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Friday Flashback: A Country Practice

This week marks 40 years since A Country Practice premiered on Australian TV.

This week marks 40 years since A Country Practice premiered on Australian TV.

The series created by veteran producer James Davern ran twice a week from 1981 to 1994 on Seven with rural storylines told by cast including Shane Porteous, Brian Wenzel, Lorrae Desmond, Joyce Jacobs, Syd Heylen, Joan Sydney, Shane Withington, Grant Dodwell, Penny Cook, Judith McGrath, Maureen Edwards, Georgie Parker, Anne Tenney, Josephine Mitchell, Gordon Piper, Matt Day, Kym Wilson, Brett Climo, Sophie Heathcote and Fatso the wombat.

Amongst its guest cast were Sir Robert Helpmann, Baz Luhrmann, Nicole Kidman, Simon Baker, Smokey Dawson, Ruth Cracknell, Henri Szeps, Pro Hart, John Meillon, Ray Meagher, Andrew Denton, Barry Crocker, Dr John D’Arcy, Paul Kelly, Toni Collette, Delta Goodrem and even then-Prime Minister, Bob Hawke.

After it was axed by Seven at over 1000 episodes it moved to Network 10, and with it a location switch to Emerald in Victoria, where it ran for 30 more eps adding Vince Colosimo, Jane Hall and Claudia Black.

In this promo for 1992, Seven turned to the deep bass voice of one John Laws.

6 Responses

  1. Great insight CJ . I have watched the first couple of episodes of the flying doctors on nine which look great for how old they are .. and on opening title with great score it says nine network in association with the regional stations of Australia

  2. I rediscovered this during the second lockdown on 7plus.

    My memories of it were merely reruns on 7 weekday mornings when sick from school… and later Foxtels Hallmark Channel each afternoon.

    3 months later I’m already up to Season 3, very addictive and as realistic to the real world as you can get.

  3. 7 were keen to get as many regional stations as possible on board right from the start, so a management delegation brought the original pilot down to Wollongong for Bill Lean and I to preview. After watching it our main comment was that it was a bit “ABC-ish” (hardly surprising given Jim Davern’s background!) and lacking humour. As a result of those and similar comments from others, they introduced some additional characters – particularly Brendan and Molly – and went on to the great success that the show was for many years.

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