Killing Time

For over a year now it’s led an almost underworld existence: talked about but never seen. But from 2 November, the ten-part drama Killing Time – the incredible true story of criminal lawyer turned lawless criminal Andrew Fraser – is finally free to air, where it looks sure to become one of the most talked-about Australian dramas ever screened.

Legal proceedings before the Supreme Court of Victoria derailed TV1’s original plans to premiere Killing Time in September 2010 at the 11th hour. But by then copies of the first two episodes had been issued to the media and the fourth estate was abuzz with talk of the mesmeric script from Ian David (Blue Murder) and David Wenham’s harrowing performance as Fraser, not to mention the ripples and ructions Melbourne’s criminal fraternity were about to experience. Again.

But where the Underbelly franchise still reeks of soap stars playing dress-ups, Killing Time’s power is its realism. David’s narrative ricochets between Fraser’s high-flying days in the 80s and 90s and his too-low-for-zero stretch in a maximum-security gaol between 2001 and 2006. Thumping rock themes the good times. The bad days are bluestone silence and sallow lighting.  

For Wenham, portraying both the cocky, coke-y Fraser and the brutalised junkie gaol bird, represented a huge challenge. “When you’re playing people who are alive and in the public sphere, it’s a balancing act – I think actors are freer when bounded only by the limits of their imagination. But playing real-life characters you can’t stray too far outside the boundaries.

“So while I’d read Andrew’s books, watched hours of footage and listened to hours of radio interviews, I made a decision not to meet him first because he’s a very seductive character, very charismatic and I didn’t want to feel compelled to portray him in a particular light he approved of.”

Fraser, now 60 and living a sober, stay-at-home life as an author in Melbourne, finds himself typically torn seeing his story up on screen. “It’s very exciting but also hugely confronting,” he admitted to Time Out. “I think [Wenham] has done a terrific job, and I’m glad he’s played it very much warts and all – he certainly doesn’t pay me too many accolades along the way!”

Mind you, this is “Andrew” speaking, not his monstrous (semi-retired) alter-ego “Fraser”.

It’s a prime reason Killing Time will cause a stir when it airs. As Wenham sagely smiles, “conflict is the essence of great drama.” Be assured, Andrew Fraser is a very conflicted character – a silvertail silk from an establishment family who represented the nation’s pre-eminent criminals (Dennis “Dr Death” Allen, Louis Moran) and its fallen media barons (Alan Bond, Laurie Connell) yet ends up crossing the line into a $1000-a day cocaine addiction which ends in prison.

“Living the life, I was the car crash,” Fraser admits. “During lucid moments you think, ‘This can’t last’. Then you score another pack and you’re away again. You spiral into complete despair. (But) in jail there are three options: one, you neck yourself – a few blokes do that. Two, they sit in their cell and they cry the entirety of their sentence – a lot do that, or medicate to be out of it. Or, three: you get on with it and deal with it the best you can. And that’s always been my personality type.”

From jet-setting hellraiser to the gaol cell from hell itself, Killing Time is one helluva story.

Killing Time screens weekly on TV1 from Wed 2 Nov, 8.30pm

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