The House on the Corner

The House on the Corner is an early Australian television program which aired from 1957 to 1958. A 10-minute segment on Sydney station ATN-7, it was a drama about a family, and was produced by the Christian Television Association. Cast included Harry Howlett (who also wrote it), his wife also played a role, as well as Rosemary Barker and Annette Andre.^[1]

The series aired live, with the cast consisting mainly of amateurs drawn from church drama clubs.^[2] It is not known if any of the episodes were kinescoped (note: kinescope recording was an early method of recording live television, used in the days before video-tape was widely available).

It was probably the first attempt at a dramatic TV series produced for Australian television, though not the first dramatic TV series produced in that country (overseas-financed children's series The Adventures of Long John Silver was the first in that regard, and pre-dated the introduction of television to Australia) Australian TV drama was relatively rare at the time.^[3]

ATN next attempted drama with the series with Autumn Affair, a soap opera, and the well-received monthly anthology series Shell Presents (sharing production with GTV-9, which alternated in producing episodes). Other 1950s-era attempts at local television drama included twice-monthly one-off plays on ABC, and the short-lived GTV-produced hospital series Emergency.