Prisoner

sexual objects but present themselves as human, fe- male. subjects. Although talks to very contemporary, his- torically specific concerns, it also draws on much wider, longer, older cultural histories. Prisoner can be located in a long female tradition of inversion and in- o versionary figures in popular culture, from the "un- ruly" or "disorderly" women of early modern Europe 7 evoked by Natalie Zemon Davis as Women on Top to the rebellious Maid Marian's important in Robin Hood ballads and associated festivities of the May -games, to the witches of 17th -century English stage comedy. In such "wise witch" figures, we perhaps approach the fe- male equivalent of the male mythological tradition of i Robin Hood, Dick Turpin, Rob Roy-outlaws and

I tricksters who, like Bea in Prisoner; inspire fear as well as admiration. In addition to drawing from such carnivalesque tra- ' 1. ditions of world upside-down, misrule, and charivari, Prisoner speaks to and takes in new directions dramas of crime on television where private passions erupt Prisoner into public knowledge, debate, contestation, judgment. Photo courtesy of Grundy Television l'tv Ltd. As dramaturgy, Prisoner revels in the possibilities of the TV serial form, of cliff-hangers at the end of episodes, intensifying melodrama as (in Peter Brooks's threat of it: after killing her, she brands "K" (for killer) terms in The Melodramatic Imagination) an aesthetic on Nola MacKenzie's chest with a soldering iron (Nola of excess. Prisoner is already a classic of serial melo- had tried to drive Bea insane over the memory of her drama, yet, in world television, there is and has been dead daughter Debbie). nothing else quite like it. Prisoner relies very little on conventional defini- ANN CURTHOYS AND JOHN DOCKER tions of masculinity and femininity, beyond the basic point that sympathy generated for the women rests on Cast the perception that women are not usually violent or Doreen May Anderson/Burns physically dangerous. Many of the women are very Freida "Franky" Doyle Carol Burns strong characters indeed, active and independent. Bea. Vera "Vinegar Tits" Bennett Fiona Spence Nola, Marie Winters, the Freak are most unusual in the Lizzie Birdworth Sheila Florance gallery of characters of television drama. They are not Monica Ferguson Lesley Baker substitute men, hut active strong women. Strength and Marilyn Mason Margaret Laurence gentleness are not distributed in Prisoner on male - Bea Smith female lines. The binary image of the powerful man Karen Travers Peta Toppano and the weak or decorative woman is simply not there. Lynn Warner Nor are the women in Prisoner in the least glamorized. Stud Wilson Peter Lindsