From The Newsreader to Colin From Accounts, Australian TV has become so much more than just soaps
Strewth! Has anyone else noticed just how many Australian dramas have been on British TV recently? From The Last Anniversary and Mix Tape to One Night and The Narrow Road to the Deep North these superior shows have done much to bolster the stale home-grown diet of crime dramas (and yet more crime dramas). Yes, the Aussies also export those, but even police procedurals like Scrublands and Mystery Road are a cut above many of our own efforts.
Next week sees The Newsreader, the acclaimed media drama about a 1980s current affairs TV programme, return to BBC Two for its third and final series. Starring Anna Torv (The Last of Us) and Sam Reid (Interview with the Vampire) as lovers/colleagues/rivals on a flagship news programme, it may lack the A-list cast of Apple TV+’s The Morning Show but it’s a good deal more realistic. Torv certainly makes a much more persuasive news anchor than Jennifer Aniston, at least.
And it’s not just dramas either, with the smart teen-pregnancy dramedy Bump and the beloved romcom Colin from Accounts charming their way to worldwide distribution. Fans of Colin from Accounts should also check out star Patrick Brammall’s earlier low-key gem, No Activity, in which he plays a bored stakeout cop and which you can find on Prime Video. It’s since been remade multiple times in different countries, including an American version starring Will Ferrell.
Harriet Dyer as Ashley and Patrick Brammall as Gordon in ‘Colin from Accounts’ (Photo: BBC/Paramount/CBS Studios, Easy Tiger, Foxtel, Create NSW/Lisa Tomasetti)
In a sense, Australia is just one part of a global upsurge in quality television abetted by the rise of streaming services (Aussie streamers Foxtel and Stan are responsible for many of the series I’ve mentioned.) But since they’re already in English language without dodgy dubbing or distracting subtitles, Australian shows are more accessible to wider British audiences.
Back in the day, Australian drama meant only two things: the teatime soaps Neighbours and Home and Away. For something spicier there was also the jailhouse saga Prisoner: Cell Block H, a drama set in a women’s prison which gained a cult following. But it’s a long way from Neighbours to the BBC’s recent acquisition, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, a devastating adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s Booker-winning novel that features the beheading of an Australian prisoner of war by a Japanese guard.
Sue Deeks, head of acquisitions at the BBC responsible for selecting most of the shows mentioned, agrees. But she also says we shouldn’t underestimate the impact that Neighbours had acclimatising British audiences to Australian subjects.“I think there is an affinity with UK audiences for Australian drama,” she says. “You have to give Neighbours some credit for that because a lot of people grew up watching it and have a fondness for it.”
Deeks also notes a trend for British actors appearing in Australian dramas, whether its Joanne Froggatt in North Shore, Jodie Whittaker in One Night, Miranda Richardson in The Last Anniversary or Ben Miller and Sally Phillips in Austin.
Anna Samson as DI Mackenzie Clarke in ‘Return to Paradise’ (Photo: Red Planet/BBC/John Platt)
“In the past there were a lot more long-running series, particularly police procedurals,” she says. “Australia would do their procedurals and the UK would do ours. But in recent years there’s been much more of a trend towards eight or 10-episode mini-series. Actors can go in, do something and then finish with it. They move about a lot more.” I can’t help but enviously suspect that British actors are attracted to these shows as they are filmed during the UK winter and Australian summer.
The takeover shows no signs of slowing down, either. New series of Colin from Accounts (hooray!), Austin, High Country, Scrublands, Mystic Road Origins and the antipodean Death in Paradise spin-off, Return to Paradise are all set to return in the coming months.
Ah yes, the oddly charmless Return to Paradise. Well, I guess Australia can’t win them all.
‘The Newsreader’ returns on Thursday 11 September at 9pm on BBC Two