Early in the Morning (radio play)

Early in the Morning is a 1946 Australian radio feature by Ruth Park about Abel Tasman.

The play was well received and was produced again in 1947, 1949, 1951, 1953 and 1959.

The play was one of six Australian plays picked by the ABC to commemorate Australia's Jubilee in 1951.

Public response to the play was strong.

The play was one of a series of radio dramas by Park about European exploration of Australia, others being Stormy Was the Weather (on James Cook) and I'll Meet You in Botany Bay on (Governor Phillip). According to Leslie Rees these plays: "Formed an eloquent and fine-tempered reverse sequence bearing on the theme of discovery. They combined the presentation of factual incidents with a keen imaginative perception of character under stress, an ironical feeling for the forlornness, anguish or disillusionment of persons born to a place in history, an appreciation of pioneering courage and achievement set against the failure of private life to fulfil its expectations. These plays had the salt tang of the sea, the roll or pitch of wooden ships breasting through uncharted waters, as well as vivid or bitter personal emotions."

Reception
Reviewing the 1951 production The Age said the play "has a good deal of. strength in the telling, and suggests a certain amount of authenticity as to fact, but it ends unsatisfactorily In that it brands him as a failure after his first voyage for not having discovered the Great South Land." However the critic specified "As a piece of dramatic writing" the play "is well contrived. The dialogue is crisp and there is little confusion in separating the characters."

Reviewing the 1953 production the Adelaide Advertiser called it a "self-conscious attempt to draw a heavily realistic portrait, and that in striving for imaginative accuracy the writer had fallen into the pit of deliberate debunking... It was almost as though we were being asked to forget the great discoverer and to remember the weaknesses of the man."

Premise
"At the dawn of the sixteenth century Abel Tasman set sail from Batavia in his fragile but swift-sailing ship, Zeeliaen. He had been commissioned to And the mysterious continent Terra Australis, the mythical land of fabulous wealth, and claim it for Holland."

Cast of 1947 production

 * Peter Finch as Abel Tasman
 * Hilda Scurr as Sybelia
 * Richard Matthews as Jansen
 * Alfred Bristowe as Bisscher
 * Vivian Edwards as Anthony van Diemen
 * Ben Lewin as Sol Sweers
 * John Brunskill and Frederick Chalkley as Two Men
 * Directed by Frank Harvey

Cast of 1959 production

 * Bruce Beeby as Tasman
 * Frances Worthington as Sybitla
 * Owen Weingott as Narrator
 * Connie Hobbs as Woman
 * Douglas Bladon as Man
 * John Bluthal as Jansen
 * Lionel Stevens as Visscher
 * David Faclie as Van Diemen
 * Phillip ColJedge as Sweers
 * Charles McCallum as Maetsuycker
 * Charles Tasman as Schouten
 * Terry McDermott
 * Directed by Paul O'Loughlin