More classic Australian TV and radio drama to enjoy

The fourth season of Sons & Daughters is coming to DVD.

Via Vision Entertainment will be releasing the complete fourth season of Sons & Daughters on DVD on the 23rd March.

In these episodes, the demented Roger Carlyle (Les Dayman) is out for revenge over his son’s death and arranges to have a bomb planted in Patricia Palmer’s (Rowena Wallace) electric wheelchair, when the bomb goes off there is carnage everywhere. In fear of her life, Patricia decides to jump police bail and shoot’s through to Rio.

Scheming Karen Fox (Lyndel Rowe) convinces Wayne Hamilton (Ian Rawlings) that he’s killed a man in order to get him up the aisle, a doppelganger claiming to be Wayne causes mayhem, and the womanising Alan Brandon (Richard Morgan) struggles to cope when he ends up as a paraplegic. Barbara Hamilton (Cornelia Frances) is deceived into believing that Andy Green (Danny Roberts) is pushing dope from his mobile disco, and a heavily pregnant Beryl Palmer (Leila Hayes) takes a tumble down an abandoned mine shaft.

A mysterious stranger with a score to settle begins terrorising Fiona Thompson (Pat McDonald), and a traumatic experience results in former prostitute Jill O’Donnell (Kim Lewis) going back on the game.  David Palmer (Tom Richards) leaves a trail of death and destruction in his wake when he ignores the advice of a psychic by getting behind the wheel of his truck, and Caroline Morrell (Abigail) weaves a tangled web as she sets out to get revenge on her ex-husband.

Left: There are shocks aplenty for Dr Irene Fisher (Judy Nunn) and former prostitute Fiona Thompson (Pat McDonald) in Sons & Daughters. Right: A shady religious cult has a hold over Samantha Morrell (Sally Tayler).

The conniving Wayne Hamilton is held hostage by an unhinged basket case who has recently been released from a mental institution, and Samantha Morrell (Sally Tayler) is horrified to learn that the religious cult leaders that drugged and brainwashed her are holding a pornographic videotape of the perverted things they made her do.

Over in Rio, Patricia Palmer (Rowena Wallace) has faked her own death and decides to acquire an entirely new face enabling her to return to Australia as Alison Carr (Belinda Giblin) to try and prove that she’s not a murderer. The crazed Woombai Rapist is on the rampage, and we wonder if Barbara Hamilton will find out that her son is a male prostitute. Colin Turner (Nicholas Ryan) comes to the realisation that he can’t perform sexually with women because he’s a homosexual, and we wonder if a fall from the top of a cliff will mean that Leigh Palmer (Lisa Crittenden) will evade justice for child abduction.

Familiar faces appearing in these episodes include Judy Nunn and Anna Hruby from Home & Away; Anne Haddy, Terence Donovan and Annie Jones from Neighbours; Carole Skinner from Prisoner; Robin Stewart from Bless This House; Ken James from Skippy; Paul Gittins from Shortland Street; Joanna Lockwood from Cop Shop; Willie Fennell, Paul Mason, Richard Meikle and Julie Nihill from The Young Doctors; Nick Tate from Space: 1999; and Tessa Humphries from Families. Keep your eyes peeled for Joy Hruby in an uncredited cameo role playing an ageing prostitute called Millie.

You can pre-order Sons & Daughters: Collection Four now from the Via Vision website.

Grace Gibson Productions have been delving into their vast collection of radio serials again. This time they are treating us to The Big One Got Away, an adventure-packed nightmare directed by Walter Pym and adapted for radio by Eric Scott from the novel by Robert Standish. When travel agent Sam Breedon (Richard Meikle) learns that his work colleague Betty Summers is being ripped off by a group of stand-over merchants he steps in to help. Things begin to spiral out of control when he’s confronted by two violent heavies, fortunately, Sam knows judo so he puts one man out of action with a broken arm, and in the commotion, he pushes Benji The Slammer to his death from the window of a high rise apartment block.

Sam’s roommate is the crime reporter Colin McGuinness (John Unicomb), and Colin doesn’t think that his friend has anything to worry about – it should be a straightforward case of self-defence, but when Betty changes her story claiming that Sam deliberately attacked the men for no apparent reason, he knows that she could send him to the electric chair.

Left:Racketeers seek revenge in The Big One Got Away. Right: Richard Meikle stars in both Sons & Daughters: Collection 4 and The Big One Got Away.

Out of desperation, Sam seeks the help of his father’s old friend Kyril Ladros (Nigel Lovell). Kyril is the highest-paid trial lawyer in town and is known as the mouthpiece of the underworld due to the shady types that he represents. Sam learns that he has unwittingly interfered in the racketeering activities of a big-time gangster known as The Big One. Even if Sam’s found innocent in a court of law, the criminals that he has crossed will administer death by torture. There is no hope for Sam, he is a marked man, so he has no choice but to flee overseas to work as a spy for Kyril.

Sam will find himself in the south of France where he learns that his mother has recklessly squandered his late father’s fortune after becoming involved with the wealthy Riviera set. Kyril meanwhile wants Sam to help him imprison and torture their mutual enemy, The Big One. This powerful underworld gangster has not only ordered Sam’s death, but he killed Kyril’s wife and left his young daughter brain damaged.  Will Sam be able to go through with such a premeditated act of revenge and how will he cope when he becomes embroiled in a bitter vendetta between two warring Sicilian families. The cast of this serial includes Diana Perryman, Ben Gabriel, Sheila Sewell, and Gordon Glenwright.

You can order The Big One Got Away on CD, USB or as a digital download from the Grace Gibson website.

Photographs copyright- Via Vision Entertainment/Grundy Organization/Fremantle Australia. IRS Grace Gibson Productions.