Australian
Screen

Clip description

Now the English cricket captain, Douglas Jardine (Hugo Weaving) is determined to return from the upcoming Australian tour with the Ashes. He’s obsessed with the batting of Donald Bradman (Gary Sweet) and determined to discover his weaknesses. He talks to the gentlemen amateur, Allen (John Doyle) who suggests he should ask one of the English bowlers, so Jardine travels north to a Yorkshire coal mining town to talk to the fast bowler, Harold Larwood (Jim Holt), just cleaning up after a day at the coalface. Jardine quizzes Larwood about his experiences as the bowler who has most often come up against Bradman.

Curator’s notes

Hugo Weaving is marvellous in the role of Douglas Jardine, the obsessive and rigidly formal gentleman cricketer whom we meet with his friends and colleagues of the English cricketing fraternity, Lord Harris (Frank Thring), Pelham Warner (Rhys McConnochie), Percy George Fender (John Gregg) and Jardine’s gentleman team-mate, Allen (John Doyle). They are sitting in a splendid library being served drinks by the butler, while discussing the finer points of the game. Their world is a far cry from the deepening economic depression that has sent the western world into a crisis of unemployment and rising prices.

And, to remind us of the real world, this scene contrasts sharply with the next in which Jardine travels to a Yorkshire coalmining town to talk to one of the world’s fastest bowlers, his teammate Harold Larwood (Jim Holt) who calls him Mr Jardine. Jardine calls him Harold. The contrast between the two worlds couldn’t be more pronounced.