1991: January 26-February 1

Cover: Nicole Kidman

Here comes the bride…
Many soaps have given their ratings a boost by holding a wedding.  The Nine Network’s new series Chances is starting with one!  The adults-only drama kicks off with a wedding between David Young (Rodney Bell) and Rebecca Taylor (Natalie McCurry).  “Chances has great possibilities,” Bell told TV Week.  “It’s aimed at a more mature audience and packs a good punch!”  Bell is no newcomer to television, having started in showbiz at the age of four and later appearing in TV soaps The Restless Years and The Young Doctors.  McCurry, 24, began modelling at 14 and later appeared in TV and film roles before coming fifth in the Miss World contest, winning the Miss Oceania title.  Chances, which debuts this week on Nine, also stars John Sheerin, Brenda Addie, Jeremy Sims, Cathy Godbold, Rhys Muldoon, Simon Grey, Tim Robertson, Deborah Kennedy, Marcia Deane-Johns, Anne Grigg and Leverne McDonnell.

Andrew graduates to Wandin Valley
NIDA graduate Andrew Blackman has joined the cast of A Country Practice as Wandin Valley’s new doctor, Dr Harry Morrison.  “I am very excited and looking forward to working with one of the most experienced casts in TV today.  As yet I know little about the character, except that he comes from the Queensland bush.  However, being a country boy myself from Queensland, I don’t feel that Harry is too far away from myself,” Blackman told TV Week.  He will make his on screen debut in April.

Mighty minis
Voting continues for the 1991 TV Week Logie Awards.  Which mini-series or telemovies of 1990 will viewers vote for Most Popular Mini-Series?  ABC presented the popular Come In Spinner, starring Kerry Armstrong, Lisa Harrow and Rebecca Gibney, and The Paper Man, starring John Bach, Peta Toppano and Rebecca Gilling.  Network Ten’s Shadows Of The Heart, starring Marcus Graham, Jason Donovan, Colleen Hewett and Robyn Nevin, was a ratings winner.  Nine presented the action-filled Ring Of Scorpio and bawdy The Private War Of Lucinda Smith (starring Linda Cropper and Nigel Havers, pictured).  Seven produced the controversial Jackaroo, starring former Neighbours star Annie Jones, telling the story of a relationship between a part-Aboriginal man and a spoilt white girl from the city.  Seven also produced All The Rivers Run II, starring John Waters and Nikki Coghill.

Briefly…
Newlywed Aussie actor Peter O’Brien has had to leave his bride, actress Jo Riding, in the UK as he has returned home to discuss future work projects.  The pair met when they were starring in the stage production of The Wizard Of Oz.  O’Brien is set to appear in a new Australian-US film production, The Diamond Triad, while Riding is currently on stage in Around The World In Eighty Days.

Lawrie Masterson’s Sound Off
”For someone who used to have such a high profile, Don Lane’s comeback to television last year was low key to the point of being almost unheralded.  The man who once was undisputed king of prime-time variety (remember prime-time variety?) turned up without fanfare on the ABC, hosting replays of American football in a late-night slot which could hardly be called prime.”

Program Highlights (January 26-February 1):
Saturday:  Australia Day is commemorated with golf (The Vines Classic) on ABC, tennis (Ford Australian Open) on Seven, and cricket (Fourth Test) on Nine.  Although Nine had earlier crossed to Admiralty House for the presentation of Australia Day Honours and an address by Prime Minister Bob Hawke.  After ABC News, the national broadcaster presented the Governor-General’s Australia Day Message followed by The Very Best Of Aunty Jack, the mockumentary Barbakiueria and the 1940 Australian movie classic Dad Rudd MP.  Seven presents live coverage of the Australasian Country Music Awards.

Sunday:  The Women’s Doubles Final and Men’s Singles Final mark the final day of the Ford Australian Open on Seven.  Sunday night movies are Barracuda (Seven), Murphy’s Romance (Nine) and Attack Force Z (Ten).  ABC presents the Bolshoi Ballet as its Sunday Stereo Special, followed by highlights of the annual Montsalvat Jazz Festival held in Melbourne.

Monday:  Don Lane presents ABC’s live coverage of the 25th NFL Superbowl, played in Tampa, Florida. 

Tuesday:  The premiere of Nine’s new adults-only drama Chances (starring Natalie McCurry, pictured), telling the story of an ordinary suburban family whose lives are changed when they win a lottery.  ABC’s Lateline with Kerry O’Brien returns for 1991, followed by a repeat screening of the NFL Superbowl from the previous day.

