The play was adapted for radio on the ABC in 1952.[3] The radio play version was repeated in 1953.[4] It was published in 1952.[5]
A reviewer from the Argus said "With the touch expected of a writer of her stature, Miss Tennant has not made her play a study of the one man and- left the other characters to wallow in obscurity... This play genuinely moved me as I read it. It would be better still to see it competently performed, as, it is to be hoped, it soon will be."[6]
Leslie Rees argued:
Perhaps by intention, the play was effective rather as a series of fresh, rather airy pastel sketches than as a fully-shaped portrait in mature colours. But it hardly avoided the pitfalls of submerging Deakin the man in a mass of complicated politics, even if these were not taken too solemnly. Adapted to radio form, the play made stimulating and pointed listening for those interested in the problem: Is it inevitable that political leadership shall destroy the leader by the very tumult and pressure of the task?[7]
Premise
According to the ABC Weekly the play "gives domestic vignettes of Alfred Deakin
equally with scenes from politics. The setting is Melbourne and parliamentary London.
Its title comes from a pseudo-Chinese proverb used to illustrate a point in a leading article Deakin wrote as a young journalist on the Melbourne Age: “To tether a dragon with a thread of silk,” Miss Tennant uses this simile as the theme of her play, which argues “that democracy needs a special type of man to lead it, and that such a man is nearly always devoured by the democracy he serves. The strain of harnessing the dragon is too much.” So it was with Alfred Deakin, whose retirement from politics was compelled by the decline, apparently through exhaustion, of his memory and great intellectual resources."[8]
Cast of 1953 radio production
Robert Peach as Bajley
Colin Crane as David Syme
John Morgan as George Syme
Michael Duffield as Isaacs, Speaker
George Randall as Edmonds
Grant Taylor as Deakin
Penella Maguire as Eldest Daughter
Robyn Allardice as Second Daughter
Shirley Murphy as Third Daughter
Loma Forbes as Pattie Deakin
Keith Hudson as Narrator
Richard Davies as Balfour
Cyril Gardiner as Devonshire
Williams Lloyd as Chamberlain
David Reid as Barton
Edward Morcom as Kingston
Hudson as Lyne Kenrick
Michael Collins as Forrest
Syd Conabere as Fisher
References
^"Prize play on Deakin". The Courier-mail. No. 4665. Queensland, Australia. 9 November 1951. p. 1. Retrieved 19 July 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
^"Jubilee prize play to be aired by ABC". The Sun. No. 13, 344. New South Wales, Australia. 14 November 1952. p. 12 (Late Final Edition). Retrieved 19 July 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
^"The Week in Wireless". The Age. No. 30, 656. Victoria, Australia. 1 August 1953. p. 16. Retrieved 19 July 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
