Cirrus@Austlit

The inspirational boyhood story of Alan Marshall, born in rural Victoria in the early 1900s. As a young child, Marshall contracted poliomyelitis (polio), which left him crippled. He made it his goal to try to overcome his physical disability and live a normal life.

For a detailed, episode-by-episode synopsis, see Film Details.

'Departmental is the story of a theft of money in a police station and the interrogation of two uniformed policemen. (The playwright is a policeman turned barrister.)

'There are only four characters in the play. Ray Barrett plays Superintendent Spartan, the officer leading the inquiry into the theft. Martin Vaughan (known for his mammoth role in Frank Hardy's Power Without Glory) plays Inspector Cook, assisting Spartan in the interrogation.

'The two uniformed police who are suspected of taking the money are played by Gary Day as Constable Mcllveney and Rod Williams as Constable Pyers.'

Source:

'Tough Roles Because I'm Ugly: Barrett', Australian Women's Weekly, 6 August 1980, p.125S. (Via Trove.)

Spanning the 1890s to the 1950s, Power Without Glory is the story of a man determined to make something of his life. Raised in a Melbourne slum area, John West later gains wealth and power, his influence extending into his business, his political ambitions, and his family life. The events of his life unfold against a backdrop of major historical events, including World War One and the beginnings of the Australian Labour Party.

Aimed largely at young (specifically male) viewers, Alpha Scorpio followed the sudden realisation of two university students, enjoying a quiet coastal holiday, that their friend Mirny is one of a group of aliens from the fifth planet of Antares who have recently landed on Earth.

Alpha Scorpio has never been released on either video or DVD, and it is possible that nothing but the first episode remains in the ABC archives. However, the first episode is available to view on YouTube, beginning with part one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq7QOln0fro (Sighted 16/2/2011)

The program is a sole-author work: James Davern scripted all six episodes.

Further Reference

'"Alpha Scorpio": Based on Fact', Australian Women's Weekly, Wed.. 17 Oct. 1973, p.27.

One of Australia's earliest television dramatisations of its gold-rush era, Rush is, as Don Storey points out in his Classic Australian Television, in many ways two entirely separate programs: between series one and series two, the setting shifts from the Victorian goldfields to a New South Wales mining town, and jumps forward from the 1850s to the early 1860s. However, both series take place in the same universe, use the same chronology, and have a clear internal coherence, centred on the continuing character of Sergeant Robert McKellar. Therefore, they are generally treated as two separate series of a single program.

(The differences in cast, crew, writers, and directors between the two series are given in detail in the film details section below.)

With its enormous, intricate, expensive, and accurate sets, costumes, and props, Rush proved extremely popular with viewers, despite series one airing in an awkward weeknight 8pm slot (which, as Storey notes, put it against the second half of the highly successful Homicide in Melbourne). Series one did, however, attract some criticism for being filmed in black-and-white when colour programming was only a matter of months away in Australia.

Series two (which drew on foreign financing to cover its cost, an extremely high--for a domestically produced program--$24,000 an episode) was made in colour. Following Sergeant McKellar (the only character to carry over from series one), series two pushed the character forward through two disillusioning events (the Eureka Stockade, which prompted McKellar's resignation from the Victoria Police, and the death of his wife Sarah) and dropped him into the conflicts of a small New South Wales mining town.

Series two was also extremely popular but, according to Storey, plans for series three were shelved when the new Fraser government instituted (among other things) a hefty budget cut to the ABC.

Series one gained renewed prominence in the 1990s when, like police procedural Bluey, it was re-dubbed and sent up on The Late Show (as The Olden Days).

Based on Cliff Green's AWGIE Award-winning script, Marion follows the tribulations of a World War II-era schoolteacher working in the rural Gippsland area. As Moran notes in his Guide to Australian TV Series, 'she finds that the local townpeople resent her being single. She settles down to teach, putting up with insolence from one schoolboy, befriending another with a record of truancy, and trying to help an illiterate country girl. She becomes attracted to an Italian prisoner of war. The series highlights the different values of the country and the city and the difficulties Marion encounters because she is young, female and single.'