Wings_Over_Westralia

<i>Wings Over Westralia</i>

Wings Over Westralia

1936 radio play

Wings Over Westralia is a 1936 British radio play by New Zealand author Gordon Ireland about the flight of Hans Bertram in 1932. The play was hugely popular and aired on the BBC and in Germany, the US, New Zealand, Holland and Czechoslovakia.[1][2] It was called "one of the most successful radio plays ever written".[3]

Quick Facts Genre, Country of origin ...

The play was broadcast throughout Australia in 1936.[4] It was produced again in 1954.[5]

Reviewing a 1954 production The Age said "it was more in the nature of a documentary with trimmings, these being a series of scenes depicting the struggles of the two airmen to keep alive. They were over written and overacted to the extent of making them probably a hundred times more sensational than they really were. Such harrowing scenes— harrowing only if they have any resemblance to reality, which these had not— have nothing to do with written dramatic art. They are neither edifying, entertaining nor provocative : of emotion unless the listener is one' of those persons who take delight in witnessing human beings dying in. extremis and suffering the pangs of hell."[6]

Premise

"Beginning with the setting out in 1932 of the two young German aviators, Bertram and Klausman, from Koepang.'in the Junker seaplane "Atlantis," the thrilling narrative follows faithfully their 48 days of suffering, misadventure, and apparently hopeless abandonment in Australian bush."[7]

References

  1. [1]
    Australian Broadcasting Commission. (8 September 1945), "Creator of 800 Radio Sessions, Gordon Ireland has had plays broadcast in London, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and New York.", ABC Weekly, nla.obj-1401664068, retrieved 23 January 2024 – via Trove
  2. [2]
    "Australian radio plays". The Canberra Times. 14 August 1939. p. 2. Retrieved 23 January 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. [3]
    "Gordon Ireland Has Recorded". Weekly Times. No. 3783. Victoria, Australia. 20 December 1941. p. 26. Retrieved 23 January 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. [4]
    "From novice to radio star". The Herald. 25 April 1936. p. 39. Retrieved 23 January 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. [5]
    Australian Broadcasting Commission. (8 May 1954), "Radio plays for next week", ABC Weekly, nla.obj-1677634603, retrieved 23 January 2024 – via Trove
  6. [6]
    "The week in wireless". The Age. 15 May 1954. p. 16. Retrieved 23 January 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
  7. [7]
    "On the air". The Daily Telegraph. New South Wales, Australia. 11 May 1936. p. 8. Retrieved 23 January 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
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