"He used to give me rosessss!" We now enter cult territory with
Prisoner (or
Prisoner: Cell Block H depending on what part of the world you are from), the gritty prison saga from the pen of Reg Watson and the production powerhouse of Reg Grundy. Watson was a fan of British prison drama
Within These Walls and wanted to do a similar show, this time looking at the prisoners as well as the prison staff. Originally only supposed to be a 16 part drama, they faced an uphill struggle to get the show off the ground. Due to shoot in Melbourne, producer Ian Bradley said the city was seen as "
a Crawford's town" at the time and Hector Crawford put out word that anyone who worked on
Prisoner would never work for him again. As a result, trainee writers and directors were brought in from outside Melbourne to work on the show, although ironically, Ian Bradley would later become Crawford's CEO. Production was complete but Ten were unhappy with first episode and strangely flew in a
Days of Our Lives executive to give advice on how it should be done. They said that the sets were too drab, lighting too dark, women were too unattractive, the show too violent and the pace too fast. Bradley, with the support of one Ten exec, ignored all the advice and the episode went out intact bar a reshoot because of a sound issue.
Prisoner premiered to generally positive reviews in February 1979. The show opened with the arrival of two new inmates to Wentworth Women's Prison - Peta Toppano as Karen Travers and Kerry Armstrong as Lynn Warner (whose arm was infamously steam pressed by top dog Bea Smith). Original prison staff included Vera "Vinegar Tits" Bennett (Fiona Spence) and Governor Erica Davidson (Patsy King). As the show became a hit, it went through a number of changes as a result of it's success. As younger viewers tuned in, the stories were slightly watered down to cater to it's impressionable audience (an anti drugs message ran throughout the stories). The episode format was changed to twice a week resulting in original cast member Carol Burns (Franky Doyle) quitting the show. Her "best bits" from the show were edited into a TV movie called
The Franky Doyle Story, which was also a ratings success but resulted in the cast bringing Grundy's to court over not being paid for the film.
As it's popularity grew, Grundy's began shopping it overseas. In the US, it first aired in LA in 1979, where it grabbed huge ratings in it's Wednesday 8pm timeslot, beaten only by
Charlie's Angels. It was soon airing in 35 cities (sometimes in slots as early as 5pm) and in New York, where it aired in a late night slot, it was out-rating competitor Johnny Carson. Sammy Davis Jr was allegedly such a fan that he asked for a cameo during a trip to the set but schedule conflicts meant that it wasn't to be (a bizarre story that may be more folklore than fact). On the foot of it's success in the US, Lorimar attempted an American version called
Willow B: Women In Prison starring Sally Kirkland but it never went further than the pilot (which subsequently aired as a TV movie in 1980).
With success came the usual round of spinoffs. A series of tie in novels led to the cast going on strike due to their softcore porn content. Ten produced a variety special where cast members performed for inmates of the real life Pentridge Prison, belting out hits including YMCA while the show's closing theme "
On The Inside" by Lynne Hamilton, charted in Australia and the UK (three years after the show had ended in Oz). Behind the scenes, it was known as a hard show to break into, with new or guest cast members often facing indifference and hostility. Of the green room gossip, Rowena Wallace (Anne Griffin) said "
I've never heard so many people torn limb from limb in all my life". Elspeth Ballantyne (Meg Jackson) noted "
We had some enormous egos" while Tina Bursill (Sonia Stevens) was also critical of behaviour behind the scenes "
I saw a lot of people ostracised and a lot of bitchery".
A late but notable addition to the cast was Maggie Kirkpatrick as Joan "The Freak" Ferguson. Arriving in episode 287, the leather gloved sadistic screw has become one of the series most memorable characters as viewers lapped up her reign of terror over the inmates of Wentworth. Murders, fires, escape attempts and cave ins all kept the viewers glued to the screens but by season five, attrition was setting in. Key characters including Vera "Vinegar Tits", Bea, Erica and Lizzie were written out as the actresses jumped ship. Vera and Bea got the Prisoner equivalent of the
Neighbours' "moving to Queensland" exit when they were transferred to Barnhurst Prison (as governor and prisoner respectively). Writers scrambled to try and recreate the magic of the departed characters with some thinly veiled and poorly received clones. One of the better attempts to create a "new Bea" was the return of Myra Desmond (Anne Phelan) but her reign as top dog was short-lived as Phelan quit after being refused a pay rise. With cast and viewers deserting the show, there were a number of attempts to relive the old days including a flashback episode and the arrival of new inmates from Barnhurst (following a fire) which allowed them to pepper the script with mentions of classic characters Vinegar Tits and Bea (who'd died in the Barnhurst fire). It was to no avail and the decline continued, with Maggie Kirkpatrick noting "It got really silly towards the end". In the face of continued cast turnover and falling ratings, Ten announced that the show was ending and the action wrapped up in late 1986 after 692 episodes.
Prisoner may have gone off the air, the show wasn't ready to die just yet. In 1987, there were plans for a spinoff called
Barnhurst, with rumours that it would be set in a mixed prison featuring male and female inmates. However, the idea never went further than just talks. In the UK, the show had been shown regionally since 1984 on ITV but when more ITV networks picked it up for a late night slot in 1987, it became a massive cult hit spawning talk show appearances from the cast, fan clubs, a stage play and in the mid 90's,
Prisoner: Cell Block H - The Musical starring Maggie Kirkpatrick and drag queen Lily Savage. It continued it's regional ITV run until 1999, crossing over with the nationally broadcast rerun from Channel 5 which ran from 1997 - 2001. While it's popularity had waned in the US in the early 80's, Grundy's attempted another US remake (after Lorimar's failed attempt) with
Dangerous Women, a syndicated series that ran for one season from 1991-92, that was loosely based on
Prisoner. The late 90's and early 00's saw more talk of a remake in both Australia and the US but it wasn't until Foxtel produced Wentworth in 2013, that a successful reimagining took off, with that series due to end this year after 8 seasons.
