Comments on: The best hidden river in the world?

By: Anne-Maree Whitaker

Anne-Maree Whitaker — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 08:26:15 +0000

Apparently it was filmed at Lake Tyers in East Gippsland. http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2014/07/31/4057704.htm

By: John Pickard

John Pickard — Fri, 19 Jun 2015 23:24:16 +0000

Anyone seeking historical facts in a TV adaptation of a novel is being more than a bit precious. It’s entertainment for heaven’s sake, not a documentary! I watched episode 1, and I am equivocal about it. Did anyone notice that “Sydney” was set among granite outcrops? Certainly NOT sandstone. Does this offend me? Partially, but then again, “Rabbit-Proof Fence” was filmed in SA, and not along the RPFs in WA.

For me, the biggest clanger was why Thornhill decided to start farming an a hillslope rather than an alluvial flat. Perhaps because he would have to fell blue gums etc. A formidable task, and first crops were always scratched in between existing trees. I’m sure that the local wallabies would have loved the first green shoots of Thornhill’s corn crop!

I’ll leave others to comment on the politics of the show, and how the producers deal with the dispossession. But we have to realise that projecting 2015 values onto settlers in 1810 or thereabouts is flawed. Sure, the arrogance of the poms knew no bounds when it came to assumptions of racial and other superiority, and of course, their terra nullius mentality.

Enjoy it as entertainment. A bit like the real history of the US west as depicted by Hollywood. How about John Wayne galloping among blue gums planted in California!

Will I watch episode 2? Probably not.

BTW: does anyone know where the various bits were filmed? I don’t agree that it was on the back-lot of Old Sydney Town (as I said above, the outcropping rocks are granite, not sandstone).

By: Anne-Maree Whitaker

Anne-Maree Whitaker — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 01:53:35 +0000

Here’s the latest brilliant historical drama… http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/how-can-a-miniseries-about-british-settlement-show-no-aboriginal-people-20150614-ghngff.html

By: Bruce Baskerville

Bruce Baskerville — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 00:20:52 +0000

I was looking forward to this program, for all sorts of reasons. Like others posting here, I became a bit cranky with the early ‘Sydney town’ scenes, perhaps peaking at the anachronistic mention of the Rum Corps, and the general depiction of the convicts and soldiers as archetypes of brutality and degradation – I thought we have moved on from such crude depictions by now. But, it is fiction, so I persisted.
The move to the ‘Hawkesbury’ was a turning point, although I thought it skirted around the central moral and political issues of the dispossesed becoming in turn the dispossessors. Perhaps that will come to then fore in the next episode. I was particularly interested in this issue because, among other things, I have at least two ancestors and their families who were in the same situation, and I have never been able to really come to any satisfactory understanding of what happened. Instead, I continually wrestle with it. Perhaps that’s a distinction between history and fiction – there’s never a truly happy ending in history, only the setting of a stage for the next act, and more questions.
I’m looking forward to the next episode to see how a novelist resolves this issues.

By: Carol Roberts

Carol Roberts — Wed, 17 Jun 2015 01:31:14 +0000

I agree with Stephen that the first part of ‘The Secret River’ was boring but, as Stephen commented, it started to pick up from when Thornhill first travelled to the Hawkesbury. Whether that was because I am a Hawkesburyite and was more interested from that point I am not sure. I felt the whole production lacked something – it certainly lacked any sign of wildlife – and that is a great pity because the actors were trying their hardest to make it work. Having said that though, I found the lead actor (Thornhill) very difficult to understand – his enunciation was awful. He more than likely was directed to produce an accent but it didn’t work, for me anyway. Also, I found the forced introduction of the word ‘Oxboro’ by Sarah equally grating, especially when I did not hear any of the other cast using it. Sarah and Mr Blackwood are the better actors by far than some of the other members of the cast. The aerial shots of the river are beautiful but a trifle overdone, especially as we know it was not filmed in the Hawkesbury. I’m interested to see how Thornhill’s character evolves, because if he was based on the character of Solomon Wiseman (Kate Grenville’s ancestor) he will turn out to be quite different to the character he represented in the first episode. I will watch next week’s episode and I hope, for the sake of all involved in the production, that it improves. I know they were working to a tight budget, but the producers could have taken a lesson from a movie called ‘The Oyster Farmer’ which came out in 2004. It was about oyster farmers on the Hawkesbury and was actually filmed on the Hawkesbury – and you can see the difference.

By: Margaret Blundell

Margaret Blundell — Tue, 16 Jun 2015 21:49:05 +0000

Like Stephen, I watched the first episode of ‘The Secret River’ and had similar thoughts about the production. However, my interest in the portrayal of the very early European settlement of the Hawkesbury River stems from research I did for my MA thesis. The sources that I consulted at that time revealed that the earliest settlers who tried farming tended to establish themselves on the alluvial flats along the banks of the freshwater creeks which flowed into the Hawkesbury, especially its upper reaches. Until I have seen episode two and read Kate Grenville’s book I’ll refrain from further comment.