McLeod's Daughters
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McLeod's Daughters is an Australian television drama set in a rural setting. As of 2004, it is the most popular drama on Australian television averaging 1.5 million viewers each week on the Nine Network. As of 2003, it was shown in 100 countries throughout the world many on the Hallmark Channel. In the Logie Awards of 2004, the show won four Logie awards.
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Series history
Posie Graeme-Evans developed the idea for McLeod's Daughters in the early 1990's for her company Millennium Television in conjunction with the South Australian Film Corporation - she also developed the idea for the children's television program Hi-5. The idea was for a television drama set on an Australian rural property with two half-sisters running the property inherited from their father with an all-female workforce. She developed the idea from stories from friends who grew up in the country and from the love of South Australian landscapes as shown in the paintings of Hans Heysen.
Graeme-Evans pitched the idea to the board of the Nine Network who agreed to film a telemovie in 1996 with Jack Thompson starring as Jack McLeod who is the father and whose death leads to the two half-sisters inheriting the property. Despite the success of the miniseries shown on Mother's Day 1996, the show was put in development. The Nine Network bought "Kingsford" near Gawler in South Australia, the site where the original miniseries as a set and ran it as a rural property while the program was developed.
The Nine Network board agreed to commission a 13-show series in late 2000 after the Opening Ceremony for the 2000 Sydney Olympics featured a The Man From Snowy River theme highlighting the cultural significance of the bush to Australians. The first episode of McLeod's Daughters debuted in August 2001 and proved to be a smash hit, attracting 1.89 million viewers. The first series proved to be a success attracting an average of 1.5 million viewers an episode in Australia. The show also proved to be a success when shown on TVNZ
The second series of McLeod's Daughters was equally successful being the third most popular drama on Australian television. By 2003, the show was the most popular drama series on Australian television. Lisa Chappell who played Claire McLeod, the older McLeod daughter, left the show in October 2003 to play other roles with her character being killed off. The popularity of the program in Australia was highlighted where the show won four Logies including Lisa Chappell winning most popular female actor, Aaron Jeffrey most popular actor and most popular Australian drama series.
Cast
The current cast of McLeod's Daughters includes:
- Tess McLeod (property owner) - Bridie Carter
- Stevie Hall (station manager) - Simmone McKinnon
- Jodi Fountain (housekeeper's daughter) - Rachael Karpani
- Alex Ryan (elder son of neighbouring landholder) - Aaron Jeffrey
- Nick Ryan (younger son of neighbouring landholder) - Myles Pollard
- Meg Fountain (housekeeper) - Sonia Todd
- Kate Manfredi (station hand) - Michala Banas
Former significant cast members include:
- Claire McLeod (property owner) - Lisa Chappell
- Becky Howard (station manager) - Jessica Napier
Soundtracks
There have been two soundtracks from the series released in Australia both making the Australian ARIA Top 50. The songs are written by Posie Graeme-Evans and Chris Harriott and performed by Rebecca Lavelle. Graeme-Evans also writes many of the songs for Hi-5. On the website for the show, Posie Graeme-Evans tells of the songwriting process for the soundtracks.
For me, writing the songs for McLeod's has become an emotional journey into the heart of the series and the characters we've all come to love so much. I'd always thought Chris Harriott and I could use songs as a way to get under the skin of Claire, Tess, Meg, Jodi, Becky, Nick and Alex; almost like tools within an episode, the songs would give voice to what the characters were feeling but could not say. But as Chris and I have developed the songs, they've become much more to me than that: they've become a way of exploring how we all feel, the things we'd all like to say.
So far, there have been two soundtrack albums released from the series:
- McLeod's Daughters: Songs From The Series Volume 1 (2002)
- McLeod's Daughters: Songs From The Series Volume 2 (2004)
See also
External links
- McLeod's Daughters web site (http://mcleodsdaughters.ninemsn.com.au)
- Television Information Archive (http://www.australiantelevision.net/mcleod/mcleod.html/Australian)
- Internet Movie Database McLeod's Daughters article (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0292414/)
- Lisa Chappell Site (Claire McLeod) (http://www.lisachappell.net)