TV’s golden girls signing off

It was a morning of farewells as two of TV’s golden girls signed off from their respective shows today.

Over at Ten’s The Circle, Denise Drysdale (pictured) announced her retirement – marking the end of a showbusiness career that has spanned more than fifty years.

Starting as a performer in early children’s shows including The Happy Show and The Tarax Show, Drysdale worked her way up to pop music shows such as Uptight, Kommotion and Dig We Must.

Then in the 1970s she became Ernie Sigley’s ‘barrel girl’ on The Ernie Sigley Show, forming an enduring partnership that saw both of them win Gold Logies in 1975, with Drysdale winning a second Gold in 1976.

One of TV’s more versatile performers, she has appeared in dramas such as Division 4, Homicide and Cop Shop, comedies like The Bluestone Boys and The Norman Gunston Show and countless music and variety shows including Countdown, The Penthouse Club, The Daryl Somers Show, The Mike Walsh Show right through to Spicks And Specks. 

Living on a farm in Gippsland, in the 1980s she hosted a morning show for local channel GLV8, and later took over from Jacki MacDonald on Nine’s Hey Hey It’s Saturday before being re-united with Sigley to host morning shows In Melbourne Today and In Sydney Today (both shows later merged into Ernie And Denise).

In the ‘90s, Drysdale teamed up with Frankie J. Holden on the revived In Melbourne Tonight before moving to the Seven Network to host her own daytime show, Denise.

Early last year Network Ten announced that Drysdale was joining the presenting team on its new morning show The Circle.  Later in the year she was again re-united with Sigley in a segment on the show.

Although the show faces tough competition, particularly from The Morning Show on Seven, The Circle this year won a Logie for Most Popular Light Entertainment Program.

Drysdale now looks forward to taking a well-earned break and spending time with her new grandson.

Meanwhile, over at the Nine Network, there was a farewell for Kerri-Anne Kennerley whose morning show comes to an end after nine years on air. 

Kennerley was a teenager when she appeared on children’s programs on Queensland television in the 1960s and 1970s.  After working overseas for several years she returned to Australia, appearing on the soapie The Restless Years before taking over as co-host on Network Ten’s Good Morning Australia in 1981.  It was a role that she made her own for 11 years, outlasting a number of her male on-air colleagues.  She later hosted an afternoon show, Monday To Friday, and worked in Sydney radio.

In the mid-1990s, Kennerley took over as host of Nine’s Midday – giving the show a new lease on life after some years of instability.  The show wound up in 1998 and after a stint back at the Ten Network on ill-fated shows like Moment Of Truth and Greed she returned to Nine in 2002 to host Mornings With Kerri-Anne, later re-named Kerri-Anne.

The show achieved global fame in 2007 when an interview with a “jet-lagged” John Stamos went viral.

The demise of Kerri-Anne comes after recent speculation about the show’s future, sparked by Kennerley taking leave from the program and with the show featuring a number of guest hosts. 

Although the Kerri-Anne program has ended – the ‘summer series’ of best-of segments starts on Monday – Kennerley remains with the Nine Network for future projects.

Nine will replace Kerri-Anne next year with a new show to be hosted by Sonia Kruger, who is coming across after more than a decade with the Seven Network and is best known as the co-host for eleven seasons of  Dancing With The Stars.

YouTube: aussiebeachut0, Michael Shephard

1991: September 28-October 4

Hey, look who’s in love!
While Chris Mayer and Rachael Beck (pictured) are constantly bickering as their Hey Dad! alter egos Simon and Sam, off-screen the two have been secretly dating.  “Yes, I am in love,” Mayer told TV Week.  “It feels great.  I’m really enjoying it.”  During an upcoming production break for the series, he intends to head to Italy, staying in the town of Perugia and studying Italian – and it looks like Beck will be joining him.

It’s goodbye Bob and Cookie!
As the Seven Network’s A Country Practice approaches its tenth anniversary, some drastic cast changes are set to shock fans of the popular drama.  Actors Gordon Piper and Syd Heylen, who play characters Bob Hatfield and Cookie, are not having their contracts renewed at the end of the year, both having worked on the show for much of its ten year run.  Producer James Davern has said that the actors have other commitments – Piper is producing corporate videos and Heylen also runs a marketing company and is keen to spend time in Queensland with his wife who isn’t well – and that the characters will not be written out in any “Wandin Valley massacre” storyline and will be able to return at a later stage.  However, TV Week reports that neither actor had any option to stay on the show.  Also leaving the series is Matt Day, who will tape his final scenes in December, and Georgie Parker and John Tarrant, who will finish up early in the new year.  All three have decided it is time to move on.  To fill the void left by losing five characters some new additions will be signed on.  Former Brides Of Christ star Kym Wilson has joined the series and will make her on screen debut in November, and three other new characters will be written in over the coming months but have yet to be cast. 

Stig cops right out!
Col’n Carpenter star Stig Wemyss has left the Network Ten series after a falling out with the show’s producers.  Wemyss, who has played the role of Colin’s flatmate Michael Preeble since the show started 18 months ago, has told TV Week that he is “extremely disappointed” that an agreement with producers could not be reached.  “I wanted the storylines to explore a bit more of Michael.  I didn’t think that was too much to ask because the character had been there so long.  I’m not saying I wanted it to be the Michael Preeble show or to be any less about Colin (Kim Gyngell), but if you don’t expand a character, he just becomes nothing.  For me, the strength of the show was having an ensemble cast.  It was obvious Michael wasn’t going to be playing a major part in the way the show was going, so I didn’t want to continue.”

Briefly…
Just months after the bomb-blast storyline that killed off three characters, the neighbourhood of Network Ten’s E Street is about to be stalked by a psychopathic serial killer.  Architect Steven Richardson, played by Vince Martin, is set to reveal a darker side as he takes on the identity of ‘Mr Bad’ (pictured) whose first victim is Dr Virginia Travers (Julieanne Newbould).  Producer Forrest Redlich has defended the frightening storyline (“Where A Country Practice and GP do things on alcoholism, venereal diseases and such social subjects, we chose the serial killer.  Unfortunately they do exist.”) and a spokesperson for Ten has said that the network is mindful of the show’s 7.30pm timeslot and all episodes in question have to be approved at multiple levels within the network before being submitted for final approval by the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal.

Ernie Sigley, co-host of the Nine Network’s In Melbourne Today and In Sydney Today programs, talks to TV Week about his upcoming 40th anniversary in showbusiness.  Starting in radio as a teenager, at Melbourne station 3DB, Sigley made the move to television as a performer on HSV7’s Teenage Mailbox (pictured) and went on to a successful television career including several years as host of Adelaide Tonight and later The Ernie Sigley Show, The Penthouse Club (later Saturday Night Live), Pot Luck and Wheel Of Fortune.  The one-time Gold Logie winner also mentions the reported altercation with Don Lane at the after party for the 1988 TV Week Logie Awards.  “I didn’t say anything to him to upset him.  The relationship had been strained for a few years,” he said.

