A Town Like Alice (miniseries)

Last updated

A Town Like Alice
Based on Novel by Nevil Shute
Written byTom Hegarty
Rosemary Anne Sisson
Directed by David Stevens
Starring Helen Morse
Bryan Brown
Gordon Jackson
Theme music composer Bruce Smeaton
Country of originAustralia
Original languageEnglish
No. of episodes3 x 1 hour 45 minutes.
Production
ProducerHenry Crawford
Running time301 mins
Production companiesMariner Films
Australian Film Commission
Victorian Film
Budget$1.25 million [1]
Original release
Network Seven Network
Release4 October (1981-10-04) 
18 October 1981 (1981-10-18)

A Town Like Alice is a five-hour 1981 Australian television adaptation of Nevil Shute's novel of the same name. Produced by the Seven Network, and directed by David Stevens, it was the second major adaptation of the book. [2]

Contents

In the United States it was shown on PBS under the Masterpiece Theatre banner, a rare non-British production to be so aired.

Cast

Changes from the book

While generally faithful to the original book, there are several notable differences, the most significant right at the end.

Production

It was the most expensive Australian television series at the time. It was filmed on location in England, Malaysia and western New South Wales. [3]

Reception

The series was a huge ratings success in Australia, getting a 49% viewing share. [4]

Awards

The series won an International Emmy Award for drama in 1981 [5] and won a Logie Award in the Best Single Drama or Mini Series category at the 1982 awards with Morse, Brown and Jackson winning Logies for their performances. [6]

Related Research Articles

<i>Room at the Top</i> (1959 film) 1959 film by Jack Clayton

Room at the Top is a 1959 British drama film based on the 1957 novel by John Braine. It was adapted by Neil Paterson, directed by Jack Clayton, and produced by John and James Woolf. The film stars Laurence Harvey, Simone Signoret, Heather Sears, Donald Wolfit, Donald Houston, and Hermione Baddeley.

<i>A Town Like Alice</i> Novel by Nevil Shute

A Town Like Alice is a romance novel by Nevil Shute, published in 1950 when Shute had newly settled in Australia. Jean Paget, a young Englishwoman, becomes romantically interested in a fellow prisoner of World War II in Malaya, and after liberation emigrates to Australia to be with him, where she attempts, by investing her substantial financial inheritance, to generate economic prosperity in a small outback community—to turn it into "a town like Alice" i.e. Alice Springs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Morse</span> American actor (1931–2022)

Robert Alan Morse was an American actor. Morse, known for his gap-toothed boyishness, started his career as a star on Broadway acting in musicals and plays before expanding into film and television. He earned numerous accolades including two Tony Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bryan Brown</span> Australian actor (born 1947)

Bryan Neathway Brown AM is an Australian actor. He has performed in over eighty film and television projects since the late 1970s, both in his native Australia and abroad. Notable films include Breaker Morant (1980), Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984), F/X (1986), Tai-Pan (1986), Cocktail (1988), Gorillas in the Mist (1988), F/X2 (1991), Along Came Polly (2004), Australia (2008), Kill Me Three Times (2014) and Gods of Egypt (2016). He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award for his performance in the television miniseries The Thorn Birds (1983).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gordon Jackson (actor)</span> Scottish actor (1923–1990)

Gordon Cameron Jackson, was a Scottish actor best remembered for his roles as the butler Angus Hudson in Upstairs, Downstairs and as George Cowley, the head of CI5, in The Professionals. He also portrayed Capt Jimmy Cairns in Tunes of Glory, and Flt. Lt. Andrew MacDonald, "Intelligence", in The Great Escape.

Geraldine James OBE is an English actress. She has worked extensively on television, on stage and in film. She is known for her role as Marilla Cuthbert in the Netflix series Anne with an E (2017–2019) and as Queen Mary in the 2019 film Downton Abbey.

