Redfern Now debuts with 721,000
ABC’s new drama Redfern Now premiered last night on ABC1 as the second most watched show in its timeslot behind Seven’s Beauty and the Geek.
Billed as the first TV series completely written, directed and produced by Indigenous Australians, the six-part series follows six different stories of life in Sydney’s inner-city suburb of Redfern.
Last night’s episode, directed by Satellite Boy’s Catriona McKenzie and starring Leah Purcell, debuted with 721,000 total viewers, across the five city metro markets, according to preliminary ratings from OzTAM.
The drama, which was 12th for the night, beat Nine’s Australian Federal Police which rated 702,000 and Ten’s Law and Order: SVU on 681,000.
Cameras began rolling in May on the series which is produced by Darren Dale and Miranda Dear with Cracker’s Jimmy McGovern as story producer. The Sapphires’ Deborah Mailman and Sheri Sebbens as well as director Wayne Blair will appear in future episodes with Blair, Purcell and Bran Nue Dae’s Rachel Perkins also directing. The Straits’ Jimi Bani and Dean Daley-Jones of Mad Bastards will also appear. The series received funding from Screen Australia and Screen NSW.
What a disappointing first episode of Redfern Now. Was very dreary and sanitized. Leah Purcell is amazing, but the rest of the cast seemed to be very dull. Lacked soul. Shame.
Fantastic stuff.
Disagree Mark… thought it was great!! cannot wait for the next ep
The second episode was shown at The Block premier on Wednesday night and was very well received. More humour and great characters. I hope it does well.
Thought it was one of the best pieces of Australian TV I have seen. Was moved to tears in the first 30 minutes and it got better from there.I grew up in the area so I guess there is a particularly strong connection there.
Looking forward to more.
I thought it was fantastic and look forward to watching next week. Leah Purcell was extraordinary, as were the children (particularly the young son) of her character’s sister. Very well scripted too.
I was disappointed and tuned out after 20 mins. Poor acting from everyone other than Leah Purcell.
It was certainly a comedown after the quality of ABC’s The Slap.
Dreary. “Worthy”. Ugghh.
Where’s that unique, searingly dry sense of humour that you get from regular Aboriginal people (not inner city arts types) in everyday conversation?
Why can’t they capture that? It’s out there if the producers would only listen – or perhaps they do and come editorial committee excises the humour from the scripts.
With the legendary Jimmy McGovern involved, it’s hard to see how the humour was so absent. Is everyone so obsessed with “issues” that they forget the objective is to entertain?
I’m with Mark. Opportunity lost. I thought the acting was very wooden & second rate. Zero emotion, with unrealistic reactions. It was all too ‘nice’, which I doubt is what a real life scenario of that nature would be like. Would a husband who is portrayed as distant, argumentative & lazy really react so nonchalantly to wasting a $5k holiday?? There was no bite to it at all.
This show has some amazing acting ESP from the women 🙂 …
My mum and I just happened to stumble across it when changing channels very glad we did ! Will keep watching