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*The Astronauts*
The Astronauts
	Advertisement in The Age 18 May 1960
Written by	Don Houghton
Directed by	Christopher Muir
Country of origin	Australia
Original language	English
Production
Running time	60 minutes
Production company	ABC
Original release
Release	18 May 1960 (Melbourne - live)
Release	27 July 1960 (Sydney)

The Astronauts is a television film, or rather a live television play, which aired in Australia during 1960 on ABC. Broadcast originally in Melbourne on 18 May 1960, a kinescope recording was made of the broadcast and shown in Sydney on 27 July 1960 (it is not known if it was also shown on ABC's stations in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth).^[3] FilmInk magazine said it may be the only Australian drama about the space race^[4] and "the first (to my knowledge) locally written Australian sci-fi drama for the small screen."^[5]

Plot

Four men (two Americans, an Englishman and an Australian) are training in Australia to become astronauts, and are preparing for the first manned space launch, for which only one of the men will be selected.

Medical officers think the men are mentally and physically perfect. However, one of them has a physical defect.^[6]

Cast

Alan Hopgood as Dave Armstrong, the Australian astronaut
David Mitchell as Len Cassidy
Mark Kelly as Jeff Burrows
Tony Brown as Flight Lieutenant Peter Corbitt, the English astronaut
Keith Eden as Dr. Vaughan
Kurt Ludescher as a German scientist
Kendrick Hudson as a U.S. Air Force general
Marie Redshaw as Jill Corbitt, Peter's wife
Anne Harvey as Del Armstrong, Dave's wife
Collins Hilton as a steward

Production

Don Houghton, a Sydney writer, was prompted to write the drama after the announcement of the Mercury Seven. Houghton said "For the sake of the play I hope any attempt to put a man in space will not be made before May 18," when the show was being broadcast.^[7] He wrote the play in late 1959 and was worried "that my play will become a piece of history first -not a projection of the future as it is now." It was bought by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.^[8]

Houghton said the drama was not science fiction, but rather highlighted the short step ahead of what was actually happening with space exploration. The play posed the question, "what sort of man is an astronaut?"^[7]

During the broadcast on 18 May a conversation between two ABC employees was picked up accidentally; it was about the marriage between Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones. The ABC said the wrong switch was turned on, saying it was "a human error for which the ABC offers its apology for any inconvenience."^[9]

Reception

Filmink, reviewing the thirty minutes of the play that survive, wrote "the concept of an Australian space program is instantly likeable, to me at any rate, and the story was progressing logically, with strong stakes and interesting characters. When the men sit around joking, trying not to talk about death, it even had slight Only Angels Have Wings vibes."^[5]

The production sold to US television.^[5]

References

^ "TV Guide". The Age. 12 May 1960. p. 35 – via Newspapers.com.
^ "Television Guide". Sydney Morning Herald. 25 July 1960. p. 14 – via Newspapers.com.
^ "Astronauts on TV". The Age. 12 May 1960. p. 3. Retrieved 21 May 2022 – via Google News.
^ Vagg, Stephen (18 February 2019). "60 Australian TV Plays of the 1950s & '60s". FilmInk.
^ ^a ^b ^c Vagg, Stephen (2021). "Forgotten Australian TV plays: The Astronauts". Filmink. Retrieved 8 August 2024.
^ "Wednesday Television". The Age. 12 May 1960. p. TV Guide Supplement. Retrieved 21 May 2022 – via Google News.
^ ^a ^b "TV Drama About Men in Space". The Age. 21 April 1960. p. 15. Retrieved 21 May 2022 – via Google News.
^ "News of the day". The Age. 18 May 1960. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.
^ "Viewers React to Incidents". The Age. 28 May 1960. p. 25 – via Newspapers.com.