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Special: Prisoner Anniversary

For today's 30th Anniversary of Prisoner, TV Tonight talks to Fiona Spence, and opens up the vault to bring you a time-capsule account of a day on set.

vtitsFriday 27th February 2009 is the 30th Anniversary of Prisoner hitting Australian television screens.

Last weekend many of the stars gathered at Global Studios, formerly ATVO and widely recognised to fans of the show as ‘Wentworth Detention Centre.’

In the lead up to the reunion, TV Tonight spoke with actress Fiona Spence about her role as Officer Vera ‘Vinegar Tits’ Bennett, the show’s original villain (this photo is from the actual scene when Frankie Doyle first dubbed her with the name).

Spence was even kind enough to remember that thirty years ago ‘yours truly’ visited the set of Prisoner to write an article for the school newspaper! It was my first venture behind the scenes of television, and on a show which was still wet behind the ears, it was a fascinating experience.

In celebration of the show’s endurance, today I am also re-publishing that original article, in all its raw high-school naivety, along with the 10 x 8 actor glossy portraits. Serving as a time capsule, this article has only ever been published twice. It is accompanied by two never before published behind-the-scenes photos from the set in 1979.

Finally there are some images of ‘Wentworth’ as it stands today, taken from a recent visit to Nunawading.

Enjoy!

fspenceFIONA SPENCE 2009:

Fiona Spence looks back on her days on Prisoner with fascination and fondness. She is immensely proud of what the show achieved for Australian actresses and that it still holds a place dear in the hearts of its fanbase. Back in the days of shooting at ‘Nuna’, however, life was never quite so romantic.

vlehman sflorence“We went out to Channel TEN where the elephants go to die,” she laughs. “Thirty years ago there was nothing, it was bush. There was a pub, The Burvale, and a Chinese Restaurant. But you left civilisation and you went into the bush. We went to work in the dark and came home in the dark because we worked long hours.

Vera Bennett was the show’s first villain, years before Maggie Kirkpatrick came on the scene as Joan ‘The Freak’ Ferguson.

cmann bb“Vera was a disciplinarian and she was by the book. There was no way that she was corrupt. Whereas I think Maggie’s character was bent. I spent a lot of time saying ‘this is a prison, not a holiday camp!’ and ‘what’s going on here, clean up that mess!'”

So popular was the show that fans would often flock to the cast in public. But Spence says out of her grey uniform only the more observant viewers would recognise her.

“There were always kids on their bicycles and as they saw me they would pedal faster and would race past me yelling ‘Vinegar Tiiiiits!'” she laughs.

eb pking“I was never really one to want the attention on me, but the kids that’s fine. People were really nice to me. I think Maggie (Kirkpatrick) was hit with an umbrella or something but nobody ever did that to me! They were just really nice.”

As the show moved into reruns and pay television new legions of fans began to spring up.

“The big shock was when I was with Caroline Gilmer and she was in the stage musical Nine, and I was standing at traffic lights and kids would go past yelling ‘Hi Vera’ and I didn’t know it was being run on Pay TV.

“That was such a culture shock, because I’d forgotten.”

jclifton gmaguireAfter the series finished Spence did a stint as Celia Stewart, the town gossip in Home and Away, before stage roles in the UK, including a regional tour of the Prisoner stage play years after the show had concluded.

“I played some of the most beautiful theatres in some of the most exquisite cities and then I went back and did a couple of pantomimes. When we were doing the play people used to dress up in uniforms. Someone even had the original Vera costume.”

Aside from attending the reunion party, Spence says her recent re-acquaintence with the show was via the DVD series.

“I’ve seen some of the DVDs and it’s really quiet,” she remarks. “There are lots of people sitting around. These days the soaps have lots of short, sharp scenes.

“I’ve got quite a bit of memorabilia too, because I’m a little bit of a magpie and I collect things. Somebody was telling me that I’ve probably got one of the only complete sets of black and white fancards.”

Spence says she can’t put her finger on why the show seems to still inspire such passion amongst its fans, over 200 of whom gathered for the celebration last weekend. But she’s grateful to have been part of a modern television classic.

“You had a very high profile when you were in the show, but I was always very proud of the fact. It was such a buzz to be associated with such a success.”

prisoner-shoot1PRISONER ARTICLE RE-PUBLISHED FROM 1979:

Channel O’s latest success, Prisoner, is not at all the fast-moving serial that takes an hour to film, as it appears to be. In fact the cast and crew can be working from as much as dawn until dusk seven days a week.

On Good Friday when I visited the “prison” the cast were rather uneasy because they had discovered they were not receiving double-time wages. But they struggled through the morning and later were not as tense. Before filming a scene they try three or four run throughs and if they are lucky, the complete sequence will be over in thirty minutes. And so, often the cast are seen sitting in chairs with long faces. As Pieta Toppano (Karen) assured me, it’s not because they are bored but because some of them have been working since 6am and are naturally quite tired. “It’s more enjoyable when you have dialogue to say than when you’re just sitting around in the tunnel,” she said.

