It was broadcast on the first night the ABC aired from their new studios at Gore Hill, Sydney[2] According to film reviewer Stephen Vagg "It took a genuine act of will to produce local stories for television and sometimes people were punished for doing so", giving Multi Coloured Umbrella as an example.
"[6] According to Filmink: The shortened running time meant cuts had to be made, the most notable being the removal of the character of Eileen and the entire scene where she tells Kate about their father leaving their mother.
This is one of those excisions that Kerr probably thought was okay because it doesn’t affect the story per se… but it was massive because the Kate-Eileen moments are crucial for fleshing out Kate’s character.
It is through these that the audience can properly see Kate’s worldview, especially her feelings about Joe, marriage and sex – she can be honest with her sister in a way she can’t be with the Donnellys.
[9] According to Filmink It’s a decent production, with an impressive set (bar the painted backdrops), interesting location cut-aways to Bondi Beach, well-choreographed fight sequences and very effective quiet moments.
[7]The play was denounced by MLA W. R. Lawrence who said it "had all the evil elements one can imagine" and showed hysterical scenes, blasphemy of a low type and an immoral level of entertainment...
[12] One writer to the Herald called it "common and vulgar",[13] another "sordid and moronic and in no way reflected the Australian way of life as most of us know it";[14] one said it would "drag Australia's name further into the gutter" and asked "why must everyone present the Australian scene in the degrading manner of Rusty Bugles, The Doll, Shifting Heart and Multi Coloured Umbrella.
The writer of a good play is likely to have broken new ground, either in thought or technique, to have given the audience a fresh vision on a scene as seemingly familiar as a Bondi family group.
He argued that the Donnellys of the play "are not the cosy Mr and Mrs Everybody of Bondi that many viewers may have expected to see on their screens see and, in all honesty, be bored by.