When boxing champion Lionel Rose was told of plans to make a mini-series about his life, he wasn’t enthusiastic.  He told producers nobody would want to see his life story.  “I told them I was unreliable and they couldn’t depend on me to help them out,” Rose told TV Week.  “But they kept at me until I agreed.  I told them I wanted the whole story to be told… warts and all.”  However, TV Week production editor Frank Quill, who also happens to be a member of the World Boxing Council’s executive and considered Australia’s most senior professional boxing official, says that despite Rose’s request that his portrayal be “warts and all”, viewers may be short-changed by viewing the final product.  “Certainly, some viewers, human enough to think everything in Odds actually happened, will be misled,” he wrote.  Rose Against The Odds, which stars newcomer Paul Williams as Rose and former The Flying Doctors star Vikki Blanche as his wife Jenny, screens this week on the Seven Network.  The two-part mini-series also stars Kris McQuade, Tony Barry and Hollywood actor Telly Savalas.

Former A Country Practice star Sophie Heathcote has won a role in Yahoo Serious’ upcoming movie project, a contemporary comedy about Ned Kelly.  “The character I play is really young and silly and very funny,” she told TV Week.  “She is in love with Ned and I am going to have a ball playing her.”

John Laws says…
”There can often be something ghoulish about screening the “final” TV interviews of prominent people, those unfortunate enough to die suddenly soon after such interviews are given.  We have had the “final interview” with Dr Victor Chang, the brilliant heart surgeon shot dead in a Sydney street in early July.  Happily, SBS’ King Of Hearts documentary managed to avoid any overt sense of ghoulishness in giving us a nicely balanced portrait of Dr Chang.  This was, it has to be admitted, the most emotionally-draining documentary you are likely to see in a long time – not because of any exploitative intention on the part of reporter Amanda Hickey, but because of the simple, profoundly moving tributes paid to Chang by his friends, patients and colleagues.  This was a wonderful piece of TV documentary work.  It probably would have turned out a completely different product had Dr Chang still been alive, because Hickey began working on it a few weeks before his death.  Dr Chang was slain only six weeks after talking to SBS.  I have a feeling that public response to the Dr Chang documentary will lead to a speedy re-screening.  It pointed up only too bleakly how the circumstances of his death resulted in such endless waste.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, September 28-October 4):
Saturday:  It’s Grand Final day for the AFL.  Seven’s coverage, started late last night with the Football Marathon, continues through the day – with the traditional North Melbourne Football Club Grand Final Breakfast at 8.00am, followed by live coverage of the Under 19s and Reserves grand finals.  Then at 2.00pm live coverage from AFL Park, Waverley, for the end of season clash between Hawthorn and the West Coast Eagles.  Daryl Braithwaite – the key performer at the pre-game entertainment at the Grand Final – will also appear on Nine’s Hey Hey It’s Saturday in the evening.

Sunday:  Seven presents the first instalment of the two-part mini-series Rose Against The Odds (pictured), telling the story of boxing champion Lionel Rose who captured the world’s attention when he defied the odds to become the World Bantamweight champion as a 19-year old in the 1960s.  Sunday night movies are The Karate Kid II (Nine) and The Abyss (Ten).

Monday:  The conclusion to Rose Against The Odds (Seven) sees Lionel Rose’s sporting career at an end and his entering the seedy world of small-time crime and drug abuse, and the battle to get his life back on track.

Tuesday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Lucy (Georgie Parker) is shattered when the results of her IVF program come back.  In Chances (Nine), Alex (Jeremy Sims) stuns the family when he re-appears after they had believed he had perished in a plane crash, and Paris (Annie Jones) is devastated when she learns a close friend has AIDS.

Wednesday:  SBS newsreader Mary Kostakidis presents the Ethnic Small Business Awards, live from the Sheraton-Wentworth in Sydney.

Thursday:  Ernie Dingo guest starts in The Flying Doctors (Nine) as a university dropout who clashes violently with his brother (Luke Carroll) and Dr Guy Reid (David Reyne) over the pending death of his grandfather.  ABC’s coverage of the 1991 Rugby World Cup, being held in France and the United Kingdom, begins with late-night coverage of the opening ceremony and the first match between England and New Zealand. 

Friday:  In Home And Away (Seven), Sam (Ryan Clark) finds out who his father is.  ABC’s coverage of the Rugby World Cup continues with the match between Australia and Argentina.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  28 September 1991.  Southdown Press

1991: March 9-15

Bob pops the question!
For more than two years the romance between Dr Elly Fielding (Penny Cook) and Reverend Bob Brown (Tony Martin, pictured near right with Cook) in E Street has been an on-again off-again affair.  But this week in the Ten Network soap, Bob finally proposes – but Elly doesn’t accept straight away.  “She doesn’t say yes immediately, but she doesn’t say no,” Cook told TV Week. 

It’s no Sale!
Tony Barber has denied that there is more to his shock resignation from hosting Nine’s Sale Of The Century as industry rumours have suggested.  Barber insists that the resignation was to escape his “quiz show host” label, having also hosted Temptation, Great Temptation, Name That Tune and Family Feud before 11 years on Sale Of The Century, and also to recover from a hip operation.  Rumours persist within the industry, however, that his resignation was due to the network denying certain demands in renewing his contract.  And although Seven claims that Barber’s management have approached them about coming across, he has denied any discussions have taken place with Seven and Ten, citing his commitment to his Nine contract which expires later this month.  The timing of Barber’s announcement may have also come at an awkward time.  Just days before the announcement, in an interview pre-recorded for Nine’s In Melbourne Today and In Sydney Today chat shows, Barber was asked about his future at Sale to which he replied, “I can see myself doing it when I am 65 or 70.”   No decision has been made as to a successor for Barber on Sale Of The Century, although Denis Walter, Bert Newton and Daryl Somers appear to be possibilities.

Marcus comes home to play a ratbag
Taking a break after a busy year, actor Marcus Graham (pictured) was in Los Angeles when he was offered a two-year contract with daytime soap General Hospital – an offer any number of actors would jump at.  But he said no.  Despite enormous pressure to sign (“98 per cent of everyone I met in the US said I should do it”) he felt it was the wrong thing to do.  “They wanted me to sign a two-year contract.  I was prepared to do one year, but I couldn’t do two, I couldn’t,” Graham told TV Week.  “I think you’d have a very low self-esteem after doing that show for a while.  They shoot an hour a day and you read your lines off cue cards.  It would kill me.  It’s like selling all your dreams and aspirations for thousands of US dollars and getting recognised in supermarkets.  It’s just not worth it.”  Graham was more enthusiastic in signing up for the Seven Network’s four-hour mini-series Ratbag Hero which debuts this week.  Graham plays ‘Unc’ (Bob), the roguish uncle of Mick (Cameron Nugent), the ‘ratbag hero’ of the show’s title.  “Unc is scruffy, a bit of a larrikin.  He is caught between being an adult and a kid.  He is childlike and loves fun,” Graham said.

