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RICHMOND HILL
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- 1988 - 92 x 60 minute
episodes - produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation
for Network Ten - |
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Contents
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Many of Australia’s
big soap opera successes have struck out on their own and had their daring
and originality repaid with notoriety and conspicuous commercial success. Number 96 busted out in 1972 with naughty neighbours, bed-hopping marrieds
and nude glimpses while the just-as-naughty The Box was a cheeky satire set in a “fictional”
television station. Prisoner had crime, drama, pathos and old lags
inhabiting a women’s prison while Sons and Daughters featured melodrama, devious schemes and heart-rending tragedy, and a neurotic
heroine Patricia “Pat the Rat” Hamilton, played by Rowena Wallace. On the other hand
thoughtful and conscientious dramas such as A Country Practice have dished out social commentary in a rustic, rural setting and
generated critical and ratings success, while Australia has always had a cop show of some sort,
somewhere. With this wealth of
tried-and-true formulas Richmond
Hill was not hard-up for
ideas. The Grundy’s produced series was created by Reg
“Prisoner” Watson for Channel Ten and had its
much-hyped premiere in January 1988. THE
CHARACTERS
Clearly intended for
an early-evening timeslot this is the show that tried to be nice. Certainly
it did not manage to be very original. Set in a quaint rural community
somewhere outside Sydney the basically lightweight serial threw in a bit of
everything: high drama and bedroom farce involving the scheming real-estate
agent Alderman Frank Hackett (Robert Alexander) and a tarty
barmaid Connie Ryan (Amanda Muggleton), an
all-powerful female figure in the form of Ivy Hackett (Maggie Kirkpatrick),
lots devious schemes thought up by the bitchy Anne Costello (Emily Symons), lashings
of social commentary in the storylines of the crusty Mum Foote (Gwen Plumb) -
an opinionated oldster in overalls whose farm provided a home for young
runaways and assorted strays. And there was of
course several bubbling romances amongst the twenty-something crowd that resided in the area. However the most
obvious borrowing was from Cop Shop. Though Richmond Hill
may not have been, strictly speaking, a police drama, the local police
station was the scene of much of the action, and the assorted cops took pride
of place amongst the show’s cast of characters. Former comedy star Ross Higgins
was Dan Costello who took charge of the police station and was the show’s
main authority figure. Dan was kept busy dealing with local crime waves, the
wayward younger cops, and his own wicked daughter Anne. He originally had a
wife played by Rona Coleman, though she died shortly after the show began.
Dan later embarked on a romance with a snippy police inspector played by Jan
Kingsbury. As the series began authoritarian
policeman Warren Bryant (Tim Elston) moved in
bringing with him earnest wife Janet (Paula Duncan) who suffered depression
stemming from an earlier rape. Despite the presence of a hunky teenage son
Marty (Ashley Paske) the Bryants
and their endless family problems were Dull Dull Dull! Meanwhile Tim Shannon (Robert Sampson) and Susan
Miller (Felicity Soper) were younger cops in the
show who fought crime with aplomb and shared a flat where
domestic squabbles and kitchen disasters provided endless merriment.
Finally Jill Warner (Dina Panozzo) was an assertive
young woman who had recently arrived to begin work as a real-estate agent. Jill
enjoyed a romantic affair with Tim. EVALUATION
In evaluating Richmond Hill it must be remembered that it was coined as
a companion piece to Neighbours during that show’s early years when it was a
massive ratings success in Australia. Though initially a flop on Channel
Seven, Neighbours had been revamped when it was picked-up by Channel Ten. Several
handsome youngsters were added to the cast, and by 1987 a series of major
publicity drives had turned the show into a ratings winner. The only thing
that amazed Australian television critics more than Neighbours’ high ratings in Australia was the show’s incredible success in the
UK. Clearly targeting this lucrative market the makers of Richmond Hill were apparently trying to expand on the
successful Neighbours formula by taking bland and inoffensive
comedy subplots and mixing these elements with slightly gritty police-drama
and social-conscience style storylines reminiscent of the earlier Cop Shop and the then still-successful A Country Practice. STORYLINES
The most interesting
on-going storyline of Richmond
Hill involved tarty barmaid Connie Ryan, so well played by Amanda Muggleton, who was remembered for her portrayal of
Chrissie Latham in Prisoner. Connie was a single woman who struggled to
raise her teenage son Andrew (Marc Gray). Always on the lookout for a
generous sugar-daddy, Connie attempted to enhance her sexy image by wearing
short skirts and subtracting several years from her age while insisting that
Andrew was in fact her younger brother. No one was very surprised when the
facts of Andrew’s true parentage came out after his first brush with the law.
