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In this regular segment, Mavis Bramston stars Gordon Chater, Barry Creyton and Carol Raye present satirical ‘news items’ before launching into a rendition of ‘Togetherness’. Written by Barry Creyton, the song was performed every week, interspersed with spoken verses about news items of the week.
Curator’s notes
The Mavis Bramston Show’s satirical content broke new ground on Australian television, emerging from a tradition of satire in print and theatre in Australia and strongly influenced by British television satires like That Was The Week That Was (1962–63). Mavis Bramston arrived in a media landscape awash with anxieties over what should or shouldn’t be printed or broadcast, which is reflected in this segment.
In this first episode, the news segment’s opening title declares that it is ‘brought to you by Oz magazine’. In late 1964, not long before The Mavis Bramston Show first went to air in Sydney, the three editors of the satirical Sydney publication Oz magazine (1963–69) were tried on obscenity charges, found guilty and given six-month prison terms. The content deemed ‘obscene’ included pictures of the three pretending to urinate in a public fountain recently opened by the prime minister. On appeal, the guilty verdicts were overturned.
Two of the three editors, Richard Walsh and Martin Sharp, have writing credits on this and later episodes – the third Oz editor, Richard Neville, also later wrote for the show (see The Mavis Bramston Show – Series 2 Episode 1, 1965). By referencing the magazine, The Mavis Bramston Show tells the audience to expect satire, irreverence and a show that may not toe the line.
It also singles out a second media controversy. Several Four Corners (1961–current) journalists had been suspended by ABC management over their intention to run a story on the hanging of notorious Western Australian serial murderer Eric Edgar Cooke, despite government requests not to run it because the topic was ‘too sensational’. The Mavis Bramston Show appears to revel in its own potential to be sensational and, as a comedy, to get away with things ‘serious journalists’ could not.
Sung every week on The Mavis Bramston Show, the lyrics of ‘Togetherness’ satirically contrast friendship and harmony with rhymes about the controversies of the day. This tactic is employed again later in this episode, when co-host Barry Creyton leads the audience in a singalong of ‘Friends and Neighbours’ complete with subtitles for the audience at home. The song is juxtaposed with images from the century’s wars.
The reference to Prince Charles in this segment concerns the theft and publication of the then student’s essay book by a German newspaper in 1964.
Eric Edgar Cooke’s impact on the public imagination is visible in a number of Australian works. He appears in the mini-series The Shark Net (2003) and may have inspired a fictional serial killer in Tim Winton’s novel Cloudstreet (1991), which is being adapted for television.