Briefly…
Hollywood actress Angie Dickinson, best known from TV’s Policewoman series, will be a special guest at this year’s TV Week Logie Awards, taking place this week in Melbourne.  Also on the overseas guest list are Peggy Lipton and Michael Ontkean from the new US series Twin Peaks, now showing on Network Ten.

British-born comedienne Annette Law, whose celebrity impressions won her the ‘Red Faces’ talent quest on Hey Hey It’s Saturday and subsequently led to a career on the comedy circuit, is now heading back to the UK to start in a new BBC sketch comedy series, My Dog’s Got No Nose.  “I believe it’s the British equivalent to the old American show Laugh-In,” Law told TV Week.

Actor Gary Sweet’s proposed role as a reporter for Nine’s Midday With Ray Martin is now looking doubtful after he made a guest appearance on the daytime show to promote his new ABC series Police Rescue.  It happens that Police Rescue is scheduled directly up against Nine’s new drama Chances and the appearance has angered Nine Network executives.

John Laws says…
”Why did SBS scrap its Tonight current affairs show – and replace it with an almost identical program under another name?  This is exactly what has happened, though the program purveyors at SBS will, no doubt, deny it and claim that Dateline is a different concept from Tonight.  But there’s hardly a scrap of difference.  It has the same presenter, Pria Viswalingam, and has retained its capable “finance reporter” Jane Hutcheon, who continues to do exactly what she did so well on the Tonight program.  The official line is that Dateline comprises “the resources of Tonight, Asia Report and the weekly Dateline” and has “shorter, pithier reports” (whatever that means).  So there you have it – two well-established programs are skittled.  Now you see them, now you don’t.  One hour of current affairs becomes 30 minutes of current affairs.”

Program Highlights (March 9-15):
Sunday:  Seven’s afternoon includes live coverage of the Moomba Masters water-skiing from Melbourne’s Yarra River, followed by live coverage of the Australian Touring Car Championships from Symmons Plains, Tasmania.  After Seven Nightly News, Seven screens the first of the two-part children’s mini-series Ratbag Hero, starring Cameron Nugent (pictured), Elaine Smith, Peter Fisher, Marcus Graham, Gus Mercurio and Simon Chilvers.  Sunday night movies are Beaches (Seven), Scarface (Nine) and The Golden Child (Ten).  Nine then crosses to Trinidad for the One Day International between Australia and the West Indies.  Ten debuts a new late-night sports program, Sports Week, hosted by Eddie McGuire and Stephen Quartermain.

Monday:  ABC debuts its new rural affairs program Landline, screening every weekday.  ABC and Seven in Melbourne both present a direct telecast of the annual Moomba street procession.

Tuesday:  In All Together Now (Nine), Thomas (Steven Jacobs) and Anna (Jane Hall) come home drunk and Tracy (Rebecca Gibney) suspects it is Bobby’s (Jon English) influence that has caused it.  Tina Bursill, Serge Lazareff and Dorothy St Heaps are guest stars in ABC’s drama GP.

Wednesday: Prime Minister Bob Hawke is the guest speaker at the National Press Club Luncheon, broadcast on ABC. 

Thursday:  Former E Street star Paul Kelman enters Nine’s The Flying Doctors as Steve McCauley, who found out he was adopted and hitches a ride to Coopers Crossing, undecided on whether or not to tell his mother about their true relationship.

Friday:  Daryl Somers (pictured) hosts the 33rd annual TV Week Logie Awards from Melbourne’s World Congress Centre and broadcast nationally through the Nine Network.  It is triple Gold Logie winner Somers’ second time as host of the event.  This year will also see the launch of two new Logie award categories – the Most Popular Male and Most Popular Female Comedy Personality – in recognition of the rise in Australian-produced comedy on television.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  9 March 1991.  Southdown Press.

1991: February 9-15

‘It felt like a real wedding to me’
The upcoming wedding of Neighbours characters Paul Robinson and Christina Alessi (pictured) could well serve as a dress rehearsal for real-life couple Stefan Dennis and Gayle Blakeney.  “It’s a very beautiful wedding.  We were both very happy with the way it was done.  It was amazing how everyone got into the atmosphere,” Dennis told TV Week.  “It felt like a real wedding to me,” Blakeney added.  “Saying those words to each other, particularly when the person is your lover… it felt really nice.  I’ve never enjoyed working on the show as much as I have in the month between the engagement and the wedding.” 

E Street goes for a new doctor
Despite some media speculation, actress Julieanne Newbould (pictured) is not taking over the role of Dr Elly Fielding from Penny Cook in Network Ten’s E Street.  She is, however, joining the series portraying a new character, Dr Virginia Travers.  Both Cook and Newbould will work together in the series before Cook departs the series next month.  “Virginia Travers turns out to be an old friend of Elly,” a spokesperson for E Street told TV Week.  “Elly is not being killed off and she’ll be seen on air until May.”  Newbould is a former star of The Restless Years, Prisoner, Kingswood Country and Kindred Spirits.

Now a cartoon brat takes on 60 Minutes
The all-important Sunday 7.30pm timeslot is about to come a heated battle as the networks fire up for the new ratings year.  Coming up against Nine stalwart 60 Minutes is the new US cartoon series The Simpsons (pictured), which has been earning big ratings for the American FOX network up against ratings giant NBC’s The Cosby Show.  Meanwhile, ABC is about to launch new episodes of the British series Rumpole Of The Bailey and Seven has expanded The Magical World Of Disney to a two-hour timeslot starting at 6.30pm.  But 60 Minutes producer Warren McStoker isn’t worried.  “Over the past 12 years, we’ve had all sorts of programs up against us, from furry aliens (ALF) to Greek fruiterers (Mark Mitchell’s Comedy Company character Con the Fruiterer) and even cops and robbers shows,” he told TV Week.  “But we’re still here, we’re stronger than ever, and that’s the way we intend to stay.”

Briefly… 
Jason Donovan is “devastated” by revealing stories about him being sold to the British media by his stepmother Marlene, following her recent amicable separation from his father, actor Terry Donovan.  Marlene has appeared on British TV and featured in newspapers with a number of “tell all” claims about the famous star, accusing him of being “mean and selfish” with his money, ignoring his family and still being desperately in love with Kylie Minogue.  “Her reasons were financial but I can’t believe that someone that I love and trust did something like that,” Jason told TV Week.

Gary Sweet (pictured) has had a hard time convincing the producer and stunt co-ordinator for ABC’s new action drama Police Rescue that he is able to doing all his own stunts.  “I keep trying to impress on John (Edwards, the show’s producer) that it is relatively safe,” Sweet told TV Week.  “I’ve broken plenty of bones playing sport, so you could say that my normal lifestyle is far more dangerous than jumping off cliffs.  I come to work to relax.”

Actor Garry McDonald is back on TV – but this time, instead of battling with his geriatric mother, as he did on Mother And Son, he is the parent coping with two very alert children.  The new series, Eggshells, debuts this week on ABC with McDonald playing the part of a divorcee whose life is constantly interrupted by his ex-wife (played by Judy Morris), his two current girlfriends, his handyman brother-in-law and his two children.  Eggshells comes from writer Geoffrey Atherden, who also created Mother And Son.

