Miriam Margolyes: Almost Australian

After roles in harry potter and jame and the giant peach, miriam margolyes goes touring around australia. Her mission is to find out what the aussie dream is. And are people finding it. First stop, a high end real estate agent near sydney. Then westward, to orange and trundle. Much more down to earth, every day people. Lots of cussing, so not for the kiddies! She speaks her mind. On to visit with people of aboriginal ancestry. Beautiful, varied landscapes and scenery. Nhill, with ka-ren people from vietnam. Alice springs. Darwin. Really good! We hear some quite touching stories of aussies, some are finding that dream, and some are not. The funny thing about having only one person appear in the cast list is that it made adding in a quote by miriam quite easy! There was no doubt about to whom I should credit the line! Really interesting stuff. Currently showing on the netflix...

Miriam Margolyes: Almost Australian is a charming series about connection, culture, and country. Miriam is a delightfully no-nonsense woman who does not shy away from sharing her opinions. This personality type is understandably not universally-appealing but I find her authenticity extremely refreshing. Miriam has the moxie of a New Yorker and the refined speech of a Proper British Lady. In short, I was charmed. The stories of the people Miriam connects with on her travels are the heart of this docu-travel series. The audience travels with her as she forges meaningful bonds with various communities. She interviews many people from many different walks of life and always keeps and open mind and kind heart. The message is simple, maybe even at times reductive. However, this is an easy bump to navigate through the 3 episodes because of the level of genuine connection and engagement Miriam is engaging with the real people she meets along her journey. Finally, I was having a bad day today and watching this series helped make it just a little bit better. Overall score 8/10, highly recommend.

I love Miriam. But - this is not great. Setting out to capture Australia she really missed the mark. From rural NSW to Melbourne, Bondi, Alice, Darwin, and to finish on the Gold Coast (one of the worst places in the world!, made for Japanese tourists).

I was really disappointed. This ISN'T the true Australia- well.... She had some little gems mixed in but most of it was crap. A few Ockers here and there, farmers dealing with drought. Obviously this was filmed and distributed before Lidia Thorpe went totally feral, dragging the Aboriginal flag through mud recently when police tried to arrest her for breaching the peace, or her arrest outside a Sydney strip club, or her swearing in Parliament. They're changing Parilimentary process because of Lidia's behaviour so the can be dismissed instantly for undignified, disgusting behaviour. I also thought it was a bit weird for an old lesbian to be perving at her teenage daughter on the tranpoline. She literally missed half the country!!! This is in no way anywhere close to a true representation of Australia. The token remote Aboriginals was quite exploitative. The violence in the Alice was totally missed out. The alcohol problem in the Territory wasn't mentioned. She/the producers picked bits of Australia that showed a tiny part of our country and not very well at that. It's a great shame, as I expected better from such an intelligent woman. Please don't think this is a true representation of Australia, it really isn't. 🙄

Remarkably dull, shallow series of a narrow minded woman demonstrating her prejudices scene after scene as she tries to force her uninformed generalizations and insensitivities on real-life hard working humans who have generously agreed to interact with her on camera.

I continued watching as I hoped for her to show some redemption or at the very least some inkling of humour, alas it wasn't forthcoming. Her self-proclaimed insights were not. Remarkable that this series was aired let alone filmed.

The side characters were of course the stars of the show, more educated worldly and informed than the narrow minded dullard narrator who seems to not have stepped outside her home/tv studio in three decades.

This show is awful. It's just some grouchy old lady who is mean to people she meets , criticizes things and people she doesn't understand; and thinks she's funny when she really just has a naive and predictably canned world outlook. She acts as though she's above everyone. No one needed to see her sit on the toilet. Overall this is boring, frustrating and disappointing. It's a shame she didn't do a better job discovering Australia with an open mind. I am not sure why anyone would think her identity politics schtick is funny. I never write reviews but was prompted to by how incredibly self absorbed and out of touch she was. She is downright rude to strangers she meets along the way. Sad.