"I set out aged nineteen with every intention of becoming the world's greatest Shakespearian actress and ended up as Lizzie Birdsworth, the shearers' poisoner!"
And aren't we glad that she did?!- Sheila Florance (as quoted in Helen Martineau's brilliant biography)
92 years ago last week, on Monday, 24th July, 1916, in the seaside suburb of St Kilda, Melbourne, Australia, a baby girl first drew breath into a world of turmoil, who would grow up to become, many years and almost a lifetime away later, responsible for breathing life into arguably one of the best loved characters in television.
Sheila Florance was such an extraordinary, remarkable woman that she really deserves a blog in her own right. Well, actually, that's a completely absurd thing to say! She deserves waaaaaaaay much more than a blog, but that's the best that I can do to express my appreciation for her within the limited bounds of my capabilities (!), and so I'll save that for another day. In the meantime, I thought I'd take a look at the character that brought her such "overnight success" after a career spanning almost half a century... Mrs Elizabeth Josephine Birdsworth, take a bow!
So what it is then about the character of Lizzie that makes her so special and so beloved and fondly remembered by so many people? Shearer poisoning, kleptomaniac, alcoholic old lag, what was there not to love about her?! So magically played by the wonderful spirit who inhabited her, you could laugh with her and cry with her, often in the space of one scene.
Great fun whenever she had a cob on about something, was "on the sauce" or was "stacking on a turn" for the umpteenth time as a diversion, it was also incredibly moving whenever the loneliness that came of her institutionalisation and her age was revealed, such as when Edie Wharton and later on Sid Humphrey died, and whenever she talked of the loss of her children.
Especially watchable in the bonds she formed with the younger characters in the show, particularly Doreen, Maxine and Pixie, and in the sometimes comical, sometimes sad scenes she had with Vera, she provided so much of Prisoner's comic relief and pathos for nearly two-thirds of the show's run.
What a tremendous life force both the character and the actress was, and it really shone through in her contribution to the show. In Lizzie's own words, her blood really was worth bottlin'!
On reflection, Lizzie was at the heart of so many of my most favourite moments throughout Prisoner, spanning the full gamut of emotion...joy, pain, love, loss, even edge-of-your-seat drama, thinking especially of her role in two of the best end-of-year cliffhangers in the show, the tunnel collapse during 'The Great Escape' in episode 165 at the end of the 1980 season and the (quite literally!) heart stopping moment when 'that nice Mr Bridges' true colours are grimly uncovered in episode 416 at the end of 1983:
"You're wrong Lizzie, there are two bodies... I set them free, and now you're going to be free too!"
*EEK!*
One of the most moving scenes in the whole show for me is towards the end of episode 49 (so well written as always by my very favourite Prisoner scribe, Denise Morgan), when Lizzie discovers that her friend Edie Wharton has died during the night, Jim opens the cell door and just slumps against the door jamb when he realises what has happened.
This cues an almost unbearably sad little monologue from Lizzie as the episode draws to a close where she tells of her fears of dying alone in prison and of how she thinks Edie died because she was tired of being lonely, then Vera says simply, "You won't be alone in here, Lizzie," as the credits roll, leaving her quietly weeping on the bed. I don't know about you, but I've got a lump in my throat just thinking about it! Seriously though, Prisoner gets so real for me in moments like that, there's such truth in the writing and performance that it's almost uncanny.
Another choker involving Lizzie came in episode 392 when the news came through of Maxine's demise, right in the middle of the Lassa Fever epidemic, when, such is the arbitrariness of fate in Prisoner that it was ironically young Maxine outside of the prison to die, when you were worrying about who the fever was going to claim within the walls of Wentworth.
I think the scene where Bea reads Maxine's letter to Lizzie, telling of all her hopes and dreams for a future that wasn't to be, coming just after they've heard the news of her passing, was another such heartrending moment. Honestly, this show really puts you through the ringer at times, doesn't it?!
Incidentally, I love the way the tonality of this darkens as Bea's face hardens when she looks over and catches Joan callously smirking, as the others are too distraught to notice. I think it's such an electric little snapshot of the emnity between these two characters and underlines for me just how the show excels at these skilfully shifting moods. I think it's one of the many things that makes for such endlessly watchable and compelling drama.
But enough tears and darkness, let's put the hankies away now, because when I think of Lizzie, I think of the first thing I remember about her, and indeed of the show itself, that inimitable laugh! I'm laughing as I type as it's ringing in my head! She endowed us with so many priceless comedy moments during her time in the show, but one of my favourites is the beanbag affair in episode 95, one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life!
There it is, sitting expectantly right in the middle of Kevin's flat, like some kind of mutant life form from another planet, almost like it knows that its destiny is about to pass into Prisoner lore... Seconds later it doesn't disappoint as it nearly devours Lizzie when Kevin plonks her down on it!
"Oh! Get this off of me!" she cries, all akimbo and legs and arms flailing everywhere! I love it when Kevin explains to her that it's just a beanbag and it's meant to do that and she comments, "Funny things aren't they? Beanbags!" They are when you sit on them, Lizzie!