Bush Tucker Man Les Hiddens, who returns this week with a new series of the popular ABC program, has admitted that he received a generous offer to join the Nine Network but turned it down, opting to stay loyal to ABC.  “There’s more to life than money, mate,” he told TV Week.

John Laws says…
”Television made a real shish-kebab of the first week of the Gulf war and, gloomy as it was, it did contain all the elements of compulsive viewing.  Thanks to the cable network CNN, Network Ten was able to come out the winner with its coverage of the initial 48 hours of the conflict, even though its professional success wasn’t mirrored by the ratings, which saw Nine gather the most viewers.  It was, perhaps, troubled Ten’s finest hour as the war began.  And yet what did CNN (and therefore Ten) really have over the opposition – just three reporters holed up on the ninth floor of a luxury hotel in Baghdad.  There were no pictures at first; all we heard were the voices of the trio as the described what was going on, and poked their microphones out of the window to pick up the sounds of falling bombs and artillery.  For the viewer, it was a case of look at a map of Baghdad and listen – and yet it worked.  It was gruesome, fascinating, gripping television.”

Program Highlights (February 9-15):
Saturday:  Nine’s flagship sports program Wide World Of Sports returns for another year for four hours of Saturday afternoon coverage.

Sunday:  It’s the first day of the official ratings year.  Nine’s Sunday regulars Business Sunday, Wide World Of Sports: Sunday Edition and the afternoon Sports Sunday are all back for the new year.  Seven crosses to the Gabba in Brisbane for the AFL pre-season Foster’s Cup, featuring Brisbane Bears versus Collingwood.  At 7.30pm, Network Ten presents the Australian debut of The Simpsons, featuring two episodes – ‘Bart The Genius’ and ‘Homer’s Odyssey’.  Sunday night movies, the first major premieres for the year, are Young Einstein (Seven) and Alien Nation (Ten) – the latter leading into an ongoing series that debuts later in the week.  Nine presents the first instalment of mini-series The Confessional.  Meanwhile, SBS presents a half-hour documentary, What’s Funny About Melbourne?, and ABC presents the first of two documentaries on the issue of global warming.  After The Warming, a co-production between Film Australia and American and British interests, takes viewers to the year 2050 as Earth has survived global warming.

Monday:  Ernie Sigley and Denise Drysdale (pictured) are back for another year of Nine’s mid-morning program In Melbourne Today – and Ray Martin is back for another year of Midday With Ray Martin.  Tony Barber and Alyce Platt are back for the new year on Sale Of The Century.  ABC debuts new comedy series Eggshells, while 4 Corners and Media Watch return for 1991.  The Nine Network starts following its late night news program, The World Tonight With Clive Robertson, with two hours of coverage dedicated to the Gulf war – while Ten’s overnight broadcast of CNN continues every night.

Tuesday:  ABC’s consumer affairs program The Investigators returns for 1991. 

Wednesday:  David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz return for another year of The Movie Show on SBS. 

Thursday:  Seven crosses to Huntingdale Golf Club, Melbourne, for live coverage of the first day of the Australian Masters.  Gary Sweet heads the cast in the debut of ABC’s new action drama Police Rescue.

Friday:  Seven presents coverage of Day Two of the Australian Masters.  Burke’s Backyard (Nine) and Gardening Australia (ABC) begin another year, while Les Hiddens begins a new series of Bush Tucker Man.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 9 February 1991. Southdown Press.

1990: December 15-21

Cover: Georgie Parker (A Country Practice), Julian McMahon (Home And Away)

Hey Dad… meet your new co-star!
Rachael Beck, fresh from her role as Craig McLachlan’s sister in Home And Away, is set to join the cast of Hey Dad!  The former Family And Friends star impressed Home And Away producers enough that they offered her an ongoing role, but she was reluctant to commit to a 12-month run, so she instead auditioned for the Hey Dad! spin-off, Hampton House – with producers seemingly now keen to have her join Hey Dad! to fill the gap left by departing cast member Simone Buchanan.  In the meantime, Beck will be appearing in the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of A Little Night Music.

Denise set for a ding-dong year!
It has been a year of ups and downs for two-time TV Week Gold Logie winner Denise Drysdale.  On the downside, she departed Hey Hey It’s Saturday amidst controversial circumstances, but the exposure from being on the show has opened up an opportunity to develop her own programs.  She has taped a pilot for a quiz show called Guess What (featuring Wendy Harmer, Lou Richards and Wilbur Wilde as guest contestants) and is developing a sitcom which is likely to star Drysdale and is tipped to feature Noelene Brown, Rosie Sturgess and former Countdown Revolution co-host Tania Lacy.  At the same time, it appears likely that In Melbourne Today, the morning talk show she presents with Ernie Sigley, will go national in 1991.

All together now…
It was a daunting task for TV Week to try to assemble 11 stars in Sydney and 12 stars in Melbourne, representing all five TV networks, for a Christmas photo shoot.  The chances that all would be available at the one time was very slim, but the networks co-operated and the photo shoot was a success:

Above: TV Week’s Christmas greetings from Sydney.  Back row (l to r): Matt Day (A Country Practice), Judy McIntosh (GP), Michael O’Neill (GP), Brian Rooney (GP), Mary Kostakidis (World News, SBS). Middle row: Alyssa-Jane Cook (E Street), Elizabeth Hayes (Today), Emily Symons (Home And Away). Front row: Bruce Samazan (E Street), Simone Buchanan (Hey Dad!), Mat Stevenson (Home And Away)

Below: And Merry Christmas with a definite comic focus from Melbourne. Back row: Air steward Daryl (Steve Vizard, Fast Forward), Matron Conniving-Bitch (Lynda Gibson, Let The Blood Run Free), Shane Bourne (Hey Hey It’s Saturday), Marika (Mark Mitchell, The Comedy Company), Wilbur Wilde (Hey Hey It’s Saturday).  Middle row: Air steward Wayne (Michael Veitch, Fast Forward), newsreader Veronica Glenhuntly (Jean Kittson, The Big Gig), Maurie Fields (Hey Hey It’s Saturday), Effie (Mary Coustas, Acropolis Now), Red Symons (Hey Hey It’s Saturday).  Front row: Vikki Blanche (Col’n Carpenter) and Nick Giannopoulos (Acropolis Now).

 

Briefly…
Former E Street regular Melissa Bell is joining the cast of Neighbours, taking on the role of Lucy Robinson, the youngest of the Robinson children.  Bell, 18, will be the third actress to take on the role, following Kylie Flinker and Sasha Close.  An upcoming storyline will see Lucy sent home from an elite boarding school after a run-in with authorities, to face the wrath of her father, Jim (Alan Dale).

