A Country Christmas

Television.AU wishes everyone a very Merry Christmas!

This year’s Christmas flashback is from 1983 — with some of the cast of A Country Practice wishing a Merry Christmas to TV Week readers.

By Christmas that year, the series had come to the end of its second year on screen. The show’s big highlight that year had been the wedding of Simon (Grant Dodwell) and Vicky (Penny Cook), the culmination of a two-year courtship.

Earlier in the year the series had collected its first two TV Week Logie Awards — Brian Wenzel for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, and guest star Jeremy Shadlow for Best Juvenile Performance.

Pictured above are Shane Porteous (Terence Elliott), Penny Cook (Vicky Bowen), Grant Dodwell (Simon Bowen), Syd Heylen (“Cookie”), Brian Wenzel (Frank Gilroy), Lorrae Desmond (Shirley Gilroy), Gordon Piper (Bob Hatfield), Anne Tenney (Molly Jones), Emily Nicol (Chloe Jones) and Joyce Jacobs (Esme Watson).

This year it was reported that Fremantle had bought the rights to A Country Practice, 25 years after it went out of production, with a view to producing a modern version of the rural drama. So far no more details have come to light, nor has any network publicly flagged their interest, but if it does eventuate it will surely be well received.

Source: TV Week, 24 December 1983.