More Aussie TV Gold from Via Vision

Via Vision Entertainment were recently named as the Best Australian DVD Distributor at this year’s ATV Today Classic Soap Awards, and they are continuing with the quest to bring Australian TV gold out of the archives.

Via Vision will be re-releasing the third and fourth seasons of Prisoner: Cell Block H on DVD on the 6th April. (Pictured above: Prisoner continues on DVD.)

In these episodes a mass escape through an underground drainage system will end in tragedy. Lesbian inmate Judy Bryant (Betty Bobbitt) goes on the run and secures work as a prostitute in a massage parlour in order to exact her revenge on former screw Jock Stewart (Tommy Dysart) who murdered her girlfriend. The inmates and staff of the Wentworth Detention Centre are put under quarantine when there’s a suspected typhoid outbreak, but is the shonky herbalist Evelyn Randall (Julia Blake) responsible for deliberately causing the mystery disease.

After spending more than twenty years in jail, the alcoholic Lizzie Birdsworth (Sheila Florance) has the chance of happiness when romance blossoms with prison handyman Sid Humphrey (Edward Hepple). Lizzie’s dreams are shattered when Sid dies but she is amazed to inherit his house. Sid’s unscrupulous son Gordon (Bruce Kerr) will stop at nothing to evict her and after being driven to the verge of insanity by Gordon, a heartbroken Lizzie torches her home and burns it to the ground.

Who will survive when a fire engulfs the Wentworth Detention Centre?

Trouble is on the cards when Marie Winter (Maggie Millar) is transferred to the Wentworth Detention Centre and begins running a drug smuggling racket which sets her at odds with top dog Bea Smith (Val Lehman) who can’t stand dope pushers. The riot squad are forced to storm the prison with tear gas when the inmates run amuck and take control of the building, and murderess Sandy Edwards (Louise Le Nay) leaves the prison in mysterious circumstances when she’s thrown into the back of a dustcart equipped with a garbage crusher.

Friends of the social justice campaigner Andrea Hennessy (Bethany Lee) abduct governor Erica Davidson (Patsy King) at gunpoint and hold her hostage in order to demand the release of their friend from prison. Murderess Bea Smith learns that she needs a kidney transplant but will Doreen Anderson (Colette Mann) be brave enough to give up one of her own organs.

Sixteen-year-old Susie Driscoll (Jacqui Gordon) has form as a serial escapee from the reform school she was incarcerated in, and when she’s brought into the Wentworth Detention Centre, she begins plotting even bigger escape plans. Unfortunately, things go bad when she decides to flee through the prison air vents, she gets stuck and ends up at the mercy of poisonous chemicals which are being put through the system. Meanwhile, Lizzie Birdsworth begins brewing grog in the prison boiler room, and when officer Steve Faulkner (Wayne Jarratt) rejects the advances of good time girl Chrissie Latham (Amanda Muggleton) she accuses him of rape.

Top dog Bea Smith (Val Lehman, left) and alcoholic Lizzie Birdsworth (Sheila Florance, right) encounter the sadistic screw Joan ‘The Freak’ Ferguson (Maggie Kirkpatrick) in Prisoner.

The inmates find themselves in a living hell when the sadistic warder Joan ‘The Freak’ Ferguson (Maggie Kirkpatrick) is employed at Wentworth. Joan is a lesbian who enjoys bashing inmates and she becomes involved in an illegal book and other corrupt activities to supplement her pay packet. When a major fire engulfs the entire prison there is death and destruction everywhere, after finding herself trapped by the flames Bea Smith decides that she’s prepared to die if she can take The Freak with her.

Bonus features include audio commentaries from Val Lehman, Amanda Muggleton, Jentah Sobott (Heather ‘Mouse’ Trapp), and Julieanne Newbould who played both Hannah Simpson and Wendy Glover. There are also special featurettes featuring Val Lehman and Fiona Spence (officer Vera ‘Vinegar Tits’ Bennett).

Familiar faces appearing in these episodes include Chris Orchard, Anne Lucas, Judi Connelli, Anna Hruby, Ric Herbert, Julie Nihill, Robyn Gibbes and Serge Lazareff from The Young Doctors; Rowena Wallace, Syd Conabere, Lisa Crittenden and Leila Hayes from Sons & Daughters; Stefan Dennis, Ian Smith and Tom Oliver from Neighbours; Andrew Clarke from Taurus Rising; Debra Lawrance from Home & Away; Paul Karo from The Box; Vic Gordon from Matlock Police; and Terry Gill, Val Jellay and Maurie Fields from The Flying Doctors; Others cropping up in the action include Aileen Britton, Myrtle Woods, Jan Russ and Frankie J. Holden.

You can pre-order Prisoner: Collection 2 from the Via Vision website.

Via Vision will also be re-releasing seasons 11 and 12 of A Country Practice on DVD on the 6th April.

In these episodes the staff of the bush nursing hospital deal with patients who are suffering with everything from haemophilia to malaria, kidney failure, mercury poisoning, leukaemia, tuberculosis and obsessive-compulsive disorder. A young girl is trampled by a herd of cattle and the townsfolk are up in arms when scheming Alf Muldoon (Brian Moll) reveals plans to open a quarry in an area occupied by koalas. (Pictured above: Return to Wandin Valley on DVD.)

Dr Terence Elliott (Shane Porteous) is approached by an old flame who wants to end her life because she fears that she has Alzheimer’s Disease, and a retarded couple have to face up to the challenges of parenthood. Sister Lucy Gardiner (Georgie Parker) is seriously injured when she plunges over the edge of a cliff, and tragedy strikes when young Steve Brennan (Sophie Heathcote) is thrown from her horse. Matron Rosemary Prior (Maureen Edwards) is terrified to find a lump in her breast, and her worries continue when her schizophrenic son stops taking his medication.

A nursing sister is diagnosed with HIV, another nurse is exposed to be a recovering drug addict, and a man with Tourette’s Syndrome is treated like a leper by some of the townsfolk. Disaster strikes when the Wandin Valley water supply is poisoned, and Sergeant Frank Gilroy (Brian Wenzel) uncovers evidence of a sickening bird smuggling racket in the district.

Left: Vernon ‘Cookie’ Locke (Syd Heylen) is horrified when the RSL Club is torched. Right: Shirley Gilroy (Lorrae Desmond) comes to a tragic end in A Country Practice.

Down at the RSL Club, Vernon ‘Cookie’ Locke (Syd Heylen) unwittingly falls for the charms of a transvestite, and when an arsonist decides to torch the club, several people find themselves trapped in the cellar. A farmer is exposed as a violent wife basher, and a homosexual journalist with AIDS returns to the Valley to see out his final days.

There is heartbreak when Shirley Gilroy (Lorrae Desmond) perishes in a plane crash, and a mentally unhinged woman goes berserk with a cricket bat after discovering that her husband plans to have a vasectomy.

Familiar faces appearing in these episodes include Gwen Plumb, Peta Toppano and John Jarrett from The Young Doctors; Tom Richards and Rowena Wallace from Sons & Daughters; Maggie Millar and Judith McGrath from Prisoner; Nadine Garner from The Henderson Kids; and Vanessa Downing from Home & Away.

You can pre-order A Country Practice: Collection 7 now from the Via Vision website.

Images copyright: Via Vision Entertainment/Grundy Organization/Fremantle Australia. Via Vision Entertainment/JNP.