Stormy Petrel (radio serial)

Stormy Petrel is a 1948 Australian radio serial about the career of William Bligh by Rex Rienits. It aired Mondays to Thursdays at 6.40pm on the ABC.

It was very popular and was produced again in 1953 and 1959.

Rienits sold it to the BBC.

It was adapted into a 1960 mini-series and a novel.

Background
Rex Rienits was a writer who wrote a number of scripts set in Australia's past. Rienits said he believed Bligh "was a great man."

He later said that Bligh had "been grossly maligned" and "that Hollywood did a terrible thing in representing him, in the person of Mr. Laughton, as a cruel and brutal despot... However, Bligh undoubtedly had a quick and blustering temper, and it was this temper, rather than any deep-seated viciousness that got him into trouble, both on the 'Bounty' and as Governor of New South Wales".

The story of Bligh was told through the eyes of his wife Elizabeth, then John Hallet, then his daughter Mary. It went for seventy episodes.