The Final Factor
The Final Factor is a 1966 Australian television play by John Warwick. It was part of Australian Playhouse. Australian TV drama was relatively rare at the time.[3]
| "The Final Factor" | |
|---|---|
| Australian Playhouse episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 14 |
| Directed by | Ken Hannam[1] |
| Teleplay by | John Warwick |
| Original air date | 25 July 1966 (Sydney, Melbourne)[2] |
| Running time | 30 mins |
Plot
Many lives are at stake while giants of the engineering world struggle for supremacy.[4]
Cast
- Peter O'Shaugnessy
- Richard Meikle
- Noel Brophy
Reception
The Sydney Morning Herald wrote "If Australian Playhouse is to be worthy of its name, it needs to find more interesting one-act plays than "The Final Factor,"... Perhaps there was a beginning, a middle and an end but the sequence was unbalanced. The end did not justify the means. Action lacking Lacking any dramatic action visible on the screen —unless one counts telephone conversations—the whole piece consisted of a jumble of dialogue embracing engineering, big business and possible human disaster, and centring around the possible collapse of a bridge in the final stage of its construction. The deciding factor was apparently not so much human agency as the arrival of "cool southern change" some minutes before it was due. It was owing only to the acting of Peter O'Shaughnessy and, to a lesser degree, that of Richard Meikle, that a feeling of tension was built-up—to reach a complete anticlimax which no actor's skill could mitigate."[5]
References
- "TV Guide". The Age. 21 July 1966. p. 33.
- "TV Guide". Sydney Morning Herald. 25 July 1966. p. 12.
- Vagg, Stephen (18 February 2019). "60 Australian TV Plays of the 1950s & '60s". Filmink.
- "MONDAY". The Canberra Times. 40 (11, 529). Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 25 July 1966. p. 14. Retrieved 27 February 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
- Darlington, Dorothy (26 July 1966). "A play without balance". Sydney Morning Herald. p. 9.