Australian drama series premieres this week-end

Press, 18 February 1989, Page 23

Australian drama series premieres this week-end

Last year, New Zealand audiences welcomed their Australian “Neighbours’’ into their homes, and now it is time to say hello to the folks of “Richmond Hill.’’

“Richmond Hill,” another Australian drama series made by Grundys, premieres with a labour opener on Sunday at 8.20 on Two and continues in hour-long episodes on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. It is the brainchild of Reg Watson, the man who also created “Neighbours,” “The Young Doctors,” and “Prisoner,” and it features some familiar faces from those earlier series.

The story of “Richmond Hill” revolves around the town’s police station, a real estateoffice, a pub — the Richmond Hill Arms — and four families in the district

Although police play a major part in the show, it could not be called a police drama.

“It’s about the loves and private lives of a community in an outer suburb of a major city,” says the producer, Philip East.

“We’re using a police station as an entree into various areas of the community.” ' The emphasis is on everyday folk going about their business, explains East. “They do day-to-day things like the rest of us, except that it’s a bit more concentrated than in real life.”

As a former producer of “Neighbours,” East has considered the elements responsible for “Neighbours’ ” ratings success and feels that the secret lies with a group of characters who have generated a chem-

istry among themselves. However, he insists there is no one formula that can be applied from one soap to the next. “There’s been no conscious effort to clone ‘Neighbours.’ In fact, quite the contrary, we wanted ‘Richmond Hill’ to have a life of its own. “Probably the only specific aspect is to make sure the programme has its lighter moments. “It’s important that the characters are likeable and that people feel comfortable with them. They should be recognisable as real, and that somewhere among the cast of ‘Richmond Hill’ there is a character who is like someone you know or have met, and that you can say ‘I know someone like that.’.”