Norman Gunston is a satirical TV character performed by Australian actor and comedian Garry McDonald. Norman Gunston was primarily well known in his native Australia, and to a lesser extent, the United States during the mid to late 1970s. He was the only Gold Logie winning fictional character on Australian television, with McDonald collecting the 1976 Gold Logie and the George Wallace Memorial Logie for Best New Talent in character.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caroline Goodall</span> British actress (b. 1959)

Caroline Goodall is a British/Australian actress and screenwriter and producer. Awards and nominations include Best Actress nominations AFI Awards for her roles in the 1989 miniseries Cassidy and the 1995 film Hotel Sorrento, a Logie Awards Nomination for the mini series A Difficult Woman, and a Best Actress award. Her film appearances include Hook (1991), Cliffhanger (1993), Schindler's List (1993), Disclosure (1994), White Squall (1996), The Princess Diaries (2001) and The Best of Me (2014).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Harrow</span> New Zealand actress (born 1943)

Lisa Harrow is a New Zealand RADA-trained actress, noted for her roles in British theatre, films and television. She is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Nancy Astor in the British BBC television drama Nancy Astor.

Our Town is a 2003 American made-for-television film adaptation of the 1938 play of the same name by Thornton Wilder starring Paul Newman, who was nominated for both an Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding acting. It was filmed at the Booth Theatre in Manhattan, where it played on Broadway in 2002. The production originated at the Westport Country Playhouse. The film originally aired May 24, 2003, on Showtime and was also shown on PBS as part of Masterpiece Theatre on October 5, 2003.

Helen Morse is an English-born Australian actress who has appeared in films, on television and on stage. She won the AFI Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for the 1976 film Caddie, and starred in the 1981 miniseries A Town Like Alice. Her other film appearances include Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Agatha (1979), Far East (1982) and The Eye of the Storm (2011).

Herbert James "Ringer" Edwards was an Australian soldier during World War II. As a prisoner of war (POW), he survived being crucified for 63 hours by Japanese soldiers on the Burma Railway. Edwards was the basis for the character Joe Harman in Nevil Shute's novel A Town Like Alice. The book was the basis for a 1956 film and a 1981 Australian television miniseries of the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorothy Alison</span> Australian actress (1925–1992)

Dorothy Alison was an Australian stage, film and television actress

<i>A Town Like Alice</i> (film) 1956 British film by Jack Lee

A Town Like Alice is a 1956 British drama film produced by Joseph Janni and starring Virginia McKenna and Peter Finch that is based on the 1950 novel of the same name by Nevil Shute. The film does not follow the whole novel, concluding at the end of part two and truncating or omitting much detail. It was partially filmed in Malaya and Australia.

A Town Like Alice is a 1950 novel by British author Nevil Shute.

David Stevens was an Australian writer and director, best known for his work on Breaker Morant, A Town Like Alice, and The Sum of Us.

A Thousand Skies is a 1985 Australian mini series about the life of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">9th International Emmy Awards</span>

The 9th International Emmy Awards took place on November 23, 1981, in New York City. The award ceremony, presented by the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (IATAS), honored all programming produced and originally aired outside the United States.

Allan Cubitt is a British television, film, and theatre writer, director, and producer and former teacher, best known for his work on Prime Suspect II and The Fall.

<i>The Silence</i> (2006 film) 2006 television film directed by Cate Shortland

The Silence is an Australian television film that first aired on ABC on 2 April 2006.

References

  1. "The magic of Helen Morse". The Australian Women's Weekly . National Library of Australia. 18 June 1980. p. 10 Supplement: FREE your TV Magazine. Retrieved 14 July 2013.
  2. Ed. Scott Murray, Australia on the Small Screen 1970-1995, Oxford Uni Press, 1996 p217
  3. Stanley, Raymond (15 September 1979). "'Alice' to set TV landmark". Screen International . p. 9.
  4. Sadlier, Kevin. "Death of the Australian mini-series". Sydney Sun Herald. p. 47.
  5. "'Town Like Alice' Wins International Emmy". St Petersburg Times. 25 November 1981. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
  6. "1982 – The Logie Awards". Yahoo!7. Archived from the original on 28 January 2015.