Consulting Room

Consulting Room is a 1948 Australian radio play by Max Afford. It was very popular, was published in book form (unlike most plays from this period) and was performed overseas.

Consulting Room

ABC Weekly 22 May 1948
Genre	drama
Running time	60 mins[1] (9:00 pm – 10:00 pm)
Country of origin	Australia
Language(s)	English
Home station	ABC
Written by	Max Afford
Original release	5 June 1948

It was produced again in 1949, 1950,^[2] 1951^[3] and 1957.^[4]

The Brisbane Sundal Mail said the play "dropped its tail in the final act, but could stand repetition. Locale midway between life and death; characters, the unborn, the living, and the dead; moral — boosting the birthrate."^[5]

A version of the play was performed at a reading at Sydney's Independent Theatre in 1950.^[6]

Premise

A young married couple, Clem and Carla Lascelles, visit a medical specialist, Sir Ernest Brown. Carla is terminally ill. They meet a woman, Miss Edwards, whose fiancée was killed in World War One and who sacrificed herself saving a little boy in front of a train, and realise they might be dead themselves. Clem and Carla remember they were to kill themselves in a mutual suicide pact by drowning. However Miss Edwards is allowed to return to life. Carla is to die but Clem can return. Miss Edwards gives up her place to Clara so she can have a baby in the last twelve months of her life. Edwards is reunited with her fiancée in death.

Cast of 1957 Production

• Richard Davies as Clem Lascelles
• Marie Clarke as Carla Lascelles
• Lyndall Barbour as Miss Edwards
• Kevin Brennan as Sir Ernest Brown
• Audrey Teesdale as Nurse
• Bruce Beeby as David Farrell
• Keith Buckley as Doctor, Voice (Major Perkins)