Interviews with the cast of Prisoner Cell Block H, character profiles, photographs and comments from celebrities who are viewers, are all included in this inside view of the Australian soap opera.
Prisoner Cell Block H took the world by storm. Running from 1979 to 1986, 'Prisoner', as it was known in its home country, remains one of the most iconic and talked-about television serials to come from Australia, spanning a wonderful 692 episodes: each of them action packed, filled with gritty, intense storylines, some of the most wonderful characters ever created for TV soap, brought to life by a unique mainly female dominated cast whose portrayal of the 'old lags' are now nothing short of legendary. In this brand new book, Prisoner Cell Block H is remembered and celebrated by three people well known to the show's fans -- uniting fan club founders Scott Anderson and Barry Campbell with Rob Cope, this book features new and exclusive contributions from the show's cast, writers and crew. This Companion also takes a look at the theatre productions, hit theme song and world-wide fan following that have continued to make Prisoner one of the most celebrated television serials of all time. Packed with never before published photographs, this is one book that will be a must for any fan of the show! And if you are not a fan of the show, this book will tell you why Prisoner Cell Block H has become THE cult TV series! This is the ultimate guide to this incredible TV series.
SHEILA FLORANCE ON THE INSIDE an Intimate Portrait Sheila Florance said with her characteristic irony, I set out aged nineteen with every intention of becoming the worlds greatest Shakespearean actress and ended up as Lizzie Birdsworth, the shearers poisoner! This much-loved character in the cult TV soapie Prisoner brought Sheila worldwide fame after fifty years of hard work during the formative years of the Australian performing arts. It culminated just days before her death at seventy-five with an Australian Film Institute Leading Actress award for her last film A Womans Tale. Onstage and off her life was theatre on a grand scale. Everything was extravagant about Sheila in the parties she threw, her humour and tall tales, her friendships, her anger and loves. As a fighter for justice, her approach was eccentric and front-on. She wouldnt have called herself a feminist yet she always battled for and supported women. She suffered a difficult childhood, war in England, the tragic inexplicable death of her eighteen-year-old daughter, two drama-filled marriages and a constant tension between her main passions family and acting. It was quite a journey yet Sheilas courage and determination to be true to herself never faltered. In this very personal biography, her daughter-in-law and confidante, Helen Martineau, reveals the fascinating public career and behind-the-scenes upheavals of a memorable and inspiring woman, who in her final illness found the peace that long eluded her. I bought the book as a kind of duty to the memory of Sheila. But I simply couldnt put it down. You captured her in all her moods and complexity. Elspeth Ballantyne; warder Meg Morris in Prisoner and Sheilas long-time friend Second updated edition first published 2005 as On the inside an Intimate Portrait of Sheila Florance
When fourteen-year-old Alex is framed for murder, he becomes an inmate in the Furnace Penitentiary, where brutal inmates and sadistic guards reign, boys who disappear in the middle of the night sometimes return weirdly altered, and escape might just be possible.
Ken Light and his camera were permitted unparalleled access to Texas death row. His stark, powerful images show where and how the condemned live. In the year he took these pictures, fourteen men were executed in Texas. Suzanne Donovan's essay draws upon her interviews with the condemned men and with prison authorities, family members, and members of victims' families. Whoever opens this book will want to look away, for the pictures and words force us to gaze intimately into the eye of death. Light's photographs make us ask what we have done in sanctioning execution. With ninety percent approval, no other place in America has approved the death sentence so overwhelmingly as Texas. Ken Light's raw, austere photographs and the accompanying text reveal what we have created in the hopeless world of court-ordered death. Who are the men who exist there? What do they look like? How do they survive, and what are the rhythms of their daily lives? While outsiders focus on the final act of execution, the real drama unfolds each day in this arcane world.
This is the riveting true tale of a small town boy who grew up lusting for power and respect. After Richard Holmes got mixed up in the drug world, everything in his life spun out of control. In September 1987, a drug raid at Richard's home led to the disappearance of a police informant. People throughout Idaho and across the nation were stunned and outraged as the facts in the case began to come out. Conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder were some of the charges Richard Holmes was facing when he was tormented and stabbed to death in an Idaho State Correctional facility. All the while, guards stood outside watching and listening as commanding officials told them to stand down.
Adam Slade was a man who had nothing to lose by making a break for it. The trouble was, he knew that no one had ever escaped from the—Prison of a Billion Years
'I can actually tell my story without the benefit of a playwright or hidden beneath the cloak of a character.' Maggie Kirkpatrick, famous for her role as The Freak in Prisoner, presents a no-holds-barred account of her life both on and off screen. In The Gloves Are Off, Maggie takes us on her journey from humble beginnings in a Newcastle dress shop to becoming one of Australia's most well-known television and theatre stars. She gives us a peek behind the scenes of the television industry and the world of the theatre with insight and wit - the business, the challenges and the names. Maggie also shares publicly, for the first time, the full story of her very public legal battle - and the consequences of that battle that she's still living with today. The Gloves Are Off is an engaging, amusing and sometimes harrowing tale from one of the grand old dames of the Australian acting scene.
Do you want to...Help distribute money to the poor and be given a fee to do so? Share in Al Qaeda's hidden gold? Help a young girl orphaned in the tsunami? In their highly entertaining and often shocking new book James Morton and Susanna Lobez follow up their bestselling Gangland Australia by delving into the world of Australian con artists such as Mario Condello, Helen Demidenko, Christopher Skase, Brenton Jarrett, Peter Foster, Lola Montez and Fairlie Arrow. Here are highly talented men and women and their tricks: changing paper into banknotes, selling other people's property, faking deaths, and forging paintings; promising miracle cures and impersonating aristocracy, preachers, military gents, lawyers and doctors. In fact, whatever it takes to separate the unwary from their money. Read about the scams and think twice about that offer that seems almost too good to be true.