Daily at Dawn

Daily at Dawn
Series title card
GenreSitcom
Written by
Directed byKevin Burston
Starring
ComposerMike Perjanik
Country of originAustralia
Original languageEnglish
No. of series1
No. of episodes13
Production
Producers
Production locationsSydney, Australia
Camera setupMulti-camera
Running time30 minutes
Production companyRS Productions
Original release
NetworkSeven Network
Release1 February (1981-02-01) –
28 April 1981 (1981-04-28)

Daily at Dawn is an Australian sitcom that was first broadcast in 1981 on the Seven Network. The series was written and produced by Gary Reilly and Tony Sattler, who were also writers of popular Australian comedy series The Naked Vicar Show and Kingswood Country.

Synopsis

The series was set in the office of a metropolitan morning newspaper called The Sun, and followed the lives of the journalists who worked there.[1][2]

Cast

Production

Development

Writer Tony Sattler claimed that the series "grew out of the contact [he and writing partner Gary Reilly] had with journalists, and the characters are based on facets of journos we've met".[1] The series was created at the same time as Reilly and Sattler were writing and producing Kingswood Country (1980–1984).[1][3][4] Reilly and Sattler wrote one script per show each week, while also producing and edited them.[4] Julieanne Newbould believed that the series was negatively affected as a result, claiming that "that sort of thing shows up in the finished product".[3] She stated that "the next series [...] will be a great improvement" as it "will have their full attention".[3] Little was revealed about the series before its launch.[5] For research, the writers studied the John Fairfax and Sons office in Broadway, Sydney.[6]

Each episode was recorded twice before a live studio audience. The two recordings were then edited into one recording, using the best audience reaction from each recording.[1][7]

Casting

Paul Chubb, who portrays Russell Ducke in the series, had originally approached writers Reilly and Sattler for a writing job on the series; the writers remembered he also had acting experience and cast Chubb in the role.[1][2] Reilly and Sattler had seen Theo Stephens in a commercial.[1] The writers did not initially consider Julieanne Newbould for a comedy role; she was cast after Noeline Brown, Sattler's wife, who portrays Phil Maguire, recommended her.[1] Brown was offered the role of Maguire by Reilly.[8] Terry Bader was cast as Leslie Windrush, the first regular gay character to be featured in an Australian comedy series.[9]

Episodes

No.Title [10]Directed byWritten byOriginal release date
1"Whatever Happened to Glad's Dredgly?"Kevin BurstonGary Reilly and Tony Sattler1981 (1981)
2"The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming"Kevin BurstonGary Reilly and Tony Sattler1981 (1981)
3"Where There's Smoke There's Duckie"Kevin BurstonGary Reilly and Tony Sattler1981 (1981)
4"My Favourite Nightmares"Kevin BurstonGary Reilly and Tony Sattler1981 (1981)
5"Up the Famous Creek Without a Cyclone"Kevin BurstonGary Reilly and Tony Sattler1981 (1981)
6"Robert Mitchum Meets the Queen"Kevin BurstonGary Reilly and Tony Sattler1981 (1981)
7"Days of Wine and Tuckerbox"Kevin BurstonGary Reilly and Tony Sattler1981 (1981)
8"Never Look a Gift Snake in the Mouth"Kevin BurstonGary Reilly and Tony Sattler1981 (1981)
9"Tax Free Prophet"Kevin BurstonGary Reilly and Tony Sattler1981 (1981)
10"It's My Party and I'll Flake If I Want to"Kevin BurstonGary Reilly and Tony Sattler1981 (1981)
11"The Spy Who Came Into the Sun"Kevin BurstonGary Reilly and Tony Sattler1981 (1981)
12"A Grave Party"Kevin BurstonGary Reilly and Tony Sattler1981 (1981)
13"Guess Whose Son's in a Whirlpool"Kevin BurstonGary Reilly and Tony Sattler1981 (1981)

Broadcast

The series premiered on 1 February 1981 at 8:00 pm on ATN 7.[11] Before the first series had aired in 1981, a second series of thirteen episodes was ordered for later in the year.[1][8] However, by June 1981, the second series had been cancelled.[12] In April 1982, it was rumoured that the series would be revived, however, Sattler denied these claims.[13]

In February 1981, the series was proposed for screening in Canberra, but was rejected by the CTC-TV station.[6] In 1987, the series was repeated in Brisbane on BTQ-7.[14]

