★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Wilkins The Adventurer. Goodwood Theatre. 25 Feb 2023
Sir George Hubert Wilkins is without doubt Australia’s greatest adventurist and explorer. And you never heard of him, right? He was a pioneer of air and sea exploration, a keen recorder of scientific data and way ahead of his time on global meteorology, and as the documentary title suggests, a film and still photographer, particularly of the polar icescapes, Aborigines and Innuits, and the Western Front. These photos form an enchanting and valuable record of times long gone. Like Forrest Gump, he seemed to be at the right place at the right time for great events. Wilkins was on the 1921/22 Shackleton-Rowett Expedition to the Southern Ocean on which Shackleton died, and he photographed King George V knighting Sir John Monash on the battlefield. Monash said of him, “[Wilkins] was a highly accomplished and absolutely fearless combat photographer. What happened to him is a story of epic proportions. Wounded many times ... he always came through. At times he brought in the wounded, at other times he supplied vital intelligence of enemy activity he observed. At one point he even rallied troops as a combat officer ... His record was unique." More often, he was creating the great events with many world firsts. And he was born near Hallett in 1888, the last of 13 children, on a property on the wrong side of the Goyder Line. His birth house is still there, ready to visit, thanks to its restoration by admirer and fellow aviator, Dick Smith.
Adelaide’s Peter Maddern is a Wilkins tragic - as many people familiar with his story are - and he lovingly spent two-and-a-half years researching and creating this documentary comprising images of Wilkins in action but mostly of Wilkins pointing the camera. He takes us chronologically and faithfully along on Wilkins’s adventures in chapter-like sequences: the Balkan war, Canadian Arctic expeditions, the Western Front (in which he was wounded), post-war Gallipoli, the 1919 England to Australia Air race (in which he crashed), Shackleton’s last voyage, and Stalinist starvation in 1922. A 1923/25 survey for the British Museum of bird life in northern Australia was his undoing with Australia - his intimacy with the plight of the Aborigines and his criticism of Australian authorities for environmental degradation earned him the disapprobation that has thwarted his recognition in this country. In 1928, he and a comrade made the first flight over Antarctica. Only five months later, he flew from Alaska to Spitsbergen over the Arctic. For this he was knighted and got a ticker tape parade in New York. But wait there’s more! In 1931, he was the first to take a submarine under Arctic ice. The venture was so reckless, even Randolph Hearst ended his support. However, the US Navy thought so highly of him that they scattered his ashes at the North Pole and returned to do the same for his wife a few years later. The first US nuclear submarine was named for Wilkins sub, the Nautilus.
Maddern admits that he’s not a professional documentary film-maker. Nonetheless, I reviewed the film in the 2021 Fringe and it remains punchy and vitally interesting throughout. Maddern readily employs the Ken Burns effect to make even still photography come to life, his own narration, background scores and voiceovers of Wilkins and others.
Don’t let the weird poster picture of a seaplane coming at you out of Wilkins’s nose put you off. This is a must see for everyone who hasn’t heard of our hero, and for the fanatical fans, fantastic! Bravo!
PS There are two recent biographies of Wilkins: The Last Explorer: Hubert Wilkins, Australia's Unknown Hero, by Simon Nasht (2007) and The Incredible Life of Hubert Wilkins: Australia's Greatest Explorer by Peter FitzSimons (2021).
David Grybowski
When: 25 Feb
Where: Goodwood Theatre
Bookings: Closed
