Test Drive by Dave Carley

(4.7 stars; 3 reviews)

TEST DRIVE by Dave Carley Monday Playbill CBC RADIO ONE Six Episodes Linda Grearson: Producer Winner: Bronze Medal, New York International Radio Festival (Best Play) FROM December 1 2001 Re-visiting the Sixties re-visiting the Sixties with the life and loves of car dealer Earl Hughes, largely set inside a Nash-Metropolitan! The life and times of a car man are chronicled in Test Drive, which premiered in 2004 at Ontario’s famous Blyth Festival. Earl Hughes loves his wife, children and cars – and not always in that order. He also considers his life to be resoundingly ordinary, except that every ten years or so he sets out on a test drive that rocks his world. Earl’s first trip begins in 1954 – Hurricane Hazel is brewing but he thinks he’s still got time to sell a Nash Metropolitan to a would-be starlet. After that fiasco, Earl drives through the Cold War, discovers peace, love and brownies at Woodstock, and eventually comes to a screeching stop in 2004 – when he must fight his final battle, to keep his driver’s licence. Dedicated to the memory the legendary Canadian automotive pioneer Hector Dupuis. Earl Hughes loves his wife and kids, but cars have always been his passion. His journey begins in 1954 - a hurricane is brewing, but he still thinks he can sell a Nash Metropolitan to a would-be starlet. From there, he drives through the Cold War, detours around Woodstock, and eventually comes to a screeching stop in 2014, where an inevitable turn of events threatens to put an end to his joyrides for good. 01 Test Drive December 1, 2001 1954. Earl takes over the car dealership after the dramatic death of his father in law. In this episode he takes a comely Leaside librarian out for a test drive in a Nash Metropolitan. The test drive is literally a washout - Hurricane Hazel intervenes, and Earl is forced to spend the night in the librarian's apartment. He is sorely tempted to break his marriage vows, but doesn't. However, his wife Dorothy uses the near miss with the Young Miss to leverage herself back into working at the dealership. 02 Missiles and Mennonites December 8, 2001 1962. A young man enters Earl's dealership and asks Earl to take him for a test drive to his parents' farm. Daniel is a Mennonite living on a farm just at the Markham edge of Scarborough - he's hoping that one of the plain American Motors cars will be acceptable to his folks. But a car of any kind is not to the parents' liking at all, and Daniel leaves the farm. Earl and Dodo put him up at their house in Don Mills. Dan soon falls in love with Speedy, the apocalyptic 18 year-old, bombshelter-building daughter of Earl and Dodo. The Cuban Missile Crisis forms the backdrop to this episode. 03 Driving Bob December 15, 2001 1968. Earl is asked to run for the Tories in the Federal election. (It will transpire that Dodo engineered this, in order to get Earl out of the showroom.) Unfortunately for Earl's political ambitions, Trudeaumania is sweeping the country and the campaigning doesn't go well. Earl does enjoy the doorto- door canvassing though, and manages to sell several cars in the process. Bob Stanfield visits the local troops and Daniel (the once-Mennonite son in law and a terrible driver) chauffeurs Earl and the PC leader to the rally in a brand new Rambler Javelin. However, Franklin - Earl's lefty, hippie son - has booby-trapped the car with marijuana and a political near-fiasco results. 04 September Song December 22, 2001 1976. Earl and Dodo drive to the Montreal Olympics. It's their 30th wedding anniversary. Dorothy is dying. As they journey up Highway 401, they revisit their courtship days in flashbacks. They get to the Olympics but Dorothy is too ill to use their tickets for the gymnastics competition. Nadia Comaneci wins her perfect 10s against a backdrop of adoring spectators - and the Hughes' two empty seats. Dorothy has an urgent mission. She has seen the handwriting on the wall, and is convinced that American Motors' demise is imminent. She urges Earl to save the family economically by landing a new franchise - with Toyota. 