Article: The Sydney Morning Herald, April 16th, 2007

Curtin Raiser

Sacha Molitorisz

In a new ABC period drama heavy with pipes, spectacles and fob chains, William McInnes plays Prime Minister John Curtin. "Someone asked how it's going," McInnes says during filming. "I said, 'Oh, all right.' To which they said, 'He's the one that drowned, isn't he?' I said, 'Yeah, he's the one that drowned. He got hit by a submarine crossing the street."'

In fact, Curtin was the one who saw Australia through World War II. The family man from Perth, the rousing orator who battled alcoholism, ill health and self-doubt to face up to both Winston Churchill and the threat of a Japanese invasion.

"I can't think of a more profound story about a more complex character in a more complex time in our history," producer Richard Keddie says. "There's nothing so big, not even Whitlam. And this is pivotal to who we are."

It's winter 2006 and McInnes is halfway through the telemovie's 22-day shoot. It's a big job, given the author and actor is in just about every scene, but right now he's taking a break. Later he's scheduled to shoot scenes set in the corridors and offices of Old Parliament House, alongside Geoff Morrell, (who plays Ben Chifley), Dan Wyllie (Curtin's press secretary), Asher Keddie (his daughter) and Noni Hazlehurst (his wife).

Wearing a three-piece suit and a prosthetic lazy eye, McInnes cuts an imposing figure, even as he slouches into a couch, kicks off his elegant shoes and puts his feet on the coffee table. "No, Curtin wasn't the guy who got hit by a submarine," he continues. "He was the guy who took Australia away from England and looked to America.

"Of course, today a young person would say, 'Is that a good thing?' But it was a seismic shift in the way Australians related to themselves and what they were. Here you see a guy riddled with all sorts of weaknesses who forced Australia to make decisions, to control whatever amount of their destiny they could. And I think that's very important. Not many people have done that."
And not many people have made dramas about this crucial time in Australian history. It seems a lot of Aussies know very little about their country's past. As Hazlehurst says, most of us probably know more about English history. Similarly, Aussie television is more likely to feature a BBC costume drama than a historical drama set at home. That's one factor that inspired Keddie and Andrew Wiseman, whose credits include After the Deluge and My Brother Jack, to produce Curtin.

"I think there's a general reticence with Australian storytellers, especially in film and television, to grapple with stories about Australian leaders, whether military or political," Wiseman says. "And this is a largely untold story about an extraordinarily dramatic period in Australia's history."

Written by former news reporter Alison Nisselle, who has turned in scripts for The Sullivans, Prisoner and Blue Heelers, Curtin begins in October 1941 with the lanky West Australian as leader of the federal Labor Opposition and Robert Menzies the PM. After Menzies fluffs the top job, Curtin gets his chance, despite his own suspicions that he isn't up to it. "I was never meant to be a warlord," Curtin sighs in one scene. "Fate has just pushed war on me. And all the hard things war is become part of a man who has war to deal with."

What follows, as Wiseman says, is a baptism of fire over six months until early 1942. Pearl Harbor. The fall of Singapore. The bombing of Darwin. A battle of wills with British PM Winston Churchill over the deployment of Australian troops.

"This is a nice piece," Morrell says. "The writing doesn't get in the way of the story. And there's an interesting parallel to present-day politics. At that time we really were just the providers of fodder for the protection of the Empire. To have a prime minister who stood up to these foreign leaders and who genuinely had the interests of the people at heart, that really does bring into perspective some of the stuff going on today."

Morell is a student of history. In fact, he has a history degree. Even so, he says he doesn't know nearly as much as he should about Australia's past, which is why he's been reading up on his character, Chifley, who became PM after Curtin's death in 1945.

"We assume those on the left of politics are all fairly radical," Morrell says. "But Chifley was really quite conservative. He was a really boring speaker - like an accountant. He would present all this stuff in a dull monotone. And he didn't enjoy the trappings of being a famous politician. He would never wear a dinner suit, he would always drive his own car and he still lived at Bathurst in a modest home."

McInnes is a history fan, too. "I especially like Australian history, and that's a particularly attractive era. With Menzies, Chifley, Curtin, Downer, Spender, Fadden - you had about 10 guys with terrific leadership stock. These guys didn't change their minds according to which way the wind was blowing. These guys led, whereas it's litmus government these days."

Curtin was filmed in the ABC's Melbourne studios. It's where MDA was filmed before the plug was pulled, and since then not much has been filmed here. I'd like to call this studio the hotbed of ABC drama but lately it has been as cold as a corpse. At the ABC and elsewhere, these are not boom times for Aussie drama. Austerity measures are in place.

"We have to be careful saying that this is the worst downturn ever," Wiseman says. "I've heard that comment a number of times over the past 20 years. I don't think it's ever easy and sometimes there is more drama being made than now. It's always fairly tough but things get made. It's a question of persistence and a chunk of luck."

If the budget for Curtin is tight (as I'm told it is), the set doesn't show it. Curtin's office from Old Parliament House has been painstakingly recreated. There are old fans, bookshelves lined with law books, large clocks. "You feel as though you could run the country out of here," Wiseman says.

The fantastic set is the perfect complement to a solid script and talented actors. Still, it's a shame to stop Curtin's story in 1942, when there was so much still to come. Moreover, the constraints of a 90-minute script mean that important details are ignored. The White Australia Policy, for instance, which McInnes describes as one of the great contradictions of the Labor Party. It's a shame Curtin isn't a series.

"We don't claim to be telling everything about this man's life," Wiseman says. "And our goal from the outset has been to be as authentic as possible. If we diverted from the literal truth at any point, we hope it's at points where it in no way upsets the history. But hopefully we will awaken in people an interest in that period of history."