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This is Your Life

Surprises, celebrities and a shiny new package, This is Your Life just got a glam makeover with Deborra-Lee Furness as the guest of honour.

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This is Your Life just got a glam makeover.

No more relatives walking out from behind hokey red curtains in a quiet studio.

This is Your Life is now a shared experience, no longer confined to just the invitee list. And why shouldn’t it be? With surprises, celebrities and a shiny new package, the audience seems happy to be part of the evening with guest of honour: Deborra-Lee Furness.

In The Palms showroom at Crown Casino there’s a full house of adoring fans, a huge stage, accompanied by an orchestra and a very snazzy opening credit sequence with stars glowing from the sides of skyscrapers.

New host Eddie McGuire has set up a sting as a filmed sequence in a Sydney hotel, aided by Hugh Jackman ahead of his visit on The Oprah Winfrey Show. As Jackman helps with the set-up he admits, “I’m more nervous than when I hosted the Oscars.”

Furness is gobsmacked when she realises the surprise and spies that red book. It’s a genuine moment.

The main event in Melbourne was obviously filmed much later -Hugh Jackman even sports a bandage on his eye to prove it.

A nervous Furness, conceding she is control freak, steels herself for the cavalcade of guests.

First up is a gushing Sigrid Thornton, commending her “generosity of spirit.” She is followed by Simone Buchanan, Casting agent Susie Maizels, Producer Mark Pennell,  Tim Costello, Kerry Armstrong and Peter Phelps who says, “There’s no-one I don’t know who doesn’t want to be with Deborra-Lee.”

Others appear via video messages: Jerry Seinfeld says, “This woman has a lot of energy and I dont!”; Nicole Kidman: “They asked me to recount an anecdote”; John Clarke: “If things don’t work out with Hugh I’m only a phone call away”; plus Naomi Watts, Jacqueline McKenzie, Wendi Murdoch, Maureen Lipman and more.

Her mother also appears as does  a high school friend from decades ago. The latter is a classic “Do you recognise this voice?” moment. Deborra-Lee has no idea. Even after she appears on stage you kind of get the feeling she still has no idea.

There are clips from her career including Prisoner, Correlli, Hallifax F.P., SeaChange, Shame, Jindabyne, Beautiful, and Blessed.

Her career also included the ground-breaking 1970s female current affairs show No Man’s Land, plus Glass Babies, The Flying Doctors, Fire, Angel Baby, A Matter of Convenience, and US roles alongside Elliott Gould, Brian Dennehy, Sam Shephard and Christian Bale.

An issue close to Furness’ heart, adoption, is also featured.

And there is a sentimental musical tribute with some top showbiz stars. Won’t spoil the surprise.

This is Your Life is Nine getting its mojo back. It is classic Channel Nine in spirit -grand, warm-hearted entertainment, that harks back to the kind of specials Ray Martin used to do with Michael Crawford. Sure the anecdotes are brief, Eddie “Everywhere” is even divisive to many television viewers, but this is a slickly produced package with its heart in the right place.

This is Your Life airs 8:30pm Monday on Nine.

26 Responses

  5. I just realised that they did Shannon back in 2008. The mind boggles that this actually occurred.

    Oh well when the shallow pool of Australian celebrites runs out, I guess they can do someone like Jessica Mauboy or perhaps even their own Scott Cam.

  8. I love Deborrah Lee. 🙂
    I can’t stand Eddie (and I barrack for Collingwood!!)
    What happened to the element of surprise for the viewer?
    Now we know who it is & when it will be.
    I’ll still watch … but I do like the element of surprise for us too.
    Just a thought Channel 9!!!

  11. I can now imagine what most of the people who watched Sex and the City had to go through while waiting for the start of that show every Monday Night having to catch the end of Who Want’s to be a Millionaire back in the day and that Eddie Fella.

    A better choice would have been any of the previous generation of HI 5 presenters looking to break away from Children’s Television.

  12. @ Adrian while she was a main star in the lesser known production Correlli and played quite large roles in some of those other shows, she only ever appeared in Prisoner for a couple of episodes and wait for it… as an extra! She had a couple of lines to say and that was it, never to be seen again! Her character didn’t even have a ‘character’ so to speak, she was just used as a fill-in for 3 episodes I believe. So yeah I can’t believe they would be showing a clip from Prisoner to mark her illustrious career, but granted it was an early role for her but not her earliest.

  13. I’m hoping Nine is just releasing the info for the first episode and won’t ruin the surprise every week.

    Pity they used Eddie, surely they have somebody else at Nine who is capable. And can pronounce words correctly.

  14. yes who did she play in prisoner i have watched the complete series twice and am about to watch it for the third time when 111 hits start showing it and i cant remember who she played

  15. I didn’t like her as an actress and didn’t like her international adoption campaign.

    I guess for publicity this is enough for the program because she and Hugh are celebrities.

    Won’t watch though.

  18. I get the feeling they’ve only chosen Furness so they can get Hugh and all his Hollywood mates to take part. I fear that any future episodes will feature celebrity spouses, or people who are famous for being linked to celebrities for the same reason.

  20. Seriously what is going on in the Nine programming department.
    -Failed Hey Hey.
    -Big fail on Elton.
    -Two half men is dying.

    And now…. This is Your Life.

    They’re lying down and letting 7 absolutely punish them.

  21. I can’t even stand 30 seconds of Eddie when i catch the end of Hot Seat while waiting for 6pm News

    So i have doubts i’ll be able to stand a full hour of him, including commercial breaks

  24. I’ve lost track of who has been honoured in this series over the decades it has been made, but i would have thought if they are going to resurrect it, and relaunch it – do so with a bigger name than Furness. Sure she was a sturdy character actress in the 80’s and early 90’s, she is only the household name, if she is in fact one, thanks to her marriage to Hugh. Her feature film Shame and tv series Corelli, are the only two things that come to my mind. Then again they celebrated Cameron Daddo at one stage – so their standards haven’t been high.

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