By TANIA PHILLIPS
LOVE CHILD
Channel Nine (Nine)
Mondays 8.40pm
THE words “highly anticipated” are bandied about a lot these days and usually mean “over-hyped” by the publicity department.
The program usually fails to live up to the hype and disappointment sets in quickly ruining the program and probably any chance of us giving it a chance to grow.
It didn’t happen with Love Child, the new eight-part series on Channel Nine, because (and I’m going to use another of those “reviewer” phrases) it was pitch perfect.
Brought to us by Playmaker Media (the company behind the always interesting House Husbands) this is the work of Sarah Lambert, who first came to our notice as a young actress playing Jo’s best friend in A Country Practice back in the ’80s. What Lambert – who cut her teeth at PBS – has created is a portrait of a time of great change that is nostalgic but, instead of heading to the sugary sweet side, has deliciously foreboding overtones and a serious story to tell.
Love Child, sprinkled with the music of the time, follows the story of a handful of young girls sent to a house for unwed mothers in seedy Kings Cross in 1969. But it is no “tea-time” favourite like Britain’s Call The Midwife – these girls are being sent away by families embarrassed by their situation and are not being able to see or keep their babies. It is a slice of life from an era that is both familiar and slightly removed from our own.
In a time when there is still only one woman in the Logie Hall of Fame it is great to see such a strong female cast of young actresses led by Packed To The Rafters favourite Jessica Marais as Joan Millar, a midwife straight off the plane back from London carrying her own secrets. It is equally fun to see Mandy “Rhonda” McElhinney playing a more sinister character in the form of the controlling matron.
But the most heartening thing is that this continues the current trend that sees Australian writers developing Australian stories and mining our more recent past to bring our own stories to the screen.
One episode in and I’m still “highly anticipating” what will come next – and in this era of reality television and over active publicity departments that has to be a good thing.
– Tania Phillips
