the last of the australians

As I write to you I have watched 11 episodes of The Last of the Australians, and am on to my 12th. In between watching the show I am reading of Alan Seymour's 1967 novel of his play The One Day of the Year on which The Last of the Australians is ostensibly, ostensibly mind you, based. To be honest I'm not 100% sure how this worked i.e. was Terry Stapleton - who played the character of Hughie in the original play when it opened in 1958 - actually inspired by these characters to adapt them into a sitcom (albeit with different names - Hughie became Gary and Alf* became Ted)? Or was this some kind of sleight of hand whereby he and Crawfords could say that the Last of the Australians was no way an imitation of Till Death Us Do Part (1968+) because it was based on something from 1958?

It's an interesting show to watch but not always enjoyable. Or even often enjoyable. It does have all the classic Crawfords people in it, not just Keith Eden and Maurie Fields and Terry Norris but also Noni Hazlehurst, Jacki Weaver and Vanessa Leigh. Of the main cast, of course Alwyn Kurts, who no-one had ever imagined could possibly be a comic actor, and Rosie Sturgess who was famous for her time with Graham Kennedy in particular so she had form as a comedian. Richard Hibberd was Gary in the first season, Stephen Thomas in the second (Hibberd quit the biz to join the Hare Krishnas). 

Anyway, I'm plouging on because this is my job now. I'll let you know if anything nice happens. 

*Clearly they couldn't have kept the name Alf for the father character because of Alf Garnett. I suppose 'Hughie' became 'Gary' just in the general update to the 1970s. 

things in streets

Terry on the 6 November 76. I am not sure what this is about, sorry. The name 'Terry' does appear in the Age for that day 19 times, including once in a mention of Terry Norris and also once in a mention of Terry Donovan, who were both adding their name to an advertisement for a colloquium on the meaning of 11 November and the Dismissal a year before. Perhaps one of those Terrys did this. Perhaps someone was inspired by the terry curtains included in a caravan for sale at Roma Caravans of Camberwell. Anyway it can't just be random, it must have a meaning. 

I noticed it for the first time a few days ago in a lane that Perry and I often walk through in the morning. Just sitting there hiding in plain sight. 

Yesterday I noticed this in Brunswick: 

Man I wish I could read it but I bet that cunt is older than 60 now. So the whole thing probably needs an overhaul. 

road to nhill

I borrowed this film on DVD from work, having seen it when it came out but not since, and it was overdue yesterday. Perry and I set off to return it this morning and then it started raining heavily the minute we left the house, so I thought OK, I'll watch it instead while we wait for the rain to recede. 

Apart from, as I remembered it, being a pretty great movie, it also features a lot of former Crawfords  people, such as  Lynette Curran, Monica Maughan, Lois Ramsey, Patricia Kennedy, Alwyn Kurts, Terry Norris, Bill Hunter, Tony Barry, Peter Aanensen, and Don Bridges (who was in two episodes of Special Squad so just qualifies). In fact, of the only people in this film (eg Denise Roberts) who weren't in some Crawfords show like Homicide or The Box or both, it's probably because they were/are too young. I don't think that's so much a matter of the casting being drawn from a bunch of old Crawfordsites as it is a sign of what constituted an experienced senior actor in the late 1990s. The Sunday Age's review (from 16 November 1997 p. 36) described the cast as 'perhaps the finest collection of character actors ever assembled for an Australian film'. 

Alison Tilson told the Sydney Morning Herald's Ruth Hessey in 1997 that she wrote the film so her father could enjoy something at the movies without the word 'fuck' in it.* 

For some absurd reason I recalled Road to Nhill as being set in Nhill. Why on earth would it be, given the title? It's set in Pyramid Hill, a place which actually is not even very proximate to Nhill (262 km) and which has no special road leading to it, despite the discussion early in the piece of the difference between the 'road which actually goes to Nhill' and 'Nhill Road'. 

This seems like a distortion of the truth but there you go. I guess someone just thought 'Nhill' was a decent name for a nowhere place. 

Here's the Pyramid Hill store from the film, above, and google earth, below. 

Thought you might like to see a drawing of it in 1933 from the Age (14 Feb p. 12). It was built after the previous building was destroyed in a fire in 1932. The accompanying article says the new building has been 'treated in the Florentine manner'. 

Anyway, back to the film. It is not quite a film about nothing; it's about how a car accident (not actually a mundane incident, but not immediately fatal for anyone) exposes the strengths and weaknesses of a whole lot of relationships. Also, Alwyn Kurts gets to utter lines like 'I'm skipper of B grade' in a Wes Andersonian tableau. 

On the whole, as glib as it may read, just a really nice but not insubstantial film with some truly spectacular actors, a great script and marvellous locations.

There is a narratorless 'making of' documentary with the DVD that tbh doesn't add a lot to the whole. A lot of material about the making of the four-bowling-ladies-upside-down-in-the-car sequence. Matthew Dyktynski refers to the older actors as 'icons of Australian product'. There is a clip from Homicide in there, when they canvass the various tv shows they've all been in. Terry Norris is featured heavily in the 'making of' but Alwyn doesn't feature and neither does Bill H. 

*Ruth Hessey 'Women 1 Men Nhill' Sydney Morning Herald 14 November 1997 p. 66