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Drama king hit from Edwards

This week Rush, Offspring, Tangle and Spirited all air on Australian TV -and all 4 from Producer John Edwards.

This week a most remarkable achievement takes place on Australian television as no fewer than four Australian dramas by Producer John Edwards grace our screens.

Rush, Offspring, Tangle and Spirited are all Edwards’ productions, in conjunction with his co-producers, all of them female: Mimi Butler, Imogen Banks, and Claudia Karvan & Jacqueline Perske.

The final episode of Tangle‘s second series airs on Showcase on Tuesday, the night before Spirited premieres on W.

Edwards told TV Tonight he has had shows in production simultaneously before, but never on air together.

He acknowledged his co-producers, saying: “Of course it is only physically possible because of the collaborating partners: Mimi the dynamo on Rush which has the most ambitious of demands and Imo who’s grown so rapidly to become the soul of both Tangle and Offspring; Spirited is a little different, it’s Claudia and Jacq’s baby, I’m a bit more like the coach.”

He also thanked Rory Callaghan at Southern Star, Rick Maier at TEN and Kim Vecera at Showtime / Foxtel.

The output doesn’t end there. Both Edwards and Imogen Banks have another project in the pipeline in Cleo, a look at the Whitlam era through the eyes of former Cleo editor Ita Buttrose, for the ABC.

Offspring 8:30pm Sunday on TEN
Tangle 8:30pm Tuesday on Showcase
Spirited 7:30pm Wednesday on W
Rush 8:30pm Thursday on TEN

14 Responses

  1. @Ryan, I was referring to JE’s FTA offerings.

    Actually Ryan, you’d better do your homework first, Mad Men gets terrible ratings. It has brought a lot of exposure to AMC and has won critical success, yet AMC has yet to see that translate to ratings or even coveted demos. Not that it matters, after all it is cable. Mad Men is only kept around for critical acclaim as for cable it is incredibly expensive to make.

    The rest of his products are the same anyway, give or take a few ideas.

    I never said a good drama, I don’t like City Homicide and I’m indifferent to Sea Patrol but they rate or have rated better than most of JE shows, which means they are more popular.

    Ahhh, yeah I have. I hated it. It was unadulterated crap. JE has a habit of casting great actors yet his scripts turn to predictable melodramtic mush.

  2. @Mike
    maybe people cannot see this drama series because it is on foxtel? In America Mad Men airs on AMC a cable network which sets ok ratings yet compared to broascast are awful, so i dont think you can really compare broadcast Vs cable ratings. And also a good drama has nothing to do with ratings it is all about the script, direction and acting which make Tangle such a great show and not ”an adults home and away” you’ve obviously never watched the show.

  3. The question is can he establish a drama that will continue to a Season 4 or longer or is Season 3 or less as far as he can go ?? and his shows remind us how Australia has not too many actors !!

  4. Agree with Mick and Stephen.

    Hey Ronnie, both those shows you mention get better or have got better ratings than all of John’s shows, so I guess more people like the “old fashioned” drama.

    Anyway Ronnie what makes you think they are old fashioned. Is it because they don’t include really hammy sex scenes in changing rooms, don’t have shaky camera movements, have an older skewing cast, are targeted towards males, aren’t prime time soaps and aren’t interesting in who is shagging whom?

    Stephen C, Tangle is an adults Home and away, shallow, superficial, sex based soap opera.

  5. I really like most of John Edwards’ dramas – he’s almost single-handedly modernising Australia’s approach to drama production, and in the process making the old fashioned dramas like Sea Patrol and City Homicide look very dated. That said, aren’t there any other producers with great contemporary ideas out there? If so, why aren’t they getting commissions?

  6. the number of episodes in Tangle series 2 was cut back due to budget issues with showtime. also sense there was no production on the show in 2009, actor availability was probably an issue as well.

  7. Its good to see “Spirited” getting a lot of publicity, Foxtel dramas deserve to be known and sucessful, I like “Tangle” as well, but i didn’t think it was as good as “Love My Way”.

    I don’t think you would ever see “Tangle” on FTA because major networks can’t show it because it would run overtime because it usually goes for around 50 mins on showtime, and the ABC would never buy it. its also a very mature drama.

    But “Spirited” is made for the W Channel which has AD breaks which means FTA could show it if they wanted to. His new drama “Cleo” sounds fantastic!!

  8. Don’t like any of this guy’s shows, is he the only drama producer in this country? All of his shows are low rating flops anyway so not much of an achievement if you ask me. Other companies should really come to the forefront to save Australian drama and start making shows in a totally different style to what this guy has been doing as his shows clearly haven’t been that popular with viewers.

  9. I had no idea, good on him!

    Rush is about the only Cop show I watch. Offspring is interesting and I can’t wait for more. Tangle I don’t get but want to catch up on the eps I’ve recorded and Spirited looks interesting, just a shame it’s on W, hope TEN can get it at some point, maybe for it’s 3rd channel?

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