What's a 'Mavis Bramston' anyway?

Today is the 50th anniversary of the screening of the pilot episode of Australia's first TV taste of political satire – The Mavis Bramston Show. Of course, with our irreverent sense of humour, we took to it like ducks to water – it was the first Australian-produced comedy TV series to become a national success, both in terms of number of viewers and critical acclaim.

Mavis Bramston gave Wednesday nights an edge, so much so that Qantas pilots tried to re-arrange their schedules around it, and businesses in the nation's capital of Canberra asked ATN 7 to reschedule it because it clashed with late-night shopping. Apparently it was so 'immoral' that Bishop Thomas Muldoon announced he was selling his shares in Ampol, the sponsor. (I'm so naive, I didn't know that Catholic bishops played the stock market.)

British-born Carol Raye devised the show, produced the pilot episode and co-produced the early episodes with Michael Plant, and her original co-stars were Gordon Chater and Barry Creyton. The Mavis Bramston Show broke new ground on Australian television, emerging from a tradition of satire in print (Oz magazine in particular) and theatre (in this case, Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre and the Phillip Street Revues). Raye was also inspired by the British hit That Was The Week That Was (TWTWTW or TW3) and the American spin-off of the same name.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. Fast forward 50 years from the first episode and the ABC – and its Four Corners program – are still copping criticism from and budget cuts by the current conservative government.

I, for one, want more Mavis. I hear that Carol Raye, now in her 90s, is calling on Kerry Stokes from the Seven Network to release episodes of The Mavis Bramston Show on DVD (most survive and are held in the National Film and Sound Archive).

By the way, apparently Jon Finlayson suggested the name 'because it's an old Melbourne theatre tradition to describe 'an actress who's really daggy or over the top, or up herself' as a 'Mavis Bramston'. So they came up with the idea of having a supposed actress from England star in the show but only make a brief appearance.