Captain Swift (play)

Captain Swift is a 1888 stage play by Australian author C. Haddon Chambers. It was turned into a 1920 film Captain Swift and adapted for radio. The play was one of the first plays by an Australian with Australian characters to achieve success overseas.[1]

Captain Swift
Written byC. Haddon Chambers
Characters
  • Mr Seabrook
  • Harry Seabrook (his son)
  • George Gardner (from Queensland)
  • Mr Wilding/Captain Swift
  • Marshall (Seabrook's butler)
  • Bates (Seabrook's footman)
  • Ryan (a Queensland detective)
  • Mrs Seabrook
  • Mabel Seabrook (her daughter)
  • Stella Darbisher (her niece)
  • Lady Salunton (her sister)
Date premiered20 June 1888
Place premieredLondon
Original languageEnglish
Genredrama

According to Chambers' biography "The only Chambers play with significant Australian colour, it is chiefly remembered for the phrase 'The long arm of coincidence has reached after me'. "[2]

Historian Roger Neill wrote about the play, "At one level, it is a conventional drawing-room melodrama. At another, the arrival of the Australian bushranger is used by Chambers to puncture the narrow assumptions of polite English society at that time."[3]

Production History

The play was written over four months as a vehicle for Herbert Beerbohm Tree.[4]

It made its debut in London in 1888 and was very successful.[5] According to one writer, "the strength of the drama, the dexterity of the construction, the freshness of the treatment and the marked excellence of the dialogue won the enthusiastic approval of the audience, and moved the critics to exhaust their stock of superlatives."[6]

The play was produced in New York starring Maurice Barrymore.

It was presented in Sydney in 1889.[7]

The play was produced in Melbourne in 1924.[8]

One critic called it "a stilted bit of dramatic rubbish."[9]

Premise

An Australian outlaw, Captain Swift, manages ecapes to England where he lives under an assumed name, Wilding, and becomes a fixture in London's high society. He meets Gardiner, a wealthy squatter who was once held up by Swift, and a detective, Ryan, who has come to London to arrest the bushranger.

Stella Seabrook falls in love with Wilding. Her aunt, Mrs Seabrook, turns out to be the mother of the baby who became Swif/Widling. The butler, Marshall, recognises Wilding and betrays him to Ryan. Wilding commits suicide.

Film Adaptations

The play was turned into film versions in 1914 and 1920.

For the 1920 version see Captain Swift.

1932 Radio Adaptation
Wireless Weekly 18 Nov 1932

The play was adapted for radio by the ABC in 1932. It was one of the first plays dramatised by the ABC.[10]

The production was adapted and produced by George D Parker and was popular enough to be repeated.[11]

1950 and 1953 Radio Adaptations

The play was adapted for radio again by the ABC in April 1950, with a one-hour script adapted by Edmund Barclay.[12]

The ABC recorded it again in 1953.[13]

References
  1. "Australia's Forgotten Dramatist", The bulletin., John Ryan Comic Collection (Specific issues)., Sydney, N.S.W: John Haynes and J.F. Archibald (Vol. 78 No. 4039 (10 July 1957)), 1880, ISSN 0007-4039, nla.obj-697215696, retrieved 17 October 2023 – via Trove
  2. B. G. Andrews, 'Chambers, Charles Haddon (1860–1921)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/chambers-charles-haddon-5547/text9455, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 17 October 2023.
  3. Neil, Roger (1 July 2008). "Haddon Chambers and the Long Arm of Neglect". Quadrant.
  4. "ROMANTIC CAREER OF THE LATE HADDON CHAMBERS.", Everyones., Sydney: Everyones Ltd, 2 (70), 6 July 1921 [1920], nla.obj-561087166, retrieved 17 October 2023 – via Trove
  5. "CAPTAIN SWIFT". The Lorgnette. Vol. XLIX. Victoria, Australia. 13 September 1888. p. 4 (Edition 1). Retrieved 17 October 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. Hill, Graham (2 September 2021). "Charles Haddon Chambers: The Australian who became a successful English dramatist". Theatre Heritage.
  7. "AMUSEMENTS. THEATRE ROYAL.—"CAPTAIN SWIFT."". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 15, 884. New South Wales, Australia. 18 February 1889. p. 6. Retrieved 17 October 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  8. ""CAPTAIN SWIFT."". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 27, 030. New South Wales, Australia. 22 August 1924. p. 10. Retrieved 17 October 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  9. Australian Broadcasting Commission. (1939), "THE LITTLE THEATRE IN AUSTRALIA A Few Plays by Australians", ABC weekly, Sydney: ABC (Vol. 12 No. 18 (6 May 1950)), nla.obj-1692550201, retrieved 17 October 2023 – via Trove
  10. Australasian Radio Relay League., "REVIEWiNG THE COMMISSIO N'S FIRST SIX MONTHS Full Text of the Report by the Chairman of the A.B.C. CHARLES LLOYD JONES", The wireless weekly : the hundred per cent Australian radio journal, Sydney: Wireless Press (Vol. 21 No. 9 (3 March 1933)), nla.obj-713682937, retrieved 17 October 2023 – via Trove
  11. Australasian Radio Relay League., The wireless weekly : the hundred per cent Australian radio journal, Sydney: Wireless Press, nla.obj-697622291, retrieved 17 October 2023 – via Trove
  12. Australian Broadcasting Commission. (1939), "THE WEEK'S PLAYS OVER THE A.B.C.", ABC weekly, Sydney: ABC (Vol. 12 No. 15 (15 April 1950)), nla.obj-1692525214, retrieved 17 October 2023 – via Trove
  13. Australian Broadcasting Commission. (1939), "RADIO PLAYS for NEXT WEEK A.B.C.", ABC weekly, Sydney: ABC (Vol. 15 No. 47 (21 November 1953)), nla.obj-1549844618, retrieved 17 October 2023 – via Trove
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