Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows Robyn Archer walking through the Theatre Royal Stratford East in London, describing her great-grandmother and the man she knew as her great-grandfather, who were vaudeville performers, and the sense of continuity she feels with their choice of career. The footage is intercut with shots of Archer’s performance posters. She discusses her family background, sings a few lines from ‘One of the ruins that Cromwell knocked about a bit’, a song made famous by Marie Lloyd, and is then shown performing the same song on stage. This is followed by interior and exterior shots of Wyndham’s Theatre in London’s West End. The camera then moves around a poster of famous vocalists as Archer speaks of their role as her teachers.

Educational value points

• The clip showcases Robyn Archer, one of Australia’s premier vocal artists, as she performs apparently impromptu, appears on stage, and gives a personal insight into her family background and influences, providing an excellent introduction to her career. Archer is a singer, songwriter and director who has performed to great acclaim both nationally and internationally. She sings an eclectic range of songs, including country, classics and her own works, but is best known as a performer of musical theatre and cabaret, particularly in the tradition of European cabaret.

• Archer has been successful overseas and her success in the competitive theatrical environment of London’s West End is highlighted in the clip. Her show A Star is Torn played at Wyndham’s Theatre (August 1982 to January 1983) and was well received by critics. An album of the same name was released in 1980.

• Both her family background and the work of other musicians have influenced Archer’s work. In the clip she acknowledges the heritage of her great-grandparents who may have also performed at Wyndham’s Theatre where A Star is Torn played. In the show, Archer presents the work of a range of female singers including Marie Lloyd, who in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was considered 'queen of the music halls’ and was renowned for her saucy winks and 'rude’ songs. Archer considered A Star is Torn to be a tribute to the women who influenced her music. These influences range from the country sound of Patsy Cline to the blues of Bessie Smith and the gravel-voiced rock of Janis Joplin.

• Archer has been an important force in the Australian arts scene and she has had numerous roles in cultural organisations. She was Artistic Director of the National Festival of Australian Theatre for 3 years and of the Adelaide Festival in 1998 and 2000. In 2000, she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) and she became a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2001. Archer has been awarded honorary doctorates from both Flinders and Sydney Universities.

• The clip presents the work of Don Featherstone, who directed a documentary series on talented artists titled Creative Spirits. A Star is Torn is part of the series. Creative Spirits was nominated for an Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award for Best Documentary. Featherstone’s other work includes Babakuieria, An Imaginary Life and The One Percenters.

This clip starts approximately 3 minutes into the documentary.

We see the exterior of the Theatre Royal Stratford East.
Robyn Archer I imagine it was theatres like this that my great grandmother would’ve come in her capacity as a musical artist. She was part of an act called ‘Burnett and Charlton’. She was Nelly Charlton. He was Charlie Burnett, the man I knew as my great grandfather. He had scars all over his neck from fights in the East End. Her forearms were covered with amateur tattoos. I have no idea what the quality of their performance was like, but I have no doubt that if they didn’t perform here, they would’ve at least come here to watch artists of the calibre of Marie Lloyd who was certainly performing around the same time. Um, I suppose those sort of connections between me and musical, which I’d done on and off for years, and my great grandparents, only started to come home to me when we did ‘A Star is Torn’ but it was really not until I stood on the stage and I started singing one of Marie Lloyd’s songs that I realised I am in my great grandmother’s territory entirely here.
We see footage of Robyn Archer singing and performing.
Robyn The six week season at Stratford East was very successful and then we did that thing that everybody wants to do, we transferred to the West End and we were very lucky to get this theatre which is Wyndhams, in the heart of the West End, physically very similar to Theatre Royal Stratford East and this little place was my home for a year.
(Song ‘Mean To Me’ Plays)
Robyn When I did the first draft to ‘A Star is Torn’ I really felt that I wanted a show that showed my musical roots. I chose all the singers that I‘d learnt from, that I’d listened to on record. I think for me it was something about the respect in which I held those women, who were in the best sense of the words ‘my teachers’.