Out of This Nettle

Out of This Nettle is a 1952 Australian radio play by Max Afford. It is a drama set in the sugar cane region of Queensland.

The play was one of Afford's most acclaimed works.

The Australian setting was relatively rare at the time. Afford researched it in on a trip to northern Queensland.

The ABC produced the play twice in 1952, in Sydney (on January 26) and Melbourne (on May 26). The Sydney production was directed by Frank Harvey, one of the last radio plays he directed before his retirement. The Melbourne production was directed by John Cairns.

A critic from The Age, reviewing the January production, said Afford was "one of the few playwrights in Australia who have any idea of what drama ought to be" and the play "had possibilities rather offset by too much dissertation on sugar, farming and the dragging in of taipans and pythons. It was the old Australian habit of insisting on Australia to the detriment of all else."

A critic from the same paper listened to another production of the play in May and liked it more saying "There is undoubtedly much good writing in it and a sense of theatre, which is almost completely lacking in most of our aspiring playwrights."

Leslie Rees said "Terse, vivid dialogue and economical shaping of plot are the play’s main merits."

A copy of the script is at the University of Queensland's Fryer Library.

Premise
According to ABC Weekly "Afford's drama is played against a background of the prosperous sugarcane belt between Mackay and Cairns, in Northern Queensland. David Noble, son of a wealthy Australian cane farmer, returns from abroad bringing with him his English wife, Vinnie. David has told Vinnie of the comfort and luxury of his  father’s creeper-covered home set in the wide canefields, but from the moment Vinnie sets foot in the house and encounters Ann Berriman, the capable, matter-of-fact daughter of the neighbouring farm, she realises the bitter, latent antagonism which permeates the old house.  David’s father deliberately contrives a situation to test the young couple’s endurance to the utmost. How they face up to this trial forms the basis for a drama of conflict between human frailty and the relentless natural forces of the land."

Cast of Sydney production

 * Brenda Dunrich as Vinnie

Cast of Melbourne production

 * Robert Peach as David Noble
 * Mary Disney as Vinnie Noble
 * Ruby May
 * Margaret Mouchemore
 * Kenrick Hudson