05 The Last Temptation of Earl December 29, 2001 1987. Earl's American Motors franchise has been swallowed up by Chrysler, but his daughter Speedy sees a bright future in the service sector. They open a Tim Horton's on the site of the old dealership. There isn't much for Earl to do (he's now about 65) except wash tables on the patio. But then Daphne, the librarian from Episode 1 drives up. Earl takes her back to the house and is about to actually have some intimacy with a woman for the first time since he was widowed eleven years before. However, first Franklin comes home and then Speedy and her husband Dan. (They all live together.) They run into each other in the bomb shelter - all of them having repaired there for very different reasons. The final scene is back at the former dealership. Opening Day. Dan the bad driver is test driving a car up to the new Tim Horton store's takeout window, in full view of the city's press and television cameras… 06 Test Drive January 5, 2002 2001. Earl is over 80 now and his driving has deteriorated. He smashes his old AMC Matador into the rear of a businesswoman's Lexus SUV; she berates him as his car is towed away. Earl loses his licence and is forced to take a road test to get it back, and he take his young instructor an one of the more exciting driving tests in recent memory. Test Drive By Dave Carley Linda Grearson: Producer Winner: Bronze Medal, New York International Radio Festival (Best Play) Monday Playbill CBC Radio One 3:30 pm, December 1, 2003 to January 5, 2004 Episode Synopsis of Test Drive Test Drive is the story of Earl Hughes, an American Motors car dealer on the Golden Mile in East York, Ontario. The six episodes of the series span the years 1954-2001 and follow Earl's career in the car business, as well as chronicling the story of his marriage to Dorothy (Dodo) and the exploits of his two children, Eleanor (Speedy) and Franklin. The much-loved Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent plays Earl. Over twenty other actors round out the exceptional cast. Each week's episode tells the continuing story of Earl's life over the years, and the revolution that has occurred in the auto retailing business since the 1950s. Each episode also revolves around a "test drive" - often involving a new car and happening against the backdrop of a larger event. American Motors was the last North American independent car manufacturer. It built a lot of weird and wonderful cars - the Javelin, Pacer, and Metropolitan, among them - as well as many famous, sturdy compacts, like the Rambler American. It also owned Jeep. American Motors was finally absorbed by Chrysler in 1987. Gordon Pinsent, Linda Grearson (director) and Dave Carley in the radio drama studio in the Toronto Broadcast Centre. Photo: John McCarthy. Test Drive is a series of six radio dramas that were first broadcast on CBC Radio One and Two in November and December, 2001. The script for the stage version of Test Drive is available in the Plays (full-length) section of this site. Sound Engineer Wayne Richards adjusts the "car", with Richard Lee and Gordon Pinsent. Test Drive Drama-comedy 2m/1f – 2 acts The life and times of a car man are chronicled in this new play, which premiered in 2004 at Ontario’s famous Blyth Festival. A revised version is being produced at the Lighthouse Festival Theatre in Port Dover, Showboat Festival Theatre in Port Colborne, and Prince Edward County Festival in summer 2014. To read the full play, click here . Earl Hughes loves his wife, children and cars – and not always in that order. He also considers his life to be resoundingly ordinary, except that every ten years or so he sets out on a test drive that rocks his world. Earl’s trip begins in 1954 – a hurricane is brewing but he still thinks he can sell a Nash Metropolitan to a would-be starlet. From there he drives through the Cold War, detours around Woodstock and eventually comes to a screeching stop in 2004 – when he must really go to war to keep his driver’s licence. When unable to sleep, my dad used to melt saccharin in warm skimmed milk. If the CBC's Test Drive were a liquid, that's what it would taste like. It's a mildly amusing sitcom in which a namby-pamby Toronto car dealer looks back upon the last 50 years of his life and times. His wife's overbearing, his kids typical, his son-in-law an ex-Mennonite who drives as if he's blind. The acting is uniformly fine, the production lean and bright, the characters stock, and the writing unthreatening, considering the volatility of the last half-century. Yet compared to TV comedy of the same nostalgic ilk, Test Drive is a work of art.

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.