Sunstruck

Rangy denim-wearing blonde female lead Maggie Fitzgibbon (who recently died aged 91) will be remembered by older Brits as Vivienne Cooper in the sixties TV series 'The Newcomers'.

Here the positions are reversed as it's 'Welsh pom' Harry Secombe who's the stranger in town in yet another film set Down Under that mentions the heat but neither the aborigines nor the enormous spiders.

One of.those films that makes you.suspect that life might be worth living.We need a lot more of them especially at times like this! Why did Maggie Fitzgibbon retire so early?

A real gem of a movie starring Sir Harry Secombe as Stanley Evans, a Welsh choir master emigrating to Australia to escape his past in Wales to teach kids in the Australian outback. In real life Secombe was himself a Welsh-born tenor, and his dual talent for music and comedy is perfectly suited to this role. It's a shame it was to be the former Goon's final movie, besides later television roles in the UK. Ironically, Secombe concentrated on his singing and television presenting career later in his career and didn't exploit his huge comedy potential for the last few decades of his life. For this reason, "Sunstruck" is a sad reminder of what could have been.

A very popular family comedy of 1972 sees The "They're A Weird Mob" formula apply again with pretty good results. Primarily a farce about tubby British schoolteacher Harry Secombe immigrating to Oz for Sun and fun but being marooned in the blazing outback instead, it also may have been a positive local conservative establishment response to the bitter and cruel Ted Kotcheff masterpiece OUTBACK or maybe the superb but bleak Nicholas Roeg drama WALKABOUT each produced in the 2 years before SUNSTRUCK. The poster for SUNSTRUCK had the hilarious shot of Secombe in his swimming briefs, on a beach also wearing a graduation cape and mortar board toasting his own delight at 'being in Australia'. The film is very funny and was a big hit for a month or so in 1972 with school holiday audiences. Also a charming and rewarding opportunity to see ex goon Harry in a showcase all to his wonderful self.

As a member of the Choir from Wales who sang on the film in Welsh and Australian I would like to say how naturally funny Harry was. He kept everyone laughing and was a pleasure to be with. The film was a family film which did not get the coverage it deserved outside Australia. The fact that part of the film was filmed in a school in Wales was not included in many summaries is an oversight. However, the concept was sound and reflected the fact that many Welsh people became teachers to escape the Valleys. These welsh teachers travelled throughout the world and carried the love of music outside the welsh valleys. The Humour of Harry and the goons is timeless and builds upon the English pun and cleverness with language. Harry and the goons explored the use of many bizarre characters but unusually in this film he played a straight part which showed he was a very capable actor as well.