Some Thoughts on Radio

 

Donal Giltinan, One of Ireland's Greatest Radio Playwrights

Long before the television thirty-minute soap and drama series, radio provided the serial entertainment. In the US there was This is Your FBI, Dragnet, Richard Diamond and Boston Blackie and the across the Irish Sea three was Sexton Blake, Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown. Here in Ireland, the early days of Radio Eireann also saw the creation of the thirty-minute cliffhanger serials. One of the most prolific writers in the genre in Ireland wrote under the pseudonym ‘Cusex’. According to the Evening Echo in 1969,

‘He has some six hundred radio productions to his credit fifteen TV series, including "Duty Bound," which ran to six issues, eight other TV items, ten plays, of which "Goldfish in the Sun," is my favourite; three film scripts and three musicals, "The Golden Years," "The Last Troubadour" and "The Impresario." Now his musical "Phil The Fluter" has opened successfully in the West End.’

 

Yet little is known or written about this renowned Irish playwright. ‘Cusex’ was Cork born Donal Giltinan and wrote under an assumed name early in career as he was a civil servant in the Custom and Excise service. Born in 1908 and he attended Presentation College, Cork. After adapting and writing several radio pantomimes his first radio show was a play titled ‘The Chieftain of Dartry’ broadcast in February 1937. In May of that year is first radio serial was broadcast with the three episodes of ‘Beasts of the Border’. He followed this up the following year with ‘Coup D’état’. The press described the show as,

‘The story of an imaginary European state, the radios service of which is used to avert war and saves the existing regime’.

Having worked on the border with Customs in Monaghan, he used that experience to create a variety show called ‘Castleblayney Calling’ featuring local artists and musicians including the Castleblaney Ceili Band. That evening’s programming ended with a secondary ‘Castleblayney Calling’ where Giltinan hoped to present the famous Scothouse ghost, needless to say, without success.

 

Each year pantomimes adapted by Giltinan were performed across Dublin and Cork including ‘Alladin’ in the Father Mathhew Hall, ‘Cinderella’ in the Gaiety and ‘The House that Sean Built’ in the Opera House in Cork.

 

In July 1939, he created a one-hour long variety show titled ‘Anything Can Happen’. So popular was this radio show that it spawned a twice nightly show at the Olympia Theatre staring and produced by the popular Dublin actor and comedian Noel Purcell. Giltinan also created further variety shows for Radio Eireann including ‘X’ and ‘Bath Night’.

 

In 1940, relayed from his native Cork was ‘The Cusex Half Hour’ which alternated from variety sketch style comedy and comedic plays including ‘The Wings of Ballinatub, the Flight of Fancy’. In January 1942, by popular demand, he was back writing serials for Radio Eireann with the detective serials ‘Ask Sergeant Murphy’. But the relationship between the prolific dramatist and the national broadcaster turned sour when he sued Radio Eireann for £21, he claimed they owned him for writing a seven-part series on the ARP that was broadcast a year earlier. He lost the case and while he would write one more serial for Irish radio, he moved to the UK to pursue his career, now having left the Civil Service.

 

His final and most popular serial for Radio Eireann was ‘Inspector Keen’. Starting in 1948 with ‘Ask Inspector Keen’. The series is based on submissions of murder clues and solutions by listeners; each programme contained two short plays based on two of these submissions; the listeners whose solutions surpassed 'Inspector Keen's' solutions were awarded a prize. In May 1953 came a six-episode cliff hanger serial titled ‘The Prince of Darkness’ featuring the character of 'Inspector Keen', with a plot set in Rio de Janeiro. Then came two 10-part serials broadcast Monday to Friday over two weeks with an omnibus on a Saturday, the first was ‘Inspector Keen and the Power Seekers’ and the final outing was titled ‘The Return of Inspector Keen’.

Between the two Keen incarnations he wrote a ten-part serial for the Irish Press, ‘Searchlight in the City’. Advertised as,

‘No, he wasn't out in 1916 and his father wasn't in the G.P.O.! There was, indeed, some courage in " a handful of men, badly armed, standing up against the military might of ah empire." Donal Giltinan read avidly about the fighting, thrilled to the capture of the rebels! Strange that among the leaders were a Count and Countess! But from his West-British home Dublin might have been across the Atlantic. To him it was as far distant as Tir na n-Og.’

The Last Troubadour was a 1956 radio biography of Percy French broadcast on Radio Eireann starring Chris Curran as French. The programme was the highlight of the station’s Christmas Day schedule. This Giltinan turned into a musical comedy ‘The Golden Years’ and later led to ‘Phil The Fluter’s Ball’ becoming a major hit. A BBC TV version of the play was broadcast in 1957 starring George Baker and Joan Hickson.

 

‘The Light in The Sky’ featured the life of another famous Irishman, Robert Emmet. Dealing with a highly dramatic period in the life of Emmet, the18th Century failed revolutionary, Giltinan asks many questions of history. How aspiring for martyrdom was he? Was he a fair man? Was his judgement clouded by his infatuation with the daughter of John Philpot Curran? Were his efforts to seize Dublin Castle futile, given his small number of followers?