It's even more hilarious when she tries to get up from it but the beanbag's having none of it so she ends up on the floor and starts hitting it with her handbag..."Bloody thing!"
Another classic Lizzie moment leading on from this comes a few episodes later in episode 100, which finds Lizzie chasing Kevin's mother down the street wildly brandishing a saucepan like a woman possessed! I love how the mood of this again so deftly shifts as Lizzie suddenly connects with Kevin's mother and really feels her pain as the realisation hits her that she's lost her son to Doreen.
And so Lizzie goes on to share her own loss in explaining how her own children were taken away from her. You really feel her regret at all those lost and irreplaceable years, as she points out the hollow consolation of the substantial compensation she's to receive from the government for her wrongful imprisonment, as she adds, with bitter sadness, "It's worth nothing when you're on your own..."
Brightening the tone again, Lizzie was on a bit of a roll in terms of priceless comedy moments in this little era of Prisoner actually, because another handful of episodes on from this, in 104, there's another superb scene which is an even greater feast of fun for me in that it features another of my all time favourite characters (oh yes, here she is again!)... Erica Davidson!
Lizzie's on an incredibly entertaining quest to get herself sent back to Wentworth and try as she might, no matter how many blatant petty felonies she commits it's just not happening for her. After her latest fine from court which Erica has paid for her, in desperation Lizzie grabs a bottle to smash a jeweller's window, when out of nowhere, like a bat out of hell, power trots Queen Erica and with one swift greased lightning sweeping action, the gloved hand of our heroine thwarts poor Lizzie's aspirations once again! *Curses!*
This is entrée to yet another of my favourite Lizzie moments in the episode following this, 105 (honestly, even talking about these I'm thinking of going back and having another mini-run at these episodes there's such an embarrassment of riches in them!), where she finally gets her way when she flushes the memoirs of the Magistrate (played by that judge for all seasons, the marvellously monikered and excellently enunciated Arthur Barradell-Smith!) down the loo! I love it when a plan comes together!
"I'm a menace to public safety!" she declares to the bamboozled beak!
I hope you'll forgive me for leaping all over the place, but I don't want to leave these early episodes without mentioning another great storyline from almost the very beginning of the show, away back in episode 22, when Lizzie is allowed out of prison for the day to visit her dying brother Angus. This is great for Vera loving herself sick in the Governor's chair while Erica's away with Lizzie, "Another biscuit, Mr Goodwin?!" but I digress!
And so to our main topic of conversation for now, Lizzie and her touching reunion with her ailing brother... It soon becomes apparent that absence hasn't made the heart grow fonder as their rapprochement degenerates into a blazing row! Lizzie: What about them army trucks in 1944?!
Angus: I didn't say nothing then and I'm not saying anything now!
Lizzie: I was amusing the Sergeant while you drove off. Now where's my share?!
Angus: Ha ha ha, you got your share from the Sergeant!
So poor Lizzie's hopes of getting her hands on at least some of Angus's estate and to what she thinks she's entitled come to nothing, as Dr Crawe emerges from Angus's room to break the news that Angus has fumed his last, and when she delicately asks him if he had anything to say before he passed away, I love the deadpan way the good doctor replies (excellent work from Ernie Bourne here!), "Well as I recall, Mrs Birdsworth, his exact words were, 'Tell her she doesn't get a cracker...I got no sister!'"
Lizzie's fury at this:
"The old bastard! He can rot! I might have known it! Tight as a fish's bum to the grave...and he got the last word again!"
Superb stuff!
Zooming well ahead from these japes now, there was that funny anecdote mentioned in the Super Aussie Soaps book of what went on behind the scenes when they were filming that scene during the Sandy/Marie/Kate riot in episode 248. It was a freezing cold midwinter night in darkest Nunawading, the location of the studios which any good Prisoner fan can tell you is the home of Wentworth.
I'll let Andrew Mercado take up the tale, seeing as I've pinched it from his book!
"As prison officers lined up with guns aimed at the door, Lizzie was supposed to emerge from a riot-ravaged Wentworth, wave a white flag as a sign of surrender, and complete just one simple line of dialogue. Yet, take after take, Sheila Florance, couldn't nail the line. Finally she emerged, waved her white flag and uttered the immortal clanger, "Nuna-f***ing-wading! Let's give it back to the Aborigines!"
Even towards the end of her time in the show, Lizzie still had the ability to sparkle. One of my all-time favourite storylines surrounds Lizzie's pen friend Foxy turning up in episode 398 and how they try to pull the wool over each other eyes because they're both conning each other! I love how she somehow manages to rope Meg and Colleen in on her antics by getting Meg to pretend to be her secretary and Colleen her daughter!
