Its heart is in those backstage musicals of the 1930s - all the gossipy theatre types and epigrammatic dialogue - and really should have gone all the way and copied that. But there's too much drama, and the star, Laura Branigan, can sing but can't act.
They could have had her going to appear in a musical - singing all the way through rehearsals and on opening night; the filmmakers could have still hit the points they wanted to make about cultural imperialism. But no, she's in a drama, an English drawing room comedy - and we have to sit through Branigan acting in slabs of it. Then we've got to see her audition for The Seagull and acting in slabs of that. The story would have worked just as well had she appeared in a Broadway musical. The poor girl can't act and they keep foisting her acting upon us. It means the second half is a real chore, while the first half was more watchable.
The dialogue is full of epigrammatic quips you'd routinely find in badly written eps of Australian TV - I remember Arcade was full of them - but at least you hear it from some decent actors. Aitkens' character is the son the best Australian playwright of the 1950s who only really had one hit - so I'm guessing he's Ray Lawler's son! (Or Richard Beynon?) He really is rude to Branigan in the opening press conference. Some critics complained that it wasn't realistic critics could teach someone to act but some theatre critics had been directors, eg Harold Clurman.
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