As anyone familiar with Amanda’s Prisoner character would recognise,
Connie could well have been taken as a continuation of that show’s lascivious
tart Chrissie Latham. Both characters emerged as struggling single-mothers
willing to use their feminine wiles to secure a better life for herself and
child, sometimes employing underhanded methods. These methods might have
attracted scorn from some quarters, but ultimately the motivations were
sincere. Connie’s early
assignation with Frank Hackett ended in disaster when the police comically burst in on one
of their bedroom romps. She soon got over this embarrassment thanks to the
support of Mum Foote and friend Janet Bryant, though the relationship with
Andrew remained rocky. Frank Hackett died
of poisoning 13 weeks into the show’s run. Widow Ivy, played by Maggie
Kirkpatrick, previously a huge star as the hated and corrupt prison officer
Joan Ferguson in Prisoner, gleefully crowned herself queen of her
mansion and took the reigns of Frank’s real-estate business with relish.
Though neighbourhood gossips whispered that Ivy may well have been the poisoner,
nothing was ever proved and she emerged as the show’s main heavy, though here
her overbearing manner was played more for comedy than terror. THE CAST
Though Australian
soaps are notorious for the high rate of actor reuse amongst them, most begin
life with a cast largely made-up of unknowns - it is after the show becomes a
hit that the cast become stars who go on to make guest appearances in
subsequent soaps. This was not the case with Richmond Hill.
This new show clearly tried to secure success by casting several familiar actors
in major roles. Gwen Plumb had played the long-running role of kiosk-lady Ada Simmons in The Young Doctors. Ross Higgins was well-known for comedies The Naked Vicar Show and Kingswood Country. Tim Elston had appeared in Prisoner as Dr Scott Collins, in Neighbours as ill-fated racing driver Jeremy Lord, and
had taken a leading role as a policeman in failed 1981 drama Bellamy. Amanda Muggleton and Maggie Kirkpatrick
were undoubtedly huge stars through their long-running Prisoner roles. Paula Duncan was known for several leading soap roles
including Carol Finlayson in Number
96, Lisa Brooks in The Young Doctors and Lorelei Wilkinson in Prisoner, while her portrayal of policewoman Danni Francis in Cop Shop had resulted in six acting awards and a taste of soap-superstardom for
the pert and pretty young actress. Clearly the casting
directors wanted a host of familiar faces in this new show, along with a few major
soap opera stars. The move might not have drawn in the viewers as planned but
the actors involved, who may well have feared that typecasting would prevent
them from ever getting another acting job, remained eternally grateful. THE END
AND THE AFTERMATH
With the possible
exception of placing the one-time Ted Bulpitt,
actor Ross Higgins, in a straight role as the show’s authority figure, Richmond Hill’s major failing was that it was just too
bland. It rated well enough to last out the year in its early-evening
timeslot, but when it came to the crunch the network failed to renew the show
for a second year. The show continued unabated into the summer non-ratings
period where the stockpiled episodes were played out, and there the show
quietly died. At the start of 1989 Network Ten launched E Street, a new, urban
based serial focusing on a new, funkier, batch of policemen, lawyers and doctors,
dealing with a more rugged (and more vibrant and colourful)
community of wayward youngsters. Newcomer Ashley Paske had a regular role in Neighbours
after Richmond Hill’s demise but did not enjoy
lasting fame. Another youngster, Emily Symons, went straight into the
long-running role of bouncy Marilyn in Home and Away.
Symons would ultimately end up as a regular in another rural soap, taking a
long running role the UK’s Emmerdale.
Dina Panozzo, who was one of the more interesting
cast members of Richmond Hill, made sporadic appearances in television
guest roles and acted in supporting roles in some Australian feature films.
Paula Duncan continued to play nice middle-class soap heroines, while the
show’s biggest talent, the versatile Amanda Muggleton,
went on to become one of the biggest, and busiest, stars of the
Australian stage. Though never a big success
in Australia Richmond Hill was successfully sold to the UK, a sale
presumably helped by the presence of several former stars of Prisoner plus Neighbours’ continued success there. As had been the
case in Australia, the show’s UK ratings matched the level of drama seen in the
series and remained only lukewarm. |
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Originally uploaded September 2000 Last updated 21 June 2008 |
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