The Newsreader
The Newsreader provides an insight into the smoky Australian newsrooms of the 1980s and the people who brought us our nightly news.
This drama series premiered on Australian free-to-air channel, ABC on 15th August 2021. The series was created by Michael Lucas and stars Anna Torv, Sam Reid and Chai Hansen. It has six episodes and is set in 1986 in Melbourne.
The series blends together major news stories of the era with the lives and struggles, ambitions and careers and emotions and relationships of the cast.
Anna Torv play Helen Norville, the female co-anchor and newsreader of the Six O’Clock News. She is an emotional wreck, relying on prescription pain-killers and sleeping pills but once the camera starts she is the perfect newsreader. Her senior co-anchor/host is the ageing, heart-attack candidate (smoking and drinking) Geoff Walters, played by Robert Taylor, a seasoned journo who made his name in the field of wars (Vietnam) and conflict (The Dingo Took My Baby). The inference is that “glamour” and Helen’s brand of more “emotional” news coverage is replacing a more staid kind of impartial journalism.
The young, ambitious field reporter, Dale Jennings, played by Sam Reid, finds himself in a relationship with Helen Norville when she has a breakdown and takes an overdose. Jennings has his eyes set on being a news host bumbling his way through until a lucky chance places him near the terrorist bomb blast in Melbourne in 1986 and he is able to show his raw talent.
But not all is going his way when he has an encounter with his gay cameraman, Tim Ahern (Chai Hansen) and doubts his own sexuality. He says he choses Helen because he cares for her but in reality he is most likely denying his true self in an era when being gay was not only illegal but also career ending.
Stephen Peacocke plays a stereotypical sports reporter, Rob Rickards and also stereotypical is the blustering news boss Lindsay Cunningham played to excess by WillIam McInnes. The newsroom is more racially diverse than any newsroom of the time with Michelle Lim Davidso playing Noelene and Chum Ehelepola as Dennis.
Great cast, script, direction, cinematography, editing etc. Plus the bonus of major world news events from 1986. The newsroom is a ruthless arena and only the strongest gladiators will survive.
It’s showing the changing of the guard from the old style of news reading to today’s double header desks with sports and updates, of heavily repeated footage and the drama.
Available to watch Sunday nights live and streaming on iView. Well worth it!