Ned Kelly's links with classic British comedy [Brian Stevenson]

The short and turbulent life of Ned Kelly has been portrayed many times on the stage, sometimes memorably, sometimes less so. A case in point was a play Ned Kelly, almost certainly written by James Clancy, although the performance review that I found referred to him as John Clancy.

The production of Mr Clancy's play, at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, London, would have been a memorable occasion, perhaps not for the play itself, but for playgoers of a certain vintage with an interest in British TV comedy.

As the first person, apparently, to comment online on the relationship between Inspector Henry Pewtress, who searched for the three bodies at Stringybark Creek and his grandson, Ballard Berkeley, the dotty and lovable Major Gowen on Fawlty Towers, my credentials on connections between the Kelly Gang and classic British television comedy are assured. (But I want to add to them in this blog post anyway.)

Let's start with Ned. He was played by, of all people, Harry H Corbett, who many of us will remember as the unassertive son, Harold Steptoe, always engaged in a battle of wits with his hideous, manipulating and terrible old Dad, played by Wilfred Brambell in the series about the junk shop owners, Steptoe and Son. (It was reconfigured in the States as Sanford and Son.) Harry added the H to his name to avoid confusion with the children's television puppeteer, Harry Corbett, who was the manipulator of the politically incorrectly named little bear, Sooty for many years. (It didn't work because it was only when I wanted to do research for this post that I realised that they were two different people.)

Anyway, Harry H did a commendable job! The review in the London Times for 24 May 1960 singled out young Harold - sorry, Ned - as 'a dashingly heoric figure' whose performance 'nicely suggests the slow conversion of an egotism which ends by convincing the outlaw that he is destined to take over the government of Australia in the name of the common people.' Sounds as if the reviewer picked up some of the subtleties, and Ned's monomaniacal and delusional ambitions certainly translate better to the stage when they are not restricted to northeastern Victoria!

Harry H was joined on the stage by Brian Murphy, who seems to have dual roles, the confirmed one as Ben Gould, and another one not listed in the cast. The reviewer again: 'Mr Brian Murphy has several delightful turns on his own, sometimes as an inept police sergeant and sometimes as a philosophic linesman in the telegraph service.' Sergeant Kennedy is not listed in the dramatis personae, so perhaps Brian Murphy played him as well. I didn't know that Ben worked as a linesman either. We can only wonder at why the playwright saw fit to include Ben, a comparatively peripheral character in our saga, and left out meaty roles like Francis Hare, Frederick Standish, Alexander Fitzpatrick, Sergeant Steele, Thomas Curnow and many others. (Constable Gomer Evans - whoever that was - got a part in the play, though.) Brian Murphy, of course, played the henpecked and easygoing George Roper in the sitcom 'George and Mildred.' No sign of Yootha Joyce (ie, Mildred) on the cast list though.

The third actor from classic British comedy had two roles listed. Both characters that he played were Irish, but otherwise the pair had little in common: Pat Quinn and Constable MacIntyre. We are not told which Pat Quinn was portrayed, and it is interesting that he was in the play when all members of the prolific and vital family of Lloyd were left out. It is hard to think of Grant playing either when we remember the toothsome and lecherous Jack Harper from 'On the Buses', who never seemed to stop chasing clippies (female bus conductors) except for when he was laughing with his mate Stan Butler (played by Reg Varney, incidentally the first person ever to use an automated teller machine) and at the pair's nemesis, Inspector Blake (played by Stephen Lewis.)

Despite its stellar cast - OK, a cast that would be considered stellar in the future - the play does not seem to have impressed the reviewer. The improvisation led to 'a great deal of mumbling [which had] the effect of stretching out a not very eventful action to a length of exactly three hours.' The music did not help either: 'There are many Irish jigs and there are also songs to help the story along, but ... all the songs seem to be variants on 'The Wild Colonial Boy', and none of them is particularly well sung.' One is left with the impression that the evening was not a memorable one, but a time traveller might enjoy seeing Harry H Corbett, Brian Murphy and Bob Grant all on the same stage and playing characters that were nothing like the personages for which they would be so fondly remembered.

Brian Murphy is still around, having survived his television wife, Yootha Joyce, for over thirty years. But Harry H Corbett left us early, dying in 1982 at only 57. Bob Grant's ending was perhaps even more sad. Typecast as the happy-go-lucky Jack Harper, his lack of employment opportunities thenceforth sent him into bouts of depression, and he tried to commit suicide on at least one occasion. In 2003 he was found dead in his home after taking his own life. He was 71.

As for the play, I don't think that you can read it anywhere. I looked for a copy everywhere I could think of, but no luck, and my dear friend, co-blogger and indefatigable researcher Sharon could do no better than find a copy of the program for sale at an extortionate price. The legend and the name lives on, though some of its manifestations were ephemeral. As someone famous might have said, such is life.