So many funny lines and moments in the episode stemming from that premise - it's such a peach! From Lizzie's indignant fury at being charged $30 for getting her hair done because 'Madame Beatrice' back at Wentworth would have done it for "a couple of fags...and nothing if she's trying to give 'em up!" to that priceless moment when Foxy is first introduced to Colleen, "You don't have to tell me who you are darling, you're the spitting image of your mother!" and one of my absolute favourite exchanges of the whole series, as Foxy's casting an admiring glance over the china at PASAV do-gooder Irene Henderson's palatial home (which Lizzie is pretending is hers!):
Foxy: (Picking up a piece) I love this porcelain. Victorian is it?
Lizzie: (Deadpan) No I got that one in Adelaide!
This is even more entertaining to watch because you've got the joy of Elspeth Ballantyne caught in the mirror eating her knuckle trying not to laugh! Excellent stuff!
Ah, but seeing as it would have been Sheila's birthday last week, I think I'll have to round off this mad old meander down Lizzie lane by looking at another of my favourite episodes featuring her, the one where they spring a surprise party on her, after making her believe that they've forgotten all about her birthday, back in episode 134.
I've always thought that kind of thing is a bit of a mean thing to do to anyone, and much more fun for the people doing all the plotting than it is for their target, not to mention a slightly worrying thing to inflict upon a 72 year old with a dicky ticker!
So Lizzie's absolutely crestfallen when she thinks that all of her friends have forgotten about her birthday. Meg insists that she go to her cell for a lie down (to give the others chance to start planning her party). Lizzie says to her, sadly:
"Oh never mind, Mrs Jackson. I'm just a silly old coot who thought she had one or two friends left in the world. I should be locked up in me cell and left to fade away..."
I love how Meg nearly weakens and almost gives the game away, but manages to keep up the pretence of indifference!
Lizzie has a fantastic scene with Jim later on from this. He finds her alone in the cell and asks her why she isn't with the others, which cues a heartrending monologue over the sad piano theme, but with a delicious twist at the end:
"They didn't want me. Mrs Jackson told me to go, and they were glad to see me go too. Nobody wants you when you're old. They wouldn't care if you lived or died. You know what I mean, Mr Fletcher. I wasn't talking about your family. I know how much you miss them. I was thinking about us old ones..."
This leads to a flashback recalling when Edie died, and then she continues:
"...I was thinking about Edie and how it was when she went. I reckon you and me were the only two who really cared when she died. Now I'm almost as old as she was then..."
And the brilliant twist is, she turns round and realises that Fletch has gone off in the middle of all this, the "rotten bugger!!!!" That wonderful, and I'd say unique, quality that Prisoner, and the character of Lizzie in particular, has to be able to make you cry and make you laugh, all in the space of one breath! Few, if any, other shows carry it off with such panache!
I also love a little scene she has with Ellen in the interview room, where she's going to town about how her friends have all forsaken her. She vows, melodramatically:
"But I'll tell you this, if it was not for you and Josie I'd end it, I would. No, fair dinkum, I'd cut me wrists and I'd bleed all over their walls! At least then they might remember who I was!"
She has a nice touching little scene with Judy up in Isolation where Judy gives her Sharon's lighter as a present from them both, I guess because that's all she has to give her. Then there's that sad image of her sitting all forlorn with her little party hat on that she's fashioned for herself out of newspaper and a lonely little candle to make a wish on, that Meg promptly blows out when she comes to get her, much to Lizzie's annoyance!
But it's finally all worthwhile when she's taken to the rec room, and you see the look on her face as the lights comes on, the camera zooms in on her and the instrumental theme strikes up. There really isn't a word in the dictionary to describe the joy of that moment, as she spots Ellen and goes running to her, throwing her arms around her and they're all singing to her and hugging her - it's such a blissful piece of television.
I don't watch Prisoner for the darkness, although that's undeniably part of its fascination to me, I watch it more for the light, which you appreciate so much more after all the heavy going uncompromising stuff! And that was a sequence of sheer sunshine!
I love how Lizzie's having a fabulous time knocking back the old plonk and thinking she's getting half sozzled until Vera enlightens her with that legendary quip, "I still don't see how anybody could have got drunk on non-alcoholic wine!"
Given what I've read about their off-screen antics with the cardboard handbags, I wonder if it really was non-alcoholic wine! They're certainly all looking very merry! Well, that could be great acting of course!!!
There's another moment of pure Prisoner paradise as they're all piling the presents onto her and she steals the scene, indeed the whole episode, with that line:
"You thought I really believed you didn't you? And I was just having a lend of you!"
When somebody radiates such an abundance of love and joy it's catching, and you can't help but feel the same way towards them!
I love a comment Sheila Florance made during that interview she gave as part of 'The Great Escape Tour' when Anna Soubry asked her if she ever got fed up playing the same character for so long:
"No because unless you love something you can't do it anyway so you have to love it. I mean sometimes you had to stand there and think, 'Please God make this sound honest," you know, because it has to be honest. So I think I succeeded."
I think she succeeded too, and that's why I love the character and the actress to bits, in the way her spirit shines through the whole of her time on the show and beyond as 'our Lizzie'.
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