Fast Forward’s Pixie-Anne Wheatley (Magda Szubanski) and Home And Away’s Craig McLachlan (pictured, above left) made an odd couple in the Seven Network’s upcoming new year promos.  In the two-minute clip, dizzy Pixie-Anne decides to make a play for McLachlan.  It culminates in her making a bungy jump from a helicopter to hand deliver him a bunch of flowers. “Magda did all her own stunts, except for one shot,” producer-director Mitch McManus told TV Week.  “She had to hang upside down by her ankles from seven metres above the studio floor, so she gets the award for best sport of the promo!”  Meanwhile (above right), Wheel Of Fortune hostess Adriana Xenides is saved from a demolition ball by Victor, the ‘very unattractive man’ (played by Peter Moon) from Fast Forward’s ‘Good Morning Moscow’ skit.

John Laws says…
”It seems that now we’ve bade a temporary goodbye to most current affairs programs on TV (maybe they’ll make a speedy comeback in the event of a shootout in the Gulf!), we can settle down for a good laugh over Christmas.  I’ve never known a period where so many “sitcoms” are being screened at the same time.  It’s as if the beleaguered television industry has decided it must giggle its way through the current economic crisis – and wants viewers in on the joke.  It’s true enough, of course, that we could all do with a bit of a laugh from TV.”

Program Highlights (December 15-21):
Saturday:  Sport includes golf (Daikyo Australian Ladies’ Masters from Palm Meadows, Queensland) on ABC, tennis (Grand Slam Cup from Munich) on HSV7 and cricket (Benson And Hedges World Series from Brisbane) on GTV9.

Sunday:  Sunday night movies are Santa Claus: The Movie (HSV7) and Courage (ATV10).  GTV9 screens the first of the two-part mini-series, Phantom Of The Opera.

Wednesday:  In Hey Dad! (HSV7), Betty (Julie McGregor) is studying Japanese for her role in a play for the musical society.

Friday:  In a rare truce between competing programs, Today and Good Morning Australia both wind up for the Christmas break on the same day and will return together on the same day in the new year.  HSV7’s Friday night movie is the Australian film Bush Christmas, starring John Ewart, Nicole Kidman, John Howard, Mark Spain and James Wingrove.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 15 December 1990. Southdown Press.

The Circle reunites Ernie and Denise

It was a reunion of one of TV’s most popular partnerships when The Circle co-host Denise Drysdale was joined by guest Ernie Sigley on the show.

The pair were a hit with viewers in the mid 1970s on The Ernie Sigley Show, with both of them (pictured, with Hollywood legend John Wayne) winning TV Week Gold Logies in 1975 as the most popular personalities on television.  Drysdale went on to win another Gold Logie the following year.  Their popularity also saw their cover version of the 1960s hit Hey Paula hit the top of the charts in 1974.

Their career paths have crossed numerous times in the years that followed, including several years co-hosting the Nine Network’s In Melbourne Today and sister program In Sydney Today, before both programs were amalgamated into Ernie And Denise.

Sigley then returned to radio, presenting the afternoon program on radio 3AW for over a decade, while Drysdale went on to the 1990s revival of In Melbourne Tonight before hosting her own morning show, Denise, on the Seven Network.

The appearance of Sigley next to Drysdale on The Circle – showing that they still have that comic chemistry alongside each other – leads up to a series of live shows to be performed by the duo.

1990: September 1-7

Get me to the church on time…
The upcoming A Country Practice wedding between Lucy Gardiner (Georgie Parker) and Matt Tyler (John Tarrant) will continue Wandin Valley’s tradition of dramatic weddings.  “The problem is the parents,” Parker tells TV Week.  “And whether the ceremony is going to be held in an Anglican or Catholic church.  Matt’s father Gilbert (George Mallaby) is pompous and doesn’t think Matt is coping without good financial backing.  My parents are supposedly splitting up and my father Patrick (Jonathan Hardy) refuses to come because it’s not being held in a Catholic church.  My mother Lois (Jill Perryman) turns up without him.”  The lead-up to the wedding has also been marred by Lucy’s cancer scare and the couple’s house being burnt to the ground in recent episodes.  “Post-marriage is much calmer,” Parker hastily points out.

The Great Soap Shake-Up!
A number of key cast shake-ups are about to unsettle popular soaps Home And Away, A Country Practice and E Street, while cop drama Skirts is about to lose one cast member.  Julian McMahon and Sharyn Hodgson (pictured), who play Home And Away newlyweds Ben and Carly, are leaving the show over the coming months.  Their exit from Home And Away follows recent news that original cast member Adam Willits is about to leave the show – and Craig McLachlan is also planning to leave the show but will return for guest appearances during 1991.  James Davern, producer of Seven’s A Country Practice, has confirmed that the series is about to lose cast members Michael Muntz, Mary Regan and child actor Georgina Fisher.  Actors Muntz and Regan are leaving to pursue other opportunities, while the young Fisher is leaving after two years with the show.  “I spoke to her parents and two years are enough for a child actor,” Davern told TV Week.  Meanwhile, Network Ten’s E Street is about to lose cast members Paul Kelman and Lisbeth Kennelly, whose contracts have not been renewed.  Also tipped to be leaving E Street are Chelsea Brown and Rebecca Saunders.  And Skirts star Kate Gillick is leaving the police drama to return to the theatre.

Caught in the crossfire
Tragedy strikes Neighbours when Kerry Mangel (Linda Hartley, pictured, with Mark Little) is left fighting for her life after being accidentally shot while taking part in a duck-shooting protest.  “This storyline brings out the side of Kerry’s character that I’ve always liked the most,” Hartley tells TV Week.  “She has been in a very domestic situation lately, but no-one can forget their past.  I’m pleased the opportunity came up for her to be more forthright about things she cares about.”    

Briefly…
The Comedy Company producer Ian McFadyen (pictured) has admitted that the show’s return has been tougher than expected.  “We’ve obviously got a mandate to deliver a big audience pretty soon and that’s a lot of pressure to carry.  Our ratings are worse than I thought they would be.  60 Minutes has an enormous following – a very strong loyalty – and we’re working on that at the moment.”  Meanwhile, McFadyen’s other project, Mark Mitchell’s The Big Time, has been taken off air after a short time and is set to be re-worked.

Robbo’s World Tonight host Clive Robertson insists he couldn’t care less that his show is being beaten by Tonight Live With Steve Vizard in the ratings.  “If they don’t want my show after next March (when his contract runs out), that’s fine,” he told TV Week.  “I’ll do something else.  I wouldn’t mind going back to Seven or even the ABC.”  He also admits to not liking the name of his own show.  “”Robbo’ sounds a bit silly,” he says.  If he had his choice, he’d call it something like ‘The Final Word, With Mr Robertson’.

Denise Drysdale and Ernie Sigley have spoken to TV Week about their daytime show, In Melbourne Today.  “We really are like an old married couple,” Drysdale says.  “We can have a go at each other, and it’s all part of the fun.”  While Sigley says it is a battle to try and stay ahead of the gags that the studio crew have in store for them.  “They once blew up a chook on the set and scared the living daylights out of me,” he said.

