Frank Gauntlett – June 23 2019

International Year of the Periodic Table – 2019

150 years since Russian chemist Dimitri Mendeleev started the development of the periodic table, arranging chemical elements by atomic mass. Thallium (Tl) is a chemical element with the atomic number 81.

Frank has attempted a variety of jobs with ‘varying degrees of calamity’, according to his australianplays.org bio. Plays produced include Tales of Dark Knitting, Who Slew Reg Smedley?, Vapours, Islands, The Case, Pan, Punch and Judy and Neighbours and an acclaimed adaptation of HG Wells’ The Time Machine. Frank co-wrote Thanks A Meillon!, the biography of Australian acting icon John Meillon, with John’s widow, Bunny Gibson. He has written a short film, At the Edge of the Bed, adapted from de Maupassant’s short story, as well as several full-length screenplays.

2012 King Street Theatre production

Deeming
Australian Script Centre, 2010
120 minutes; 1 female, 2 male
Audience age: young adult – adult
The world breathed a sigh of relief in 1892 when Frederick Bailey Deeming was hanged in Melbourne Gaol from the beam that killed Ned Kelly. Born in the squalor of a British madhouse and without formal education, Deeming juggled scores of identities, including passing himself off as a Lord, and was an utterly ruthless murderer. Thought by some to be Jack the Ripper, his case gripped and appalled the nation and the world. Meanwhile, actor/theatre manager Alfred Dampier came up with the idea of Reality Theatre – a play plundering the Deeming story that would change as the chase and case progressed. His melodrama, Willful Murder!, was a smash hit but as the frantic season progressed and the borders between terrible fact and gruesome fantasy crumbled, an awful possibility emerged linking the appalling urges of Fredrick Bailey Deeming and the colourful characters acting out his life – and all in the name of art.

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Rat Follies
Australian Script Centre, 2008
130 minutes; 8 female, 8 male (doublings are approximate; cast may be smaller than specified)
Cast age: 16-18, 18+; Audience age: young adult – adult
New South Wales – the only state where deadly Thallium-based rat poison can be purchased freely. As told from the deathbed of a relatively minor, and not too trustworthy, cop, Rat Follies is based on the true stories of Balmain footie star, Bobby Lulham, who accidentally drank the suicide draught mixed by his remorse-wracked mother-in-law and lover Veronica Monte; down-to-earth Beryl Hague, driven to desperation by mindless brutality; Yvonne Butler/Fletcher, who lost two entirely unsatisfactory husbands to the popular, cruel but effective rodenticide; and, above all, Darlinghurst’s ‘saintly’ grannie, Mrs Caroline Grills, Aunt Thally, Loony extraordinaire, who sent two step-mothers, a sister and brother-in-law to their reward while striving to murder her sister-in-law and two young friends in nearby Redfern.