The Big Client

The Big Client is a 1961 Australian television play. It was directed by James Upshaw. It screened "live" on the ABC on 19 July 1961 and was recorded in Sydney Australian TV drama was relatively rare at the time.

Plot

In London, Henderson is an American millionaire launching a brand of tranquillisers. Fred Cooper, head of a London advertising firm JCB, tries to get Henderson to sign with them. Fred is ruthless, more so than three directors of JCB, Sam Bloomberg, Philip Comely and Peter Jones.

Cast

James Condon as Henderson
Barry Linehan as Fred Cooper
Alastair Duncan as Dave Mason
Ric Hutton as Peter Jones
Noel Brophy as Sam Bloomberg
Deryck Barnes as Philip Comely
Keith Buckley as Geoff Manning
Coralie Neville as Greta Heffner
Pamela Page as Jennifer King
Diana Perryman as Eleanor Comely

Production

The play by British writers Eric Paice and Malcolm Hulke had been filmed on British TV in 1959 directed by Ted Kotcheff. Geoffrey Wedlock did the sets.

Reception

The TV critic from the Sydney Morning Herald thought an advertising executive would have been hard put to clarify the curious dramatic direction—embracing shifts of meaning and emphasis" in the play, adding "it was a fault of the play_, not, generally speaking, of the actors or of James Upshaw's compact though not very imaginative production."