Half an Hour with Robert Helpmann


Half an Hour with Robert Helpmann is a 1964 Australian television program featuring Robert Helpmann. Helpmann was in Australia for the Adelaide Arts Festival at the time and the program was devised to illustrate his versatility.
According to Filmink "in under thirty minutes, its star tries to do pretty much everything in the showbiz handbook: Shakespeare, pop songs, ballet, crime drama. You know how in the sitcom Will and Grace the character Jack had a one-man show he was always talking about, Just Jack? Half an Hour with Robert Helpmann is a little like that."
Over half an hour Helpmann does a variety of solo acts including:
  • singing a ballad
  • performing the role of Oberon and Hamlet
  • dancing a solo
  • singing the song "Surfer Doll"
  • re enacting his appearance in Box for One.
It was shot at the ABC's studios in Melbourne. A copy of the production is at the National Film and Sound Archive.
Later that year the ABC did a half hour documentary on Helpmann for The Lively Arts.

Reception

Filmink wrote "it’s all fascinating and enormously fun... The performance of “Surfer Girl” is bizarre, certainly, but that’s because of our notions of ageism in pop music... The lighting and photography are beautiful. Sterling could sometimes show off too much in his directing, but here, he serves the material very well."