Stormy Was the Weather

Stormy Was the Weather is a 1948 Australian radio play by Ruth Park about James Cook and his voyage to Botany Bay. It was produced again in 1953. The latter was part of the ABC's 21st birthday celebrations.

It was part of a series of historical radio plays by Park set at sea in Australia's past, the others including I'll Meet You in Botany Bay, Early in the Morning and Far from the Land. Leslie Rees later called them: "Eloquent and fine-tempered dossier of studies bearing on our past. They combine the presentation of factual incidents with a keen imaginative perception of character under stress, an ironical feeling for the tears and anguish and disillusionment of persons born to a place in history, an appreciation of pioneering courage balanced by a sense of the failure of life to fulfil its ultimate expectations. These plays have the salt tang of the sea, the roll and pitch of wooden ships breasting through uncharted waters, as well as vivid personal emotions."

Reception
Reviewing the original 1948 production The Age said it "told a most interesting story.It pictured Cook as a rather dourman, whose life was his work. Certain sentimental scenes were thrown In by way of contrast, and, to coun ter the dourness... Rather too much was made of Sutherland's death at Botany Bay. Authors seem to love a death scene better than anything."

The Sydney Daily Telegraph called it "an endurance test... it is hard to guess why most actors who are quite competent in fictitious roles, should suddenly start to talk like officiating bishops when they are called upon to assume the character of a national hero."

Reviewing the 1953 production the Adelaide Advertiser said the piece "rightly belonged to the Schools' Broadcast Department or Features, but not to Radio Repertory... Captain Cook was played as a cross between Horatio Hornblower, Lord Nelson and Gregory Peck... I was not enthralled."

However the Adelaide Mail thought there "was a fine simplicity about it, a lack of histrionics that made the play magnificently real... the subject was handled as well as it could have been."

Premise
According to ABC Weekly "Miss Park builds her play out of the character and earlier achievements of Captain Cook. Cook's life and explorations were important to several countries, but this work rightly concentrates on Cook's discovery of the Australian eastern coast—the great voyage which filled in the broken outline of Australia and finally established the existence of Torres Strait. This is the climactic end of the play. In the foregoing scenes, Miss Park seeks to show us the background and early training which combined to make Cook the man he was, a man closely wedded to the Australian story."

Cast of 1953 Production

 * Nigel Lovell as James Cook
 * Lionel Stevens as Old Man Cook, General Wolfe
 * Queenie Ashton as Mrs. Blunt
 * Marshall Crosby as Mrs. Sanderson
 * Alfred Bristowe as Mr. Walker, Lord Colville
 * Alan Herbert as Old Seaman
 * David Eadie as Sir Hugh Palliser
 * Ron Whelan as Captain Killick, Tupia
 * Gordon Glenwright as Ist Man, Voice
 * David Butler as 2nd Man, Voice, Spruiker
 * Frances Worthington as Elizabeth Cook
 * John Ewart as Isaac Smith, Child
 * Reginald Goldsworthy as Joseph Banks
 * Bruce Stewart as Forby Sutherland