The tunnel, as they call it, is an underground dressing room where they change costumes, receive make-up and usually spend their time when not acting. Colette Mann (Doreen) chooses to learn her lines down there while Val Lehman (Bea) learns hers slouched over a television set upstairs. She also kills time by delighting in graffiti writing and reading “John and Betty” from one of the show’s props!

Fiona Spence, who plays Vera the prison officer, paces the studio with hands behind back, keys jingling, and jokingly she orders everyone around as if she really is a warden.

Meanwhile Kerry Armstrong (Lynne) sings “You Light Up My Life” to a pot plant and Sheila Florence (Lizzie) snatches forty winks on the couch. The Director echoes through the studio resembling the ‘great master’s voice’ and it’s back to work.

prisoner-shoot-2They spend Mondays and Wednesdays rehearsing, and Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays filming. If by then they’re still not finished then everyone’s back for Saturday. Outdoor scenes (known as ‘on location’) are filmed simultaneously with the indoor scenes.

Because they are producing two one hour episodes a week they are working to a heavy schedule. At the moment they are two months ahead of the current episode programming.

When they began work on the show last year some of the ladies decided to visit some of Melbourne’s Prisons as part of their research. Carol Burns, the inimitable Frankie, had to spend time with characters who in real life are a Frankie themselves. But Carol is no longer in the series and will soon vanish from our screens.
And the cell doors are silent as the guard locks the security doors and the theme song begins.

“He used to give me roses…”

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17 Responses

  1. Stumbled across this article today David and what a great read! I can imagine what it was like for you and how exciting it was to visit the Prisoner set as I also visited it when I was a kid. It would have been 1980 or 81 when I was about 11 or 12. Mum worked with someone whose husband worked at Nunawading and arranged for myself and a friend to spend the day visiting the studios. I remember being taken to the green room and all of a sudden I was in a room filled with all the main actors all in costume and how terrified I was haha. To an 11 year old these were all real people that I had seen on the TV and I thought I had landed in a real prison. They were all so lovely though and I soon calmed down. They all signed autographs and Val Leahman even spent time to tell me how to fix my autograph book as a few pages were falling out. We couldn’t believe how Sheila Florence had such a…

    1. Sheila’s plum accent I’m guessing you were about to say. Yes it was also hilarious to see them in denims in the 10 cafeteria. Prisoner & Countdown my first visits, both iconic and wonderful.

      1. Yes was about to say we ran into her in the canteen dressed as Lizzie. We nervously asked for her autograph and it was surreal how she spoke nothing like Lizzie. Very ‘posh’ voice and she said she would be delighted to sign our books. Such a lovely lady.
        Got to sit in and watch them record some scenes in the studio which was fabulous. Touched the brick walls and amazed they were made of foam or something similar. The bars all made of wood haha.
        Went outside and looked at the exteriors. Neighbours hadn’t be heard of yet so the area that’s now Lassiters was the Holiday Island set. It had been axed but the pool was still there filled with water.
        Also went and watched Young Talent Time rehearsing in the next studio.
        Such great memories 🙂

          1. That’s so cool David. Wish I’d thought to get a pic like that. Your camera was obviously better than mine as my little 110 format film camera only had 12 shots on it and they mostly all came back from the chemist blurry haha.
            Just thinking how sad it is how mostly all the TV stations have done away from having their own large studio complexes and now reside in office blocks. They were such fun and magical places to visit back then.

  2. Prisoner is still to this day my favourite aussie show.Ive got the dvd collection and still love watching eps again and again lol.Fiona Spence is a great actress she played Vinegar Tits so well lol,prisoner had so many loveable and talented actors on it over the years who now at a certain age are no longer used on commerical television,the powers that be at tv networks think we all wanna see a fresh face kid who cant act.You did it again David another great tribute…keep up the great work love the site Cheers.

    1. Cheers. I thought the style was very average! I was nearly not going to reproduce it. But I figured it was a good time capsule. One day I will hunt out my 1979 Spence interview if I can ever find a Casette Player that works, ha!!!

  3. Great article David, you really do a good job with all that you do!! Thank you for representing Prisoner in the light it deserves as an aussie tv classic! I look forward to many more great articles.

  4. Nice story David, you were talented back then as much as now.

    I wonder if there will ever be a reunion style special for TV and not on that Seven program with Kosh but a proper special.

  5. It’s fantastic that you kept your article David, and have had an opportunity for it to be shared with us.

    I’m almost inspired to go and watch this 692 episode series again for what must be the 4th time!

    Fantastic television, and I was gutted when it ended. The final episode surely serves as one of the series’ best ever! I still get goosebumps seeing the wool being pulled over the Freak’s eyes!

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