Cloudstreet

There can be no better celebration of 20 years since the publication of Cloudstreet than the broadcast this month of the long-gestating TV adaptation. Tim Winton's tale of a large Perth house shared by two working-class families 1943-1963 is the best-loved Australian novel of the last two decades, a staple of high school English classes, and a vivid, rollicking tale crying out for a screen version.

Such is the anticipation surrounding the three-part, 6.5-hour production that even its cast members are champing at the bit to see it. "I'm beside myself with excitement," says Essie Davis, who portrays the seductive, tortured alcoholic Dolly Pickles in the series. "I've never looked forward to seeing something I'm in so much in my life! Stephen Curry [who plays her on-screen husband, Sam Pickles] was worried he'd be disappointed but he saw the first episode but said it went beyond his expectations."

In 2008 Showtime Australia and Screentime (makers of Underbelly) managed to wrest the rights to Cloudstreet from the US production company who owned them. Winton himself was enlisted to re-write Ellen Fontana's screenplay. "Tim understood the screen process extremely well for someone who has not worked extensively in screen drama," says producer Greg Haddrick. "He was very interested in how we could best bring his prose to the screen."

The series was shot in Perth last year over 13 weeks under the direction of Matthew Saville (Noise, The King). "Matthew has that unique combination of being an excellent director of highly emotional scenes and a lovely, dry, Tim Winton-like sense of humour," explains Haddrick. "When you strip away Winton's prose there's a lot of sadness and suffering in Cloudstreet and we needed a director who could work with that but bring the humour, visually."

A nostalgic, magic realist portrayal of Australia in the mid 20th century, Cloudstreet dramatises two warring aspects of the national psyche. While the shambolic Pickles family place their faith in booze and blind luck, the devout, industrious Lambs labour at the grocery business they've opened in their half of the house.

Hard-drinking Dolly Pickles leaves the running of the household to her daughter Rose (Emma Booth) and quarrels with Oriel Lamb (Kerry Fox), even seducing Oriel's husband Lester (Geoff Morrell). "Dolly is a very damaged woman," explains Davis, "and the only man who has truly loved her has been Sam. And as much as she wants to find some other love and fill herself up with alcohol, she can't leave him."

The all-star cast includes Todd Lasance as Quick Lamb and Hugo Johnstone-Burt as the brain-damaged Fish Lamb. Finding actors to play members of the same family was the biggest casting challenge, says Haddrick. "With Stephen as Sam we had to match him with a Dolly who would look right, and Essie captures beautifully Dolly's drop-dead gorgeous appeal."

Each of the principal cast members was offered private meetings with Winton to discuss their characters, during which the author revealed secrets about them that aren't spelled out in the book. "I know a lot more than you do [about Dolly]!" Davis mock-boasts. 

Perhaps nothing sums up the sense of expectation surrounding Cloudstreet than the reaction of the guy who wrote it the first time he visited the set. "I think Tim was in shock," Davis says. "I don't think he'd fully realised that someone was going to act what he had written. He sat there all day going ‘oh! Wow!' He was kind of amazed."

Cloudstreet Showcase, 22 & 29 May & 5 Jun, 8.30pm

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