How Do I Love Thee Prisoner?

Let me count the ways! Well, for anyone who’s had the misfortune to stumble across my review thread in the Recroom, there are 692 of them! Well, okay, 11 so far, but hey, I’m getting there! Honestly, I feel like one of those medieval monks who spent their lives copying out the Bible! It would be okay if I didn’t have 692 distractions on a daily basis in the real world diverting me from this but not to worry, it all makes for an exciting life!

Anyway, I digress! And that’s before I get underway! D’oh! I really shouldn’t be allowed! We were chuckling one day in the fun factory that I laughingly call my work about the fact that Prisoner’s nearly as old as me!

And so it came to pass that that Gods of Grundy gathered and pondered over my explosion into the world, “And what is this child born unto us? Let us create a television show for her to devote her life to obsessing over!”

I can’t believe that Prisoner’s been a part of my life for just about half my life now! That’s seriously scary biscuits! I can’t imagine my world without it now though! All say aaah! I think it’s so sweet that everyone has their own Prisoner love story of how they first fell for it.

Would you like to hear mine? Probably not (!!!), but here it is anyway, as the theme from Love Story plays out! Okay, you’ll have to pretend that part because I’m not clever enough to know how to attach a sound clip and I’ve probably just burst through the cheesiness ceiling for this blog anyway!

I suppose I was vaguely aware of Prisoner for some time before I got into it, in the way that you’re aware of Alaska but don’t think very much about it (unless of course you live/love there or know anyone who lives/loves there!).

One of my mates was mad about it (Prisoner that is, not Alaska!) and forced me to watch it one time I was having a sleepover at her house (oh it was great being a teenybopper!). All I can remember is thinking I’d never seen anything like it in my life (a feeling which hasn’t faded over the years!) …and Lizzie’s laugh! That just sums up my joy of Prisoner, that my first memory of it is somebody’s laugh!

I’d love to be able to tell you it was love at first sight but as with many of the enduring loves in life it was ever so much more a gradual thing. I drifted and dipped in and out of it for a year or two. I was left to my own devices at home because my parents didn’t get in till late so I found myself flicking over to it after our current affairs show Newsnight finished (I was such a dag – no change there then!) and before I knew where I was, I found myself absolutely hooked and helplessly and hopelessly devoted to it, which I still am to this very day!

I’ve never in my life felt about any other television programme the way I do about my Prisoner, which is probably just as well, because there just simply wouldn’t be space in my heart or my mind (such as it is!) for anything else anyway! I’d go bang! I’m sure I will one of these days anyway!

And why is this? What is it about this quirky old show that has sparked such adoration and devotion in the hearts of so many and varied people over the years and across the miles? Well that’s a huge question that I couldn’t possibly answer other than for my silly old self!

For me, I love the way that you can watch it on so many levels, you can laugh with or at its camp silliness at times (indeed I love how it’s clever enough not to take itself too seriously at times too!), but likewise you can be transported right out of yourself and into another realm when it hits the high notes of emotional truth, often in the space of a few scenes in an episode!

Oh and I just adore the humour/pathos juxtaposition that time and time again throughout the series it does so well. For my money, the great Sheila Florance in the character of Lizzie was the absolute meister of this! Speaking of which, that brings me to another of the sheer joys of Prisoner for me.

I’ve said this before but I think it’s worth rehashing for my shiny new blog, I know with a cast of that size and for a series of that length it inevitably wasn’t all good (but then that’s also part of its huge charm!), but I think we really were blessed in the show with some fine work from some incredibly talented, experienced professionals who knew their craft and grasped a rare opportunity to show it with both hands, treating us to some unforgettable television along the way. What can I say? It’s a symphony of a viewing experience!

And who is a Prisoner fan? As Glenda Linscott said in one of her commentaries for the DVDs a Prisoner fan is everyone and anyone. Anyone who’s ever felt imprisoned by their circumstances, anyone who’s ever loved, lost, laughed or cried, felt joy, pain or anything for that matter. It explores such universal themes that anyone can identify with if they tune into it’s pulse, and it’s so worth the rollercoaster of a ride it takes you on. I’m so bursting with joy and appreciation for the fact that it’s in my life!

What am I like with all my hows and whys and whos?! It’s like that Rudyard Kipling poem, “I keep six honest serving men, (They taught me all I knew), Their names are What and Why and When, And How and Where and Who!” If I did what and when and where I’d be here all night!

Anyway, now that I’ve introduced you to my world of Wentworth, what lies ahead for my musings? I’ll chat about anything that comes up in my watchings. I’m very religious in my observance of Prisoner and watch six episodes a week as I rattle my way through the series, Monday to Friday, with two on a Friday to celebrate the fact it’s the weekend! Yes people, Lily may be my first name but Decadence is my middle one!

Oh and of course there’s my snail like episode review project, so if anything pops up into my head from that I’ll give that a shout too.

And as an offshoot to my devotion to Prisoner, I’ll watch anything and everything else to come out of Australia… films, miniseries, serials, you name it! I especially love the breadth and depth of product that came from those shores during the “golden era” of the 1970s and 80s.

At the moment the viewing schedule on LTV (Lily TV!) is a box of delights which includes Sons & Daughters (altogether now… “love and laughter, tears and sadness and happiness!”), those spunky Young Doctors, Neighbours (because everybody needs good ones!), Home & Away ("You know we belong together!"), the camp fabulousness of Return To Eden (let’s hear it for 1980s excess!), an occasional dip into the goings on in Wandin Valley in A Country Practice (although, unsurprisingly, I’m struggling squashing that in on top of everything else!), oh and an excellent period piece from the 1970s called Against The Wind which I can’t wait to tell you some more about.

One of the things I enjoy most about these of course is playing the Prisoner spotting game, because with the industry being relatively small out there, so much Australian film and television is populated with the escapees or pre-scapees from the dear old show and I just love to see what the actors are capable of in other things. Especially in some of the less current, more obscure in this day and age things I’ve come across, there have been more than a few pleasant surprises along the way that hopefully I’ll have chance to mention in due course.

And so if anything Prisoner related lights my fire or floats my boat about these I’ll let you know too. That and anything else in the way of Wentworth that eventuates through chatting with my cobbers or that I happen to blunder across myself as I bumble away through life in my usual jumbly fashion!

What a joy it is! To turn a phrase of one of my dearest friends, I’m chuffed to little mint balls to have this opportunity! Oh well, until the next time, as Jerry Springer used to say, take care of yourselves…and each other!