Douglas Tainsh Douglas Tainsh i(A100424 works by) (birth name: Douglas Edward Tainsh) (a.k.a. Doug Tainsh)
Born: Established: 13 Jun 1921 Sydney, New South Wales, ; Died: Ceased: 30 Mar 2004 Noosa Heads, Noosa - Tewantin area, Sunshine Coast, South East Queensland, Queensland,
Gender: Male
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BiographyHistory

Douglas Tainsh was the son of poet William Tainsh and Mina Moore, a New Zealander who pioneered women's photography in Australia. He grew up in Melbourne, served with the AIF in Borneo in the Second World War and, on his return to Melbourne, studied at the National Gallery of Victoria, where he met Alice Drysdale, his future wife. He soon became a well known cartoonist, his most famous creation being 'Cedric' the swagman who appeared in the Australasian Post for 45 years. He also illustrated the cartoon strip 'Speewah Jack' in the Melbourne Argus - text by Alan Marshall. Tainsh was also a radio, television and film scriptwriter. He and his wife, Alice, moved to Queensland in 1970.

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

form y separately published work icon Matlock Police ( dir. Colin Eggleston et. al. )agent 1971 Melbourne Australia : Crawford Productions Network Ten , 1971-1976 Z1638563 1971 series - publisher film/TV detective crime

The Matlock Police series (originally simply titled Matlock) was commissioned from Crawford Productions by ATV-0, in response to the popularity of rival-network police dramas such as Homicide and Division 4. Crawford's was initially reluctant to create another police series, but ATV-0 pressured the company for some time. Eventually, Ian Jones and Terry Stapleton devised the concept of a regional (Victorian) police series to provide viewers with something different. The more relaxed atmosphere of the country-town setting also allowed the writers to delve into the private lives of the main characters, rather than focusing heavily on big-city organised crime. In this respect, the series was situated somewhere between Homicide/Division 4 and Bellbird. The series did, however, cover typical rural policing, including such issues as break and enters, domestic issues, itinerant workers, brawls, petty crime and robberies, road accidents, the occasional homicide, and cattle rustling. On other occasions, the Matlock police also assisted Melbourne police in locating criminals on the run (among other problems). The idea behind the show was to reflect the causes of crime in a small community and show the effects on both the community and the officers themselves.

The fictional town of Matlock (loosely based on Shepparton in Victoria) is situated inland on the Central Highway, approximately 160 kilometres north of Melbourne. Although the town's population is only seventeen thousand, this increases to around seventy-five thousand when the district is included. The Matlock Police Station is typical of a Victorian country town, with a Uniform Branch and a Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB). The CIB is headed by Detective Sergeant Vic Maddern, who grew up in the Matlock district and is an accomplished bushman. Second in command is Detective Allan Curtis, aged in his mid-twenties. Previously from Melbourne, Curtis has just been sent to his first country posting (against his will) when the series begins. Head of the Uniform Branch is Sergeant Bert Kennedy, an Englishman who migrated to Australia in 1950. A thorough but also easy-going man with a good sense of humour, Kennedy is married to Nell and enjoys the country life in Matlock, so much so that he has knocked back promotion to avoid moving to Melbourne. Several constables are attached to the Uniform Branch, but the most prominent is a motorcycle cop, Constable Gary Hogan, who performs a wide variety of duties. Hogan is about thirty, a friendly, easy-going person who grew up in the country and is always willing to help in whatever work is going.

1972 winner Logie Awards Best New Drama
form y separately published work icon Division 4 ( dir. Gary Conway et. al. )agent Melbourne : Crawford Productions , 1969 Z1814717 1969 series - publisher film/TV detective crime

Division 4, which Don Storey notes in Classic Australian Television was 'the only drama series on Australian television to rival the popularity of Homicide', was created as a vehicle for Gerard Kennedy, who had risen to popularity playing the complicated enemy agent Kragg in spy-show Hunter, after Tony Ward's departure left Hunter's future in doubt.

According to Moran, in his Guide to Australian Television Series:

The series differed from Homicide in being more oriented to the situation and milieu of a suburban police station staffed by a mixture of plainclothes detectives and uniformed policemen. This kind of situation allowed Division 4 to concentrate on a range of crimes, from major ones such as murder to minor ones such as larceny.

Though set in the fictional Melbourne suburb of Yarra Central, 'Sets were constructed that were replicas of the actual St Kilda police station charge counter and CIB room, with an attention to detail that extended to having the same picture hanging on the wall', according to Storey.

Division 4 ended in 1976. Storey adds:

Division 4's axing was a dark day for Australian television, as within months the other two Crawford cop shows on rival networks, Matlock Police and Homicide, were also axed. It was widely believed, and still is, that the cancellation of the three programs was an attempt by the three commercial networks--acting in collusion--to wipe out Crawford Productions, and consequently cripple the local production industry.

1972 winner Logie Awards Most Outstanding Drama Series
1970 winner Logie Awards Most Outstanding Drama Series
form y separately published work icon Consider Your Verdict ( dir. John Dixon ) Melbourne : Crawford Productions , 1961 Z1813000 1961 series - publisher film/TV crime

Consider Your Verdict was a television adaptation of Crawford Productions' radio programme of the same name, which (according to Storey at Classic Australian Television) ran from 18 August 1958 to 1960, for a total of 312 episodes. Soon after the radio program ceased, Crawfords began developing Consider Your Verdict as a television program.

As they had with the radio version, Crawfords made a number of production decisions aimed at increasing the apparent authenticity of the program. According to Storey, these included consulting legal professionals (including the Crown Law Department, Victoria Police, and Melbourne University's Department of Law), limiting the actors playing witnesses to a brief overview of the script and requiring them to ad-lib their lines (resulting in an authentically hesitant delivery style), and occasionally casting actual legal professionals in roles (notably homicide detective Gordon Timmins and Eugene Gorman QC). The intention was to suggest that audiences were watching a broadcast of an actual trial; in keeping with this illusion, as Moran notes in his Guide to Australian TV Series, the program carried no production credits.

The majority of the cases were criminal cases (primarily murder), though the program did present some civil cases. Inexpensive to produce, the program occasionally suffered from the suggestion that it adhered rather too closely to legal process, rendering episodes slower and less dramatic than they might otherwise have been.

1962 winner Logie Awards Most Outstanding Drama Series
Last amended 7 Nov 2016 08:22:32
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