Born: Established: 1949 ;
Script-writer Peter Neale's earliest script was the 38-minute script for prolific director Richard Jasek's graduate film for the Australian Film, Television, and Radio School, a contemporary version of the 1918 theatrical work L'Histoire du soldat (The Soldier's Tale) by Igor Stravinsky (music) and C.F. Ramuz (libretto).
This excursion into fantasy has remained one of Neale's focuses as a script-writer. He has written for straight drama series, including Heartbreak High, G.P., Water Rats, and Fallen Angels. His sole full-length feature-film script (Big Ideas, in which a young entrepreneur tangles with bureaucracy, which Neale later novelised) was also a straight drama, and he has also written scripts for educational programs, including English: Have a Go (a program aimed at those learning English as a language).
However, Neale also regularly produces scripts for programs with a strong speculative-fiction focus. He was one of the Australian script-writers for Australian-American co-production Farscape, and has written scripts for Wild Kat, Deadly, The Ferals, and The Woodlies.
Neale has also worked as a script editor (for feature film Chopper as well as for programs Water Rats and All Saints) and as an associate script producer (for murder-mystery soap opera Out of the Blue).
'Enter the world of Medical Defence Australia, a medico-legal organisation that exists to defend doctors and where necessary compensate patients. All cases at MDA combine elements of law and medicine so each case is managed by a doctor and a lawyer who agree on how to proceed. It's a unique organisation that delves into morally complex and emotion filled relationships between doctors and patients.'
Source: Australian Television Information Archive (http://www.australiantelevision.net/mda/mda.html). (Sighted: 22/2/2013)
One of Australia's highest rating dramas, All Saints is a Logie Award-winning Australian medical drama set in the fictional All Saints Western General Hospital in suburban Sydney. The stories originally focused on the nursing staff of Ward 17 run by Nursing Unit Manager Terri Sullivan. It was sometimes referred to as the 'garbage ward' because it took the overflow of patients.
In 2004 Network Seven producers overhauled the series in an effort to increase the show's gradually dwindling audience. They achieved this by closing down Ward 17 and transferring some of the staff to the Emergency Department managed by Frank Campion. Several other new lead characters were also introduced. The changes also saw the storylines begin to focus more on the lives of the doctors and nurses.
Another significant change to the series came in early 2009 when the producers introduced the Medical Response Unit. Central to this development was the helicopter which took doctors to rescue situations outside the hopsital and which in turn brought patients to the All Saints Emergency Department. The show's name was also changed at this time to All Saints: Medical Response Unit. The increased production costs created by having scenes shot on location played a part, however, in the series being cancelled mid-year. The series ended with the Emergency Department and Medical Response Unit teams having a dinner to farewell the last remaining original character, Von Ryan on her final day at All Saints.
All Saints was popular in many countries including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium and Iran.
Water Rats is an Australian police television series which was broadcast on the Nine Network between 1996 and 2001. The series was based around the men and women of the Sydney Water Police who fight crime across Sydney Harbour and surrounding locales. The show was set on and around Goat Island in Sydney Harbour.