Dexter Dutton and Family

New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 873, 27 April 1956, Page 26

Dexter Dutton and Family

E can choose our friends, but our families are more or less inescapable. In making the best of that situation, Bill Fennell, the Australian authorcomedian, has created his comedy series Life with Dexter about the experiences of a funnier-than-average family, which will be heard from the ZBs on Monday nights, beginning on April 30. Taking a leaf out of the Lyons’ family book, Bill Fennell decided that his own family of wife Joy and daughters Janie, aged 6, and Susan, 8, provided plenty of subject matter for plots and dialogue. Fennell plays the title role of Dexter Dutton himself. He takes two days to write each half-hour episode. Every Thursday morning he roughs out the plot line and spends the rest of the day writing to the half-way mark in the story. He completes the story on the Friday, and makes any

necessary cuts and revisions. Living at home, of course, provides him with a constant source of inspiration, whether it be the over-long siege necessary to rout one of his daughters out of the bathroom or the family’s united objection to the smell of his pipe. Fennell has been writing for radio, on and off, since 1946. At that time he had just transferred from the Army Signal Cerps to a job with the New South Wales Department of Civil Aviation as an air radio operator. He could be said to have the same job today, but in rather a different sense. He had always been keen on. radio as entertainment, and used to go to Sydney’s Stage Door Canteen in wartime, whenever he had leave. One night the regular compere of the show was

sick and Bill was asked to take over, A commercial radio unit was looking for a comic and its producer spotted Bill and liked his work.-Three days later he was doing a comedy solo act in Calling the Stars, the biggest radio show on the air at that time. At the same time he worked six days a week at his aviation job, but when the prospect of a transfer to Townsville, in Northern Queensland, came up, Bill resigned to work for the next six years with the unit as writer-comedian. But for that lucky break, Bill says he could still have been pushing a Morse key today. Life with Dexter is produced by Harry Harper, one of Australia’s most experienced radio directors, with a string of successful features to his credit. His normal directorial assignment is two-hour-long dramatic shows a week, and Life with Dexter he finds a pleasant and relaxing change from the high-ten-sion stuff.

An important member of the Dutton ménage is Margaret Christensen, who plays Dexter’s long-suffering wife, Jessie. Herself the mother of two children; aged 12 and 8, she slips into her part as edsily as putting on a pair of old shoes. Recently she was cast as the mother of "Smiley," when the J. Arthur Rank film of that name was made in Australia. A winner of Australia’s highest radio award, "Peg" Christensen likes her part as Jessie, and it shows in the programme, "Never felt more normal in a part in my life," is her comment. Amber, Mae Cecil, who plays Janie (a name borrowed from one of Bill Fennell’s own daughters), couldn’t help being an actress, Her father is a wellknown radio producer and her mother a former radio actress. Amber Mae is already regarded as one of the outstanding young actresses in the Australian theatre, and has as much work as she can cope with. Ray Hartley plays Dex-

ter’s son Ashleigh, He has been playing juvenile roles since he was 10, but he has also. found time for his hobbies of fishing. and tennis, and the profitable raising of goldfish (he breeds 3000 yearly). Ray has also appeared in many stage shows- White Horse Inn, Rio Rita and Kiss and Tell, but a recent pantomime appearance gave him his strangest part, He played "The Old Man of the Sea."’.