A Place to Call Home
Channel 7, 8.40pm
IT USE to be that Play School was the job centre for actors – if you didn’t have a regular gig then the joke was that you would find yourself talking to the bears in there and sitting in the “chair as well”.
These days Play School seems a place for much more specialised talents but don’t worry if you are an out-of-work actor there is a new hang-out it seems.
Watching A Place To Call Home is like flicking back through the Who’s Who of Australian TV actors for the past two decades – maybe it’s Seven’s contribution towards keeping actors working past normal retirement age?
A cast led by former Sullivans, Better Homes and Gardens and (ironically) play school favourite Noni Hazelhurst, along with Brett Climo (Country Practice, Man From Snowy River) mixes the very familiar with a slew of new faces.
Created by Bevan Lee (Packed to the Rafters, Grass is Greener, Winners and Losers) this 1950s set melodrama has just started its second season and is already rating well and building on its strong opening year.
OK, Shakespeare this isn’t and while it has been described as “Australia’s answer to Downton Abbey” it kind of lacks the polish of the Brit-mega-hit.
And while some of the acting from the younger cast members is more wooden than the ornate tables of the homestead’s dining room, it is all a bit of fun isn’t it?
It is interesting to see the usual highly up-to-date Lee delving back into our past – maybe shining a light on how far Australia has (or hasn’t come) over the past six decades.
The absolute pleasure of this show though is Noni Hazelhurst (still not inducted into the Logies Australian Television Hall of Fame) but still putting in a huge performance.
Her turn as family matriarch plotting to keep her family’s place at the helm of local society in a changing world, is a lot of fun and more than a little Machiavellian (in fact I was expecting someone to put up a “boo” sign every time she walked into a room).
A Place to Call Home is pure melodrama but then it doesn’t pretend not to be and, let’s face it, I’m sure we’ve all got a trashy romance novel somewhere in our collection that we don’t admit to having but just can’t throw out – this is just the televisual version.
– Tania Phillips