John Laws says…
”SBS’ The Movie Show with David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz is certainly a reflection of two completely different personalities.  Pomeranz is bubbly, earnestly sincere and prone to gush the extremities of praise and criticism; Stratton is cool, laidback and possessed of both gentlemanly charm and viper-like attack.”

Program Highlights (September 1-7):
Saturday:  HSV7 starts its celebrity-led assault on the top-rating Hey Hey It’s Saturday with two new shows, Celebrity Family Feud and Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune.

Sunday:  With More Winners now finished up, ABC starts screening the original Winners series of children’s dramas that had originally screened on the Ten Network.  Tonight’s episode is The Other Facts Of Life starring Ken Talbot, Dennis Miller and Anne Grigg.  Sunday night movies are Stakeout (HSV7), Children Of A Lesser God (GTV9) and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (ATV10).

Monday:  Tonight Live With Steve Vizard (HSV7) starts a week of shows presented live from London.

Wednesday:  John Bach, Oliver Tobias, Rebecca Gilling and Peta Toppano star in ABC’s new mini-series The Paper Man, screening over three consecutive nights.  Australian Democrats politician Janine Haines is this week’s guest on Speaking For Myself (SBS).  HSV7 screens the long-awaited telemovie Bony, starring Cameron Daddo, Burnum Burnum, Catherine Oxenberg, David Reyne and Tom Richards.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  1 September 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: July 7-13

Cover: Sharyn Hodgson, Julian McMahon (Home And Away)

Confrontation!
The Ten Network’s long-awaited return of The Comedy Company is about to hit screens as the ratings underdog up against Nine’s 60 Minutes.  “I don’t think it will be that hard to make up lost ground on 60 Minutes,” producer Ian McFadyen told TV Week.  The revamped comedy hour promises not to be “more of the same” according to McFadyen.  A number of new cast members have been added to the show – including Geoff Paine (Neighbours), Tracy Harvey (The Gillies Report), Melanie Salomon (E Street) and stage performers Alix Longman and Bernadette Robinson – alongside familiar names Maryanne Fahey, Peter Rowsthorn, Russell Gilbert and Mark Mitchell.  Meanwhile, Mitchell’s own comedy series, Larger Than Life, is to be replaced by a new series called The Big Time, featuring Mitchell and wife Di and sons Rhys and Lewis.

New doors open for ‘Ding Dong’
The Nine Network’s Hey Hey It’s Saturday celebrates its 20th anniversary next year but there is speculation that former co-host Jacki MacDonald, and not Denise Drysdale (pictured), will be there for the milestone.  “I heard a rumour that Jacki is coming back,” Drysdale told TV Week.  “If they asked me back, I’d be there, but that’s not up to me.  It’s in the laps of the gods.”  Meanwhile, Drysdale has hired Glenn Wheatley as her manager.  Wheatley has signed a two-year deal with Ronson Australia for Drysdale to promote its products in store appearances and television commercials.  She is also keen to pursue a dream role in a TV sitcom.  “I have a concept and I’m working with a scriptwriter now,” she says.  “We’ve written only bits and pieces so far but I’d like to see a pilot by the end of the year.”  Meanwhile, Drysdale has spoken out about the reported rift between her and Hey Hey It’s Saturday host Daryl Somers.  “Yes, it hurt and I think it’s detrimental to the show.  Even if it’s true, the viewing audience don’t want to know if there’s a problem.  I won’t speak out about it.  What can I say?  People make up their own minds.  I am loud.  Jacki wasn’t a loud person, so I think it was hard for everyone else.  I been lucky to be here a year.  I was lucky Jacki wanted to have a baby.  I would still have had In Melbourne Today (with Ernie Sigley) but I wouldn’t have had all these doors that have opened now.”

Jennifer Keyte’s a working girl!
The Seven Network’s Melbourne-based newsreader Jennifer Keyte (pictured) has admitted that reading the channel’s main 6.00pm news bulletin and appearing on the late-night show Tonight Live With Steve Vizard has taken its toll on her personal life.  “My only social time is on weekends,” she told TV Week.  “It’s the only opportunity I have to catch up with my friends.  By the time I get home after Tonight Live, take the make-up off and have a cup of Milo, I hit the sack very easily.”  But Keyte is not complaining about the long hours that both TV roles are demanding.  “I’m very happy with the way things are going.  When I started on Tonight Live, I made sure everyone was aware of my priority – the 6.00pm news.  With any news, credibility must be maintained and if that didn’t happen I’d have to reassess my involvement with the show.  But I think the two shows enhance each other.”

Briefly…
Actress Sarah Chadwick has made a sudden decision to leave the popular ABC drama GP.  “GP is my first big role since leaving NIDA,” she told TV Week.  “Consequently I’ve had little chance to do anything else.  I just feel that now, after a year, it’s time to move on.”  Chadwick’s character, Dr Catherine Mitchell, will be written out of the show but does leave the door open for her to return.  Meanwhile, Cameron Daddo has signed up for a brief ongoing role in the show.

Home And Away star Nana Coburn (the daughter of co-star Norman Coburn) has taped her last scenes for the show and is about to head off to Fiji to begin filming on a new international project, the sequel to the hit movie The Blue Lagoon.

Two of Australia’s best known actors, Neighbours’ Anne Charleston and The Flying Doctors’ Andrew McFarlane, are among the stars to appear on stage in the Victorian Arts Centre’s production of Love Letters.  Also starring in the production are Terry Norris and wife Julia Blake, Lewis Fiander and Peta Toppano.

John Laws says…
”Well, advertising has arrived on SBS, thanks to the World Cup.  And, no, the earth didn’t move.  The nation’s morals were not placed in peril.  Television standards were not lowered.  Of course not.  SBS’ initial foray into “corporate advertising” was very nicely done.  Nothing over the top and nothing that interfered with the station’s excellent coverage of the international soccerfest.”

Program Highlights (July 7-13):
Sunday:  The final stages of the World Cup starting at 3.30am with the playoff for third and fourth place, live on SBS and ABC regionals.  HSV7’s Sunday afternoon AFL features Sydney Swans versus Carlton, and ATV10 crosses to Sydney for rugby league with the State Bank Big Game.  Gary Sweet, Bruno Lawrence and Penne Hackforth-Jones star in Boy Soldiers, the second in the More Winners series of children’s dramas on ABC.  Sunday night movies are Under Siege (HSV7), Vibes (GTV9) and Back To The Future (ATV10).

Monday:  The final of the World Cup is telecast from 3.30am on SBS and ABC regionals, with SBS repeating the match at 7.00pm.  At 2.30pm, ATV10 starts a re-run of its popular 1980s drama Carson’s Law, set in Melbourne in the 1920s and starring Lorraine Bayly.  That night, ATV10 begins a re-run of the four-part mini-series, The Dirtwater Dynasty, starring Hugo Weaving.

Tuesday:  In A Country Practice (HSV7), Terence (Shane Porteous) operates on Lucy (Georgie Parker) and confirms her worst fears.  In GP (ABC), Dr Catherine Mitchell (Sarah Chadwick) faces the tragedy of losing her baby.

