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More Aussie TV and Radio Drama freed from the Archives

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More Aussie TV and Radio Drama freed from the Archives

Crawford Productions have released the fifteenth DVD box set of Cop Shop.

In this volume, the law enforcers of Riverside Police Station arrest a peeping tom whose girlfriend has a kink for being watched whilst undressing, and disaster strikes when Senior Sergeant Eric O’Reilly (Terry Norris) attempts to repair a faulty light fitting at the cop shop. There’s heartache for Detective Tony Benjamin (Gregory Ross) when his wife Claire (Louise Philip) is killed in a bus crash, and a lunatic who developed mental health problems whilst fighting in Vietnam goes on a bashing and shooting spree.

Pictured top: The latest DVD release of Cop Shop is now available.

Detective Jeff Johnson (Peter Adams) is back from America to smash a major drugs cartel with ties to the mafia, and he embarks on an extra-marital affair with Detective Amanda King (Lynda Stoner). The hapless constable Roy Baker (Gil Tucker) lands a date with a metermaid, and romance blossoms between Senior Constable Danni Francis (Paula Duncan) and the younger Constable Sam Phillips (Nicholas Eadie). Meanwhile Detective Sergeant Peter Fanelli (Bill Stalker) ties the knot with nursing sister Yvonne Holmes (Annette Andre) before beginning a new life as an inspector with the Federal Police in Darwin.

Constable Roy Baker (Gil Tucker) and Detective Mike Georgiou (John Orcsik) corner a law breaker in Cop Shop.

Big time crims steal printing paper from the government stores which will allow them to make five million dollars in counterfeit bank notes, and a violent criminal escapes from a prison farm chain gang by slicing into a fellow inmate with a chainsaw. Two homosexual robbers knock off a bank and are then held up themselves by a workshy chancer with a passion for American gangster movies. A solicitor who uses the services of call girls is furious to learn that his son wants to marry a common prostitute, and an ageing ventriloquist turns to a life of crime when the bookings begin to dry up.

Familiar faces appearing in these episodes include Cornelia Frances, Anne Lucas, John Ewart, Julie Nihill, Kit Taylor and Rosie Bailey from The Young Doctors; Belinda Giblin from Sons & Daughters; Michael Caton from The Sullivans; Mary Ward, Carol Burns and Amanda Muggleton from Prisoner: Cell Block H; Anne Charleston from Neighbours; and Debra Lawrance from Home & Away. Others who crop up in the action include Sigrid Thornton, Bill Hunter, Myrtle Woods, Keith Eden, Jeanie Drynan, Jessica Noad and Robyn Gibbes.

Crossroads actress Annette Andre also starred in Cop Shop.

If you are based in Australasia, you can order Cop Shop Volume 15 from Crawfords DVD. https://crawfordsdvd.com.au/ Fans who live in the UK or anywhere else in the world can place their orders with Eaton Films. https://shop.eatonfilms.co.uk/ourshop/


Grace Gibson Productions have released another batch of classic radio serials on CD, USB and as digital downloads.

Right: Dangerous aeroplanes put lives at risk in No Highway. Left: Dr Marlowe tends to broken bodies and broken hearts in City Hospital. Middle: Keith Eden stars in both Cop Shop and City Hospital.

The 1955 radio serial No Highway was adapted for radio by Richard Lane from Nevile Shute’s hugely successful novel. We meet an eccentric scientist called Theodore Honey who is tasked with testing metal fatigue and stress in air safety. Theodore finds that parts of an aircraft will develop metal fatigue much sooner than officially estimated putting countless lives at risk but those in positions of power refuse to take him seriously.

Regrettably, his theory is proved to be correct when a crash occurs and the fictional plot would foreshadow real-life aircraft disasters which would happen in the years to come. Nevile Shute drew on his own experience in aviation when writing his novel and it was certainly ahead of its time in highlighting air safety issues. The cast of this thrilling radio serial include Frederick Parslow from The Sullivans, Mary Ward from Prisoner, and Brian James from Skyways stars as Theodore Honey.

City Hospital Volume 1 features fifteen episodes of the Australian radio serial which followed the lives and loves of the patients and staff of a busy metropolitan hospital. Keith Eden stars as the dashing Dr Jeffrey Marlowe who encounters a young man suffering from a mental illness, and a bored wife who begins writing threatening letters to herself in order to attract attention from her busy husband. Marlowe becomes concerned about a patient who is being neglected by another doctor, an elderly man claiming to have no family or friends suffers a heart attack whilst crossing the road, and a man who is suspected of knocking off a hock shop is brought in for treatment by the police but why is he carrying a razor blade and a rubber hose?

If you want even more classic radio drama then you could try Dual Purpose Drama Library which features eight individual stories which were written by some of the top radio writers during the 1960s. Digest of Drama Volume 2 features another batch of fast-paced and absorbing stories which were produced for radio during the 1950s including The Parasite and The Rutledge Affair.

There’s yet more vintage radio drama with Night Beat Volume 11 in which newspaper columnist Randy Stone (Harp McGuire) continues to prowl the streets at night in search of his next big scoop. Randy is part private detective and part good Samaritan as he delves into juicy potential leads. Whispering Streets Volume 1, introduced by Hope Winslow (Lyndall Barbour), features a selection of self-contained human-interest stories which were adapted from American scripts for Australian audiences.

Fans of the long running political satire How Green Was My Cactus are in for a treat with three new releases. Classic Cactus – November 2021 stars Keith Scott and Robyn Moore in all 22 episodes which were broadcast on Australian radio during November. Classic Cactus: The Best of 2021 boasts 100 specially selected tracks including those dealing with Global Warming Greats, Action Hero Veg, the Krudd Siege, Sausage Mayhem, and Bogan Mormons.

Meanwhile, King Bonza The Lost Years, transports us to sub-tropical Cactus Island the year before King Bonza came to power and we have the chance to revisit the hilarious happenings in his kingdom with six episodes which were recorded live during the 1980s.


All of these radio serials can be purchased by listeners worldwide from the Grace Gibson Productions website. https://gracegibsonradio.com/


Photographs copyright Crawford Productions/WIN/Eaton Films. IRS Grace Gibson Productions.

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