Friday:  Seven crosses to Perth for live coverage of the Davis Cup, Australia versus Belgium.  Also in Perth is the cricket Fifth Test which begins today on Nine.  Nine’s late-night MTV, hosted by Richard Wilkins, returns for 1991.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 26 January 1991. Southdown Press.

1990: May 19-25

‘We’re not joined at the hip’
Neighbours twin co-stars Gayle and Gillian Blakeney (pictured) might look alike and share many similar interests but still stress that they are very different.  “We’re not joined at the hip.  We’re individuals,” Gayle told TV Week.  “People think that because we look alike we’re alike in everything we do and say.”  But they do concede to have had a number of uncanny experiences – sometimes one will start a sentence and the other will finish it off.  “We can pre-empt what the other is thinking and our moods follow suit.” 

‘I’d be fibbing if I said I didn’t miss it’
Former Coast To Coast presenter John Mangos has told TV Week about his disappointment about Graham Kennedy’s decision not to continue with the show after the end of 1989:  “I idolised Graham.  He was my boyhood hero and that’s why i left the States.  There were very few job positions I would have left that job for, and one of them was the chance to work with my hero.  It took the first few months for us to find each other and after we did, we had a good thing going.  I’d be fibbing if I said I didn’t miss it.”  Since the end of Coast To Coast, co-host Terry Willesee has now moved across to the Ten Network to present Good Morning Australia with Kerri-Anne Kennerley, and Mangos has stayed at Nine to present its Sunday night documentaries with the opportunity to make his own for the network.

Oh, what a lovely war!
The Nine Network mini-series The Private War Of Lucinda Smith is not your usual wartime drama.  The two-part series, starring Nigel Havers, Linda Cropper, Andrew Clarke and Vincent Ball, is an unashamed bawdy romp about a romantic love triangle in the South Pacific in 1914-15 when the outbreak of war turns friendly rivals for Lucinda’s affections into friendly enemies.  “It’s a good old Boys’ Own adventure story with plenty of romance, comedy and sex and practically no violence – perfect, really,” according to Havers (pictured, with Cropper).  “We enjoyed ourselves immensely making it, and I think Ray Alchin (the director) has a lot to answer for.  He never took anything seriously.”

Briefly…
Former The Flying Doctors star Peter O’Brien has scored the lead role in an upcoming American adventure film, The Diamond Triad.  O’Brien was offered the role after producers saw him in the London stage production of Butterflies Are Free.

Annie Jones has just returned from the US where she appeared on a cable TV channel to promote her Oz Beauty Video, a guide to successful grooming.  Now, the former Neighbours star is preparing for her next role in an SBS series about the lives of Australian immigrants.  Jones, who used to be Annika Jasko, is the only Australian-born child of Hungarian parents who settled here in the 1950s.  She is also fluent in Hungarian and will speak the language in the new role.

Nine Network series Family And Friends is about to turn back the years as some of its characters are taken back to the Seventies as the theme for a school social.  The social is also the scene for Renato’s (Gavin Harrison) seduction of Cheryl (Justine Clarke, pictured with Harrison) in an attempt to get her away from Marco (Adrian Lee).

John Laws says…
”British TV viewers are “soaps” – and mainly Australian ones – more than ever before, according to the latest statistics.  Of 30,000 viewers polled recently, more than 65 per cent chose either Neighbours, Home And Away or Prisoner (Cell Block H) as their favourite viewing.  And in England they are saying that the recent $20 million deal for hundreds of Home And Away episodes to be screened in Britain over the next few years actually saved the Oz soap from getting the chop.  At a time when the film industry in Australia is languishing, it’s at least reassuring to know that one section of our TV industry is creating new markets and turning a profit.  Let’s hope it stays like that.”

Program Highlights (May 19-25):
Sunday:  HSV7 crosses to Subiaco Oval in Perth for the AFL clash between West Coast Eagles and Brisbane Bears, followed by highlights of the game between Footscray and Essendon.  ATV10 presents Rugby League with the State Bank Big Game, direct from Sydney.  Sunday night movies are Young Guns (HSV7) and Red Heat (ATV10), while GTV9 presents the first instalment of mini-series The Private War Of Lucinda Smith.
Monday:  ABC screens the final in the Wendy Harmer series, In Harmer’s Way.
Tuesday:  Veteran actress Queenie Ashton (pictured) is a guest star in this week’s episode of GP (ABC).  HSV7 crosses live to the Sydney Cricket Ground for the AFL State Of Origin match between NSW and Victoria, presented by Bruce McAvaney.
Thursday:  Annie Jones guest stars in The Flying Doctors (GTV9).

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