As Ye Sow is a 1937 Australian radio serial by Edmund Barclay. It told the story of six generations of Australians in early colonial Australia.
It was "regarded by many critics as the greatest contribution to Australian historical drama."
Premise
The story of an Australian family from 1788 to 1938, beginning with convict woman, Prudence Dent, and the Rum Corps officer, Gilbert Teal.
Background
Barclay had written an earlier saga about an Australian family for radio Love o' Land but that was a one off drama not a serial.
Barclay later said " "I lived with the characters in As Ye Sow for six months prior to writing the story."
He added, "In my heart, I felt that Janet in As Ye Sow deserved a happier ending, but I couldn't let personal feelings interfere... I had dozens of letters protesting -against my treatment of Bluey and Mary... I can only say that it just had to turn 'out' that way."
The series was heavily publicised by the ABC.
The serial ran into September, after which it was followed by another Barclay serial, Into the Light, set in medieval Europe.
Reception
The Bulletin said it "is not, as done, as good a thing as it might be. " However the same magazine later said "the production shines because of its excellent radio technique. To portray character, suggest scenery and limn every situation definitely and unmistakably by sound alone is a difficult job, but it has been accomplished in this case with signal success."
Leslie Rees called it: A pioneer in historical-personal writing for Australian radio... There were faults of sentimentality and strained pattern-making as well as other shortcomings... but the story also had epic progress, characters who could become more real than one’s own circle, and the liveliest interest in the Australian chronicle... It gathered a tremendous following from coast to coast. No one had ever before tried to recreate the whole course of Australia’s history in one dramatic chronicle... Barclay’s success, more particularly in the first dozen episodes, was in projecting a group of characters as real as the members of one’s own family, with side-philosophies humorous and human, and in a confident flow of action. Clement Semmler called it "an early ABC triumph... written by a prolific and usually hack radio writer."
The series was very popular. There was another version in 1941, 1947 and 1951.
In the late 1940s there was discussion the drama would be filmed in Hollywood.
Select episodes
Ep 1 (4 Jan 1937). Seed Time
Ep 2 (11 Jan 1937). Wavering
Ep 3 (18 Jan) Crossing the Rubicon
Ep 4 (25 Jan) Tillage
Ep 5 (1 Feb) The First Australians
Ep 6 (8 Feb) The Golden Fleece
Ep 7 (15 Feb) Governor Bligh
Ep 8 (22 Feb) Over the Mountain
Ep 9 (1 March) Broadacres
Ep 10 (8 March) Gilbert the Second
Ep 11 (15 March) Reap in Joy
Ep 12 (22 March) Harvest Home
Ep 13 (29 March) Evensong
Ep 14 (5 April) The New Era
Ep 15 (12 April) The Gold Rush
Ep 16 (19 April) The Eureka Stockade
Ep 17 (26 April) Ploughshares into Scales
Ep 18 (3 May) Sydney Siders
Ep 19 (10 May) Coming of Age
Ep 20 (17 May) Town and Country
Ep 21 (24 May) Reaping Enquiry
Ep 22 (31 May) Many Waters
Ep 23 (7 June) The Rift
Ep 24 (14 June) Black Wednesday
Ep 25 (21 June) The Last of the Old
Ep 26 (28 June) The Barren Harvest
Ep 27 (5 July) Federation
Ep 28 (12 July) Nearing Today
Ep 29 (19 July) Prelude to War
30 (26 July) Anzac
Ep 31 (2 August) Turn of the Tide
Ep 32 (9 August) The Last of the Teals
Ep 33 (16 August) The Bubble Bursts
Ep 34 (23 August) Prudence and Gilbert
Ep 35 (30 Aug) Big John Intervenes
Ep 36 (6 Sept) The New Crop (last episode)