Gallery: The Prime Minister is Missing

Who would have ever thought Normie Rowe could pass himself off as a Prime Minister?

But that’s exactly what we’ll see when The Prime Minister is Missing airs on the ABC this month.

The docudrama, produced by the same makers of the top-rating Who Killed Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler? explores the disappearance of PM Harold Holt in 1967. It was an event that gripped the nation, without ever delivering a satisfying resolution.

Together with re-enactments, interviews, forensic information, this programme claims to have uncovered new evidence.

It airs on the ABC 8:30pm Thursday October 23rd.

Press Release:

From the director of the Logie Award-winning Who Killed Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler? comes a new forensic investigation into the disappearance of Prime Minister Harold Holt.

With Australia at war in Vietnam in 1967, suddenly Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared without a trace – an event unparalleled in the history of western democracy. The nation was in shock and disbelief at the shattering news, hoping for a miracle for the man who famously declared it was “all the way with LBJ”.

Police led a ‘softly softly’ investigation and concluded accidental drowning. But at the height of the Cold War paranoia, persistent doubts about his disappearance fuelled rumours and wild speculation.

Why did Holt go into such violent surf that day? Had he chosen a bizarre way out of a difficult situation? Why were police withholding crucial facts? What had they overlooked?

Holt himself left tantalising clues that challenged the official explanation. This is the story of the Prime Minister’s secret world in the months before he disappeared – a world of betrayal, blackmail, political treachery, a poisonous feud, mounting physical and mental strain, and near-death experiences.

Reconstructed from eyewitness accounts, this dramatised documentary examines the political implications of the Prime Minister’s disappearance and reveals explosive new aspects of the case.

Cast: Normie Rowe, Nicholas Hope, Tony Llewellyn-Jones, Matthew O’Sullivan, David Callan, Gloria Ajentstat, Chloe Gordon, Michael Howlett, Bill Young and Lawrence Price.

Featuring interviews with Tom Frame (Harold Holt’s biographer), Sam Holt (Harold Holt’s son), Alan Stewart and Martin Simpson (eyewitnesses to Holt’s disappearance), Tony Eggleton (Prime Minister’s Press Secretary), Ainsley Gotto (Secretary, Chief Whip’s Office), Robert Macklin (McEwen’s Press Secretary, 1967), Noel Collins (forensic detective on the Holt case), Laurie Newell (Police Inspector, search co-ordinator).