Grass Roots Series 1, ABC 8 Part Drama on 2 disks:

STARS: GEOFF MORELL, RHYS MULDOON, SACHA HORLER, JOHN CLAYTON, CHRIS HAYWOOD, ZOE CARIDES, SOPHIE HEATHCOTE and RHONDDA FINDLETON

CREATED and WRITTEN: Geoffry Atherden

Story

A comedy drama where episode by episode we are presented with the scheming play and counterplay of the Mayor, Col Dunkley (Morell), his fellow Councillors and the staff of the atypical Australian seaside municipality of Arcadia Waters. The underlying theme follows the political conflict between Mayor Dunkley, Right Wing (perhaps new) Labor, and Liberal Councillor, Biddy Marchant (Heathcote), who quite openly covets Dunkley’s mayoral office and constantly works to undermine him. But, time after time, her sly little ploys are overturned by the seemingly unflappable and extremely street wise and astute Dunkley.

Wrapped around this are the continuing interpersonal twists and turns between the councillors, the staff and members of the public. We see many examples of the sorts of petty, and worse, kinds of corruption which we all like to believe go with the territory at “City Hall”. Many involve crafty staff member George, (Haywood) who is responsible for the administration of Planning and who has an uncanny knack of seeming to be able to successfully serve multiple masters on an ongoing basis. Greg (Muldoon) is the two faced MBA wielding CEO, with his own agenda, and completely lacking in people skills or integrity. Liz (Carides), in charge of children’s services is given a rough deal by the CEO via a little piece of seedy corruption of his own thereby establishing an ongoing enmity between the two. The Council’s PR lady Helen (Horler), who is loyal to the Mayor, gets caught in the cross fire between he and Councillor Marchant and has some difficulty in remaining objective in more ways than one. Harry (Clayton), an old guard “comrade” of the left, full of bluster and very much tied to the party, manages to upset most of the council at some time or other with his ham-fisted approach to politics.

Critical to the balance of power in the Council is the newly elected independent, Karin (Findleton) and there is a good bit of to and fro by Dunkley and Marchant in trying to gain her support. There are many other characters and situations with whom and which we can all identify and the series explores a wide range of human foibles and failings. In many cases this is almost too close to reality for comfort - the mark of a good comedy/drama.

Extras

A great shame but, other than sub-titling for the hearing impaired which is a positive, there are no extras.

Overall

This is Australia’s own “local government” version of “Yes Minister” and I will happily abandon any sense of cultural cringe and say that it is equal to this if not in its own way even better! The series accelerates rapidly and then maintains an absolutely cracking pace, driven by very clever and slick dialogue, generally delivered at machine gun speed by the competent performers, with an overlay of a simple and a quite addictive musical sound track which will get your feet tapping. Each episode will stand alone, but they are linked, and it would be best to watch them in order. Surprisingly this series did not rate as highly as expected when first shown on television but did better on the re-run, leading to more support for the second series as the word spread. If, like many, you missed the first series, here is your opportunity to enjoy it at your leisure, which you will, enjoy it that is! It shows what a broad range of talent we have in Australia, across every facet of drama production from concept and writing, and performing through to final product.

What I do not like is 1min 22 secs of Auntie’s advertising each time you LOAD the DVD!