 

He began working for BBC television, his first work was ‘The Gentle Maiden’ starring Joseph Tomelty and Sheila Manahan. First broadcast in February 1953, the play was set in fictional waiting room of a railway station at Cloonana. A month later his play ‘The Goldfish in the Sun’ was broadcast on BBC, once again starring Sheila Manahan. In 1958 he wrote a six-part detective series titled ‘Duty Bound’. That same year he wrote a play ‘The Break’ for ITV.  In 1963 he wrote an episode of the popular TV series Armchair Theatre titled ‘The Snag’. He wrote the 1965 movie screenplay for ‘Dead Man’s Chest’ starring a young John Thaw, later to star in the Sweeney and Inspector Morse. The film plot centred on two cynical young journalists attempt to expose the frailty of circumstantial evidence by planning to fake a murder, but the plan goes wrong.

 

He was married to Frances Harbourne in Baltinglass, Wicklow in 1931 and the couple were living in Sussex. He died suddenly in 1976 in Malaga, Spain. His widow passed away in 2001 aged ninety-nine.

 

Where's Wally on Radio Luxembourg? Ireland is on the Hunt.

 

Recently while I was researching the historical significance of Radio Luxembourg’s broadcasts in the 1950’s on Irish listeners. The Irish public had their radio tuners firmly on Radio Eireann for a quarter of a century but as Radio Luxembourg changed their focus to become a dedicated pop and rock and roll station in the early 1950’s, the Irish youth had found a new listen. As I researched, I found this unusual advert in the ‘personals’ of the Irish Independent on September 8^th 1955,

‘George, please come home on Saturday night and listen to Wally Petersen in ‘By Candleglow’ on Radio Luxembourg at 10pm, Janet.’

It seemed very random, who were George and Janet? In keeping with the era, was this a cold war secret message aimed at spies in Ireland? Where was Wally? Lots of questions with very few answers.

 

The following day, Friday September 9^th, in the Derry Journal in the ‘Personal’ section the same advert appeared. Was it inserted both North and South of the border to ensure that a spy saw it? Meanwhile the following weekend in the Belfast Telegraph personals the following wording,

‘Babs, I heard Wally Petersen on Radio Luxembourg last Saturday at 10pm. He’s great! Don’t miss him next Saturday at 10, 208 metres, Alan.’

One week later, once again in the ‘Personal’ section of the Irish Independent was

‘Ronald, come around and listen to Wally Petersen’s wonderful programme next Saturday from Radio Luxembourg at 10pm, signed Margaret’

 

If this was a spy ring, there were a lot of random people involved. While we complain today about clickbait on social media, and even ads as you swipe left or right on dating apps, these were ads for a radio programme dressed up in personal ads, lending a certain humanity to an invitation to listen. In the 1950s the personal ads section in the newspapers were often used to seek out pen pals or even a bachelor seeking a spinster for the prospect of marriage.

 

There was probably never any Ronald or Babs or George but there was a Wally and he was easily found. Wally Petersen was an American born actor, writer, singer and musician who in 1955 joined the staff at Radio Luxembourg in the Grand Duchy. His show ‘By Candlelight’ aired at 10pm directly as the Irish Requests Show that was hosted then by David Gell. Strangely when the Irish show ended on Luxembourg, the personal ads ended. It appeared to be an expensive way to advertise a show that was only fifteen minutes in length.

 

In a career that began in the 1930s and occupied seven decades, Wally Peterson filled an extraordinary number of roles in the theatre and on radio — actor, singer, musician, writer and stage manager. Born in Boston in 1917, his first broadcast was for a local radio station at the age of 15 when he sang Blue Moon. In the 1930s, he was a member of the famous Barter Theatre in Virginia, a collective created in the depression that paid its company in food received from the audience.

He continued broadcasting on radio until he joined the Army in 1943, and produced a number of variety performances for the USO, showing his versatility by also singing, playing piano, writing songs and sketches and acting. By 1944, he was in Europe presenting shows and displaying a talent for improvisation by draping curtain material over trees and setting up pianos and music stands in clearings.

 

After the war, Peterson auditioned for a role in the London company of Oklahoma, which opened in 1947. He would five years in the show at the Drury Lane Theatre. In 1948 Peterson met the Australian singer and actress, Joy Nichols, who was the female star of the new hit radio programme, Take it From Here on Radio Luxembourg. They married in 1949 and Peterson moved into radio, writing and performing shows for the BBC and Radio Luxembourg, where at the time he was the only American presenter. His show on Luxembourg was a massive hit but television beckoned where initially he worked as a producer of the independent television company Associated Broadcasting but following the success of his wife’s role in the West End’s ‘Pyjama Game’, the Petersen family now with daughter Roberta moved to New York. While working at the commercial Luxembourg, he was presenting a weekend show on the BBC’s Light service ‘Down Memory Lane’ aired at the same time as his weekday Luxembourg show.

 

There was some confusion in the entertainment pages of newspapers and magazines in 1955 as there was another Wally Petersen. According to the BBC obituary to Betty Driver, famous to many viewers as Betty Turpin the landlady of the Rovers Return on Coronation Street,

‘In 1953 Driver married Wally Petersen, a South African singer who had guested on one of her shows, but the union was not a success, Peterson was a serial womaniser and made free with Driver's money. The couple parted in 1960’.