Thursday:  A bushfire breaks out in The Flying Doctors (GTV9), and Coopers Crossing is threatened.  Dr Ratcliffe (Brett Climo) and Dr Standish (Robert Grubb) find themselves battling the fire.

Friday:  Dennis Cometti, Sandy Roberts and Ross Glendinning head HSV7’s coverage of AFL, West Coast Eagles versus St Kilda, live from Subiaco.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.        
7 July 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: March 3-9

‘I want to show the real me!’
Sale Of The Century hostess Alyce Platt (pictured) wants to dump her conservative, quiz-show image.  The former Sons And Daughters star is now in her fourth year on the Nine Network quiz show and is daring to bring a new daring look to the long-running program.  “It was frustrating when people kept coming up to me in the street and telling me I looked younger in real life.  What has happened in the past on Sale Of The Century is that I’ve developed an image that is not really me.  I don’t dress as you’re used to seeing me on Sale.  I’ve just signed a new contract with the show and told them I wanted a say in how I look,” Platt told TV Week.  “I feel I might as well make a huge statement.  We’re finding that a lot of younger people are watching the show now.”  The new-look is set to feature designs from three major designers – Covers, Mariana Hardwick and Jenny Bannister.

Is this the new Kylie?
Beth Buchanan, the younger sister of Hey Dad! star Simone Buchanan, is to become a new resident of Ramsay Street.  The 17-year-old has been offered a high-profile role in Neighbours, following the departure of actress Rachel Friend from the show, sparking speculation that she is set to become “the new Kylie.”  A Network Ten spokesperson is staying tight-lipped, though:  “She has been offered the part, but I cannot confirm whether she has signed on the dotted line.” 

Are Denise and husband about to be reunited?
The year just passed is not one that Denise Drysdale (pictured) will want to cope with again.  The Hey Hey It’s Saturday and In Melbourne Today co-star is still coming to terms with the announcement that her ten-year marriage to actor Chris Milne had ended, and the impact it has had on her two boys, aged 9 and 7.  But there is no evidence of bitterness or discomfort when it comes to her former husband.   When asked if she would consider reuniting with Milne, she only responds “I just don’t know.  Stranger things have happened… I’m the sort of person who lives day to day.”  As well as working on her farm property in Gippsland, a 90-minute drive from Melbourne, Drysdale commutes to Melbourne twice a week for tapings of In Melbourne Today and Hey Hey It’s Saturday, hosts a weekly magazine show for local Gippsland channel GLV8 and is in constant demand for club appearances with long-time colleague Ernie Sigley.  Drysdale also responds to rumours that all is not well with her Hey Hey It’s Saturday co-stars, with reports that they’re miffed that she was doing and saying too much.  “Because Jacki MacDonald had been there for so long, I think it’s taken a lot of time for the others to realise there’s someone there to make a lot of noise… I can’t just stand there.  But I don’t think I would have been put in the job if they (the producers) didn’t like the way I work.  They know I’m not like Jacki.  I still think it will take more time to settle in.”  And when asked if she tires of her co-stars constant references to her anatomy, she only responds “No, they’ve been hanging around for years!”

Briefly…
Joining the list of guests jetting in for the upcoming TV Week Logie Awards is actor John Travolta, on the eve of the Australian release of his latest movie, Look Who’s Talking, and Aussie actress Sigrid Thornton, currently based in Los Angeles as the star of the CBS series, Paradise.

The arrival of Julian McMahon’s (pictured) character, Ben Lucini, in Seven’s Home And Away triggers a whirlwind romance with Carly (Sharyn Hodgson) with the pair becoming engaged within only a couple of weeks.

This week sees comedian Glynn Nicholas take over from Wendy Harmer as host of ABC’s popular comedy program, The Big Gig.  Harmer is now working on her own show, In Harmer’s Way, which is set to debut on ABC in April.

John Laws says…
”Kerry O’Brien, for whom I have a high personal regard, launched his promising new show Lateline at a time when a transport workers’ strike was gripping NSW and elsewhere, when Andrew Peacock was reeling from another pre-election poll tumble, when TNT had announced a dramatic fall in profits due to the airline dispute, and when the nation was on the brink of another national election campaign.  But what did O’Brien serve up on his first Lateline?  South Africa!  Sure, Nelson Mandela had been freed a couple of days earlier and South Africa was dominating TV news and hogging all the newspaper headlines.  But that’s my point:  By the time Lateline arrived, I suspect we were all totally overdosed on Mandela and the South African issue.  How much more were we expected to take?”

Program Highlights (March 3-9):
Saturday:  GTV9’s Cartoon Company returns to early Saturday mornings, but is now also joined by C-Company, presenting three-and-a-half hours of C-rated programming, including The Curiosity Show and Tasmanian-based KTV.
Sunday:  ATV10 crosses to the banks of the Yarra River to televise the 1990 Birdman Rally, part of the annual Moomba festival, hosted by Greg Evans and Colette Mann.  Sunday night movies are Cop (HSV7), White Mischief (GTV9) and Rambo III (ATV10).
Monday:  ABC and GTV9 interrupt their normal Monday night schedules for a half-hour Liberal Party policy speech, leading up the the Federal Election.  A re-run of the early-‘80s soap opera Holiday Island begins to get a late-night re-run on ATV10, screening Monday to Thursday nights after midnight.
Wednesday:  In E Street (ATV10), Alice (Marianne Howard) learns the truth about Paul (Warren Jones) and Lisa (Alyssa-Jane Cook).  A new beginning for Chris (Paul Kelman) and Megan (Lisbeth Kennelly) fuels the Abby (Chelsea Brown) and Vi (Bunney Brooke) feud.
Thursday:  After Tuesday night’s Liberal Party speech, it is now the ALP’s turn with Prime Minister Bob Hawke getting equal time with a half-hour policy speech on ABC and GTV9.
Friday:  Mark Mitchell hosts the 32nd annual presentation of the TV Week Logie Awards, live from the Hyatt On Collins Hotel, Melbourne, and televised on ATV10.  The two-and-a-half presentation culminates with the presentation of the Gold Logie to Australia’s most popular TV personality.  Up against the Logie Awards are movies The Dirty Dozen (HSV7), Every Which Way But Loose (GTV9) and The Last Innocent Man (ABC).

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 
3 March 1990. Southdown Press. 

1990: February 3-9

Justine’s back… but is Alex set to take off?
Justine Clarke and Alex Papps, former Home And Away couple Roo Stewart and Frank Morgan, are now both on the Nine Network.  But while Papps is settled in at The Flying Doctors, Clarke has moved into TV’s newest suburb, Kingsmead, in the new series Family And Friends.  Clarke admits that she had second thoughts about signing up with another series.  “I did um and ah for a while.  But I knew I was working with the same team who developed Home And Away, so I was confident and it was easier for me to make the decision,” she told TV Week.  But the future of her former colleague is unknown as production has finished filming the sixth series of The Flying Doctors, but there is no word as to whether there will be a seventh.  Nine has asked to reduce the show’s budget, but Crawford Productions don’t want to lower the standard of the show.  “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Papps told TV Week.  “Ratings-wise it’s doing well.  It’s just the cost.  If it goes into series seven, I’ll definitely be there.”