Reception

The series received criticism from Sydney journalists and Australian scriptwriters, who claimed the show to be of a poor standard compared to Reilly and Sattler's earlier television series, The Naked Vicar Show (1977–1978).[15] The series was described as being "played with the familiar Reilly/Sattler fever-pitch, comic pace".[8] Paul Chubb's portrayal of Russell Ducke was highly praised, described as being "one of the best things" about the series,[8] and as the show's "one saving grace".[2]

Ian Rolph, writing for The Australian Women's Weekly, described the series as "drivel", stating that it contained "all the humour of an In Memoriam section".[2] Rolph was critical of the Sydney newspaper The Sun's involvement with the series (the show's characters worked for a fictional newspaper also called The Sun), noting the large amount of ads promoting The Sun and its sister paper The Sydney Morning Herald, as well as Channel 7 Sydney's connections to the paper, stating that "it beats me why any newspaper would want to be associated with this mirthless muck-heap".[2] Similarly, Cal Cullen, writing for the same magazine, called the series "dreadful" and "a disastrous attempt at TV comedy"; however, he praised the show's casting.[16] Television writer Albert Moran, in Moran's Guide to Australian TV Series (1993), wrote that the series, in contrast to the writers's earlier sitcom Kingswood Country, "had too many characters who were not sufficiently distinguished as types from each other, and too many normal types".[17]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Murphy, Jim (11 March 1981). "Dawn of a Comedy Era". The Australian Women's Weekly. p. 52. Retrieved 22 March 2025 – via Trove.
  2. ^ a b c d e Rolph, Ian (25 February 1981). "Ink-Slingers Strike Again". The Australian Women's Weekly. p. 39. Retrieved 22 March 2025 – via Trove.
  3. ^ a b c Adams, Clay (11 February 1981). "Change of Image, Dawns of Julie". The Australian Women's Weekly. p. 18. Retrieved 22 March 2025 – via Trove.
  4. ^ a b Lever, Susan (2020). Creating Australian Television Drama: A Screenwriting History. North Melbourne, Victoria: Australian Scholarly Publishing. ISBN 978-1-925984-88-0.
  5. ^ Hamilton, Gay (20 August 1980). "The Insider". The Australian Women's Weekly. p. 29. Retrieved 22 March 2025 – via Trove.
  6. ^ a b Morris, Joan (22 February 1981). "CTC-TV Survey of Viewers Ready for Analysis Soon". The Canberra Times. p. 15. Retrieved 22 February 2025 – via Trove.
  7. ^ Smith, Pete (25 March 1981). "Pete Smith". The Australian Women's Weekly. p. 40. Retrieved 22 March 2025 – via Trove.
  8. ^ a b c d Flynn, Greg (11 February 1981). "Noeline Brown - Back in Business for Daily at Dawn". The Australian Women's Weekly. p. 6. Retrieved 22 March 2025 – via Trove.
  9. ^ Howes, Keith (February 1998). "Gays of Our Lives". Outrage (177): 38–49.
  10. ^ "Daily at Dawn (Television)". National Film and Sound Archive. Retrieved 31 March 2025.
  11. ^ "Movie Guide". The Australian Women's Weekly. 4 February 1981. p. 25. Retrieved 22 March 2025 – via Trove.
  12. ^ Dudding, Howard (10 June 1981). "End of the Road for Kingswood?". The Australian Women's Weekly. p. 109. Retrieved 22 March 2025 – via Trove.
  13. ^ Adams, Clay (28 April 1982). "Noeline Brown: 'You Can't Be Funny All the Time'". The Australian Women's Weekly. p. 39. Retrieved 22 March 2025 – via Trove.
  14. ^ "Daily at Dawn S1E11 - The Spy Who Came Into The Sun (Channel Seven, 1981)". Internet Archive. 7 September 2018. Retrieved 31 March 2025.
  15. ^ Dudding, Howard (4 March 1981). "Writer Defends Daily". The Australian Women's Weekly. p. 18. Retrieved 22 March 2025 – via Trove.
  16. ^ Cullen, Cal (4 February 1981). "Culled Out!". The Australian Women's Weekly. p. 41. Retrieved 22 March 2025 – via Trove.
  17. ^ "Daily at Dawn". AustLit. 1 December 2011. Retrieved 27 April 2024.
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