comedy series of the mid-1960s.-Introduction:The tremendous impact that The Mavis Bramston Show had in Australia in the mid-1960s was heightened because of its unique place in the history of the Australian TV...
(1964–68), and the Bramston show featured numerous cast and crew who had worked in these live revues, including Gordon Chater, Barry Creyton, June Salter, Wendy Blacklock, writer John McKellar and writer-producer James Fishburn.
The Phillip Street revues ended in 1971 when the Phillip Theatre changed hands and became the Mandarin Cinema (which has also since been demolished).