![]() In the TV drama world, some of the recent break-out hits have focused on how ordinary working people somehow manage to look after themselves and their families, while the world tries to wash them down the plug-hole in a vortex of debt and contempt. ![]() Just as all those white telephones and implausibly long cigarette holders prompted a backlash in the form of French New Wave, modern audiences cannot survive on eye candy and escapism alone. But what of the other side of the equation – the ingenious realism in drama? A glance at some of the most popular shows currently on the UK’s ITV for example would include Real Housewives, The Only Way Is Essex, Love Island – all ultra-successful sexy, escapist fare. We do not have to look far on today’s reality TV for the modern equivalent of the white telephone. ![]() My Belfast granny was a dressmaker and was famous for being able to recreate the dresses of the starlets cheaply for her offspring before the following Saturday’s showing. The audiences escaped their tough lives to see ‘white telephone’ movies, in which dazzling damsels in elegant gowns arranged glittering dinner dates with dapper dilettantes on sleek white telephones, a world away from what awaited the general audience at work or home. ![]() The ‘Picture Palaces’ were regarded as wonders of comfort and affordable luxury – art deco elegance for the masses. In the Great Depression and the Hungry 30s, many of our more recent ancestors, burdened by financial and political insecurities, flocked to movie theatres. If history is a guide, audiences look for two opposite things in hard times – escapism, and what I’ll call ‘ingenious realism.’ In that sense, fiction has always been the last bastion of truth, particularly in tough times. They show us other people’s actions, reactions and consequences without putting us in too much danger, and it is easy to see that humans remember events and people, the stock-in-trade of stories, much better than lists of facts. Stories help us make sense of a world several sizes too big for us, through shared experiences, real or imagined. Storytelling, whether conjuring images from the flames of a neolithic campfire, or streaming on a lonesome laptop, clearly fulfils a primal human need. Sadly, prehistory does not record if the first cave pitch for When Tharg Got Stomped By A Woolly Mammoth sold in the room, nor whether it was regarded as a comedy or a drama. Dating back some 200,000 years, some believe that cave paintings represent the world’s first ‘storyboards,’ drawn to accompany a verbal narrative.įiction has always been the last bastion of truth in tough times & audiences look for two opposite things – escapism and ‘ingenious realism’ But there is another less reputable one that would give it a run for its money – storytelling. They say the world’s oldest profession is selling sex. Kristian Williamson helped with the research and wrote a book with the same title.Screenwriter Brendan Foley tracks an emerging trend in drama and comedy portraying the battles of ordinary working people in the post-pandemic economy It was his first work for television and his first effort as producer. The series was the result of two years work for Williamson. The 3 episodes still remain in the Screensound Archive. Each part runs for approx 90 minutes, both on VHS tape and DVD, is approximately 160 minutes implying they are heavily edited versions, as they've compressed 3 episodes into one 2 hour 40 minute film. The running time of the series is reported as 360 minutes (6 hours) on the IMDb page, that is the screening time with ads. It is a docudrama telling the story of Australia's involvement in World War II, and its often strained relations with its two main allies, Great Britain and the United States. The Last Bastion is a television mini-series which aired in Australia in November 1984. Australian TV series or program The Last Bastion
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