Annie lands in Cooper’s Crossing
Now sporting a short-cropped haircut, former Neighbours star Annie Jones is forging ahead with her career.  The TV Week Logie Award-winning actress has just completed work on the Crawford Productions’ mini-series Jackaroo and is now embarking on a new role as an opal miner’s daughter in The Flying Doctors.  Her character’s arrival in the outback drama leads to a romance with Dr David Radcliffe (Brett Climo).  For the former Neighbours star, Ramsay Street feels a million miles away:  “It was such an intense time and all of a sudden it was gone.  I was lucky I had something else (Jackaroo) to go to.”

Well, what a start!
The Nine Network’s new drama Family And Friends kicks off with a cliffhanger when two of the main characters are stuck in a well.  Young lovers Jennifer Chandler (Roxane Wilson) and Robert Rossi (Renato Bartolomei) are caught in a Romeo And Juliet-style romance as it brings together two families with long-standing feuds.  After a fight between the two lovers’ fathers, the pair are told to leave and not come back.  In their bid to secretly elope, they meet at an old well which is covered but as they walk across it, the cover breaks.  The new series also stars Sean Myers, Robert Forza, Simon Westaway, Anna-Maria Monticelli, Diane Craig, Anne Phelan and Dinah Shearing.

Briefly…
Nine’s long-running quiz show Sale Of The Century returns for its 10th year, starting the year with a masters’ challenge featuring world champions from the past three years over a two-week battle.  Previous Sale contests, such as “the Ashes” and “the Commonwealth Games”, have been a hit with viewers and it is hoped this latest contest will be a new year ratings hit.

A cast shake-up in Network Ten’s E Street will see no less than five characters written out of the series.  Lawyer Jennifer St James (Virginia Hey) will upset the pending nuptials between Daniel Windsor (Chris Orchard) and Dr Elly Fielding (Penny Cook), and will result in Jennifer departing with Daniel to Switzerland, taking three of his four children.  His eldest daughter, Toni (Toni Pearen), will remain in Westside.

Actor Paul Keane was ready to resign from his long-running role as Des Clarke in Neighbours, but has instead opted to take a four-month break and is expected to return in April.  Keane’s break from the show comes as cast morale is at an all-time low following the departure of several key cast members, but producers are confident that Des will return with some good storylines.

On The Grapevine…
The Vine was really knocked out by the astrologer who “predicted” that former Perfect Match hostess Kerrie Friend would be doing some travelling overseas this year.  This amazing prediction hit the streets after Friend, who’d announced her intentions well in advance, had left Australia for Los Angeles.

John Laws says…
”There’s some good news in the comedy area with confirmation of a new 13-episode series of Acropolis Now on Seven.  Making its debut last year, it provided one of the ‘sleeper’ hits, pulling in ratings in the low 20s in the major cities.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne):
Saturday:  GTV9 presents the last day of competition and the Closing Ceremony from the Commonwealth Games, live from Auckland. 
Sunday:  ATV10 crosses to Manly, Sydney, for the Ironman Super Series.  Competitors include Grant Kenny, Guy Leach and Trevor Hendy.  HSV7 presents live coverage of the Davis Cup tennis, from Royal Kings Park, Perth, and GTV9 crosses to the SCG for Australia versus Pakistan in the Cricket Third Test.  Sunday night movies are At Close Range (HSV7), Smokey And The Bandit (GTV9) and the first instalment of the re-run of mini-series Vietnam (ATV10), starring Nicholas Eadie, Barry Otto and Nicole Kidman.
Monday:  GTV9’s morning chat show, In Melbourne Today, returns for a new year with hosts Ernie Sigley and Denise Drysdale.
Wednesday:  The debut of GTV9’s new drama Family And Friends is up against E Street (ATV10).  HSV7 presents the AFL pre-season competiton, the Fosters Cup, featuring Footscray versus Richmond.
Thursday:  The second episode of Family And Friends is followed by The Flying Doctors’ return with a new series.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 3 February 1990. Southdown Press. 

Ding Dong Denise back on daytime TV

Denise Drysdale is set to make her return to TV as a panellist on the upcoming Ten Network program, The Circle.

One of Australia’s true TV veterans, Drysdale was a performer in children’s television in the 1960s, later featuring in pop music shows Kommotion, Uptight and Dig We Must and on Graham Kennedy’s In Melbourne Tonight. 

A number of guest appearances in Crawford dramas Division Four and Homicide later led to her becoming Ernie Sigley’s sidekick on the Nine Network’s The Ernie Sigley Show.  Their popularity led to them, in 1975, winning TV Week Gold Logies for most popular male and female on Australian TV.  Drysdale then won a second Gold Logie the following year.

She also starred in the sitcom The Bluestone Boys and musical special The 20s And All That Jazz (pictured) and appeared on Young Talent Time, Cop Shop, Countdown, The Penthouse Club, The Truckies, The Don Lane Show, The Mike Walsh Show, The Daryl Somers Show and co-hosted Hey Hey It’s Saturday after the departure of Jacki MacDonald from the show.  Living on a farm since the late-‘70s, she also hosted her own weekly program in the 1980s on local channel GLV8, based in Gippsland, Victoria.

The new Ten Network show marks Drysdale’s return to daytime TV after previous success when re-united with Sigley for In Melbourne Today in the late ‘80s, the program later titled Ernie And Denise when the show went national.  Then after two years as co-host on the revived In Melbourne Tonight with Frankie J Holden, Drysdale had her own daytime show, Denise, on the Seven Network in the late 1990s.

Recently, she has appeared as a guest on ABC’s Spicks And Specks and in the Hey Hey It’s Saturday reunion.

The Circle, due to start on Tuesday 9 February, is the replacement for Ten’s 9AM With David And Kim which wound up in December after four years on-air.  (The last two months have seen a “best of” collection of segments from the show airing as 9AM Summertime in the two-hour morning timeslot)

Also appearing as regulars on The Circle will be Foxtel presenter Yumi Stynes, performer and TV presenter Gorgi Coghlan and former Big Brother contestant and Vega FM breakfast presenter Chrissie Swan.

Scheduled to air weekdays from 10.00am, the new two-hour show promises topical chat with audience interaction.  The existing one-hour Ten News bulletin at 11.00am will move to 9.00am.

From the outset, it appears that The Circle looks like a daytime twist on Ten’s early evening The 7PM Project, a program that also features regular and guest panellists discussing issues of the day with some audience interaction.  The Circle’s all-female panel format also appears to bear a resemblance to the popular US show The View (shown in Australia on Foxtel and Nine), and its less-successful Australian adaptation, The Catch-Up, which aired on Nine in 2007.  It will be interesting to see if The Circle can overcome these perceptions and offer a viable alternative to The Morning Show and Mornings With Kerri-Anne on rival networks Seven and Nine.