The Group (Australian TV series)

Last updated

The Group
GenreSituation comedy
Written by David Sale
Starring
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes14
Production
ProducerDon Cash - Bill Harmon
Production companyCash Harmon
Original release
Network Seven Network
ReleaseJanuary 1971 (1971-01) –
August 1971 (1971-08)

The Group was an Australian situation comedy series produced by Cash Harmon Television for the Seven Network in 1971. The pilot episode was screened by the network on 25 January as one of four Australian series it was considering commissioning. It then, Bob Ellis wrote, 'invited the vast audience to write in and say which ones they liked.' [1]

Contents

Synopsis

The situation involved five young flatmates—three men and two women—living together for financial and pragmatic reasons and regularly attempting to outwit their landlord who was convinced there were saucy goings-on in the flat. In this it prefigured the more well-known 1973 British sitcom Man About the House.

The regular characters were named on screen with a freeze frame as they made their entrance at the start of each episode. Each credit also featured a brief description of the character, such as 'MARK the medical student', 'JENNIFER the student', 'BOB the accountant', 'JEREMY he's something in television', 'TINTO the landlord'.

The final character was Laura Bent, the dumb brunette, a model unaware of her physical attractiveness. Laura was the key character around which most of the show's situations revolved. Her caption would change every episode and formed the title of the episode, such as "and LAURA this week she's on a diet", "This Week She Wants to Be a Singer", "This Week She Travels", etc.

Ellis described The Group's pilot as featuring 'graceful studio direction, and... a chirpy overall feeling of ensemble vivaciousness'; it was, he said, 'a cheery, friendly, viable show.' [2]

Cast

Regular

Guests


The role of Laura Bent was played by Roslyn Wilson, cast at the last minute when the original actress, Wendy Hughes, was released to take a role in a production of Butterflies are Free . [3] Wilson had not acted professionally, but she had performing experience in amateur theatre and as a singer-guitarist. At the time she auditioned for The Group, she was working as a secretary in an advertising agency and had, producer Don Harmon said at the time, 'the same quality of innocence that Marilyn Monroe used to have.' [4]

Production personnel

The series was produced by Don Cash and Bill Harmon, devised by Anne Hall and written by David Sale, who the following year collaborated on the phenomenally successful soap opera Number 96 . Despite its popularity The Group was not renewed beyond its original series of 13 half-hour episodes. [5]

Indeed many of the actors who had featured briefly in The Group, including Bettina Welch, Elisabeth Kirkby and Tom Oliver, would become staples in Number 96 [6]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Bob Ellis, 'Gyngell agonises' Nation 6 February 1971 p. 18
  2. ↑ Bob Ellis, 'Gyngell agonises' Nation 6 February 1971 p. 18
  3. ↑ 'Comedy that viewers picked starts on Sunday', Melbourne Age 12 August 1971 'TV-Radio Guide' section, p. 2
  4. ↑ Valda Marshall, 'New Face in "the Group"', Sydney Sun-Herald, 14 March 1971 p. 178
  5. ↑ Moran, Albert. Moran's Guide to Australian TV Series, Allen & Unwin, 1993. ISBN   0-642-18462-3, p. 209–210.
  6. ↑ Giles, Nigel. Number 96. Melbourne Books.

Related Research Articles

Bellbird is an Australian soap opera serial broadcast by the ABC and written and created by Barbara Vernon, it screened for 10 seasons between 1967 and 1977, with the series centring around the residents of the small fictional Victorian rural township of the series title.

<i>Number 96</i> (TV series) 1972 Australian TV series

Number 96 is an Australian primetime soap opera that aired on 0-10 Network from 13 March 1972 to 11 August 1977, originally broadcast in the primetime slot of 8:30 pm for 5 x half-hour episodes every weeknight, then later 2 x one hour episodes screened per week.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bettina Welch</span>

Bettina Catherine Welch was a New Zealand-born Australia-based actress, primarily in radio and theatre and of the latter in television roles. She was best known for her role in television soap opera Number 96 as Maggie Cameron, a scheming businesswoman and fashion editor.

<i>Z-Cars</i> British police procedural TV series (1962–1978)

Z-Cars or Z Cars was a British television police procedural series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, near Liverpool. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.

<i>SeaChange</i> Australian television series

SeaChange is an Australian television program that ran from 1998 to 2000 on the ABC and in 2019 on the Nine Network. It was created by Andrew Knight and Deborah Cox and starred Sigrid Thornton, David Wenham, William McInnes, John Howard, Tom Long, Kevin Harrington, and Kerry Armstrong. The director was Michael Carson.

Full Frontal is an Australian sketch comedy series which ran on the Seven Network from 1993 to 1997. It launched the television careers of Eric Bana, Shaun Micallef, Kitty Flanagan, Julia Morris, Daina Reid and Denise Scott.

<i>The Comedy Company</i> 1988 Australian TV series or program

The Comedy Company was an Australian sketch comedy television series that first aired from 16 February 1988 until 11 November 1990 on Network Ten. It was created and directed by cast member Ian McFadyen, and co-directed and produced by Jo Lane.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rowena Wallace</span> English-born Australian actress

Rowena Wallace is an English-born Australian stage and screen actress, most especially in the genre of television soap opera. She is best known for her Gold Logie-winning role as conniving Patricia "Pat the Rat" Hamilton/Morrell/Palmer in Sons and Daughters, being the first soap star to win the Gold Logie. After leaving the series and being replaced in the role by Belinda Giblin, Wallace returned in the final season as Patricia's sister Pamela Hudson.

Glenview High is an Australian television drama series produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation for the Seven Network between 1977 and 1978.

Consider Your Verdict is an Australian television series made by Crawford Productions for the Seven Network originally screening from February 1961 through to June 1964. It was based on a radio series with the same name broadcast on 3DB in Melbourne from 1958 to 1960.

Roslyn Gentle billed as Ros Gentle and Roz Gentle, is an Australian actress, best known for her role in the television series Prisoner as librarian/prostitute Laura Gardiner/Brandy Carter – an inmate who suffers from multiple personality disorder – in 1983.

Josephine Knur is a former Australian actress recognised for her eight-month stint as Lorelei Wilkinson in television soap opera Number 96 in 1974.

Patrick Ward was an Australian actor noted for several performances on Australian television. He died from cancer on 14 October 2019.

Elisabeth Wilma Burton Kirkby, alternatively Elizabeth Kirkby, is a British Australian retired politician, actress, entertainer and broadcaster.

Barbara Anne Frawley was an Australian actress, voice actress and children's television host.

Cash Harmon Television was an Australian television production company based in Crows Nest, New South Wales, operating from the early 1970s until 1980. Their most famous product was top-rated evening sex and sin soap opera Number 96 for the 0-10 Network, which ran from 1972 until 1977.

<i>Women of the Sun</i> 1981 Australian TV series or program

Women of the Sun is an Australian historical drama television miniseries that was broadcast on SBS Television and later the Australian Broadcasting Company in 1981. The series, co-written by Sonia Borg and Hyllus Maris, was composed of four 60-minute episodes to portray the lives of four Aboriginal women in Australian society from the 1820s to the 1980s. It was the first series that dealt with such subject matter, and later received several awards including two Awgies and five Penguin Awards following its release. It also won the United Nations Association of Australia Media Peace Award and the Banff Grand Prix in 1983.

Catwalk is a 1971 Australian TV series created by Tony Morphett. It was a spin-off of an episode of the TV series Dynasty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television</span> 13th episode of the 6th season of Community

"Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television" is the series finale of the sitcom Community, serving as the thirteenth episode of its sixth season. It was written by series creator Dan Harmon and Chris McKenna, and directed by Rob Schrab. It is the 110th episode overall and was initially released on Yahoo! Screen in the United States on June 2, 2015.

Number 96: The Movie is an Australian drama film, released in 1974 and based on the television soap opera of the same title that was then running on the 0-10 network. The film features nearly all the show's regular cast, and was created by the show's creative team, Cash Harmon Productions with the screenplay by David Sale and Johnny Whyte and directed by Peter Benardos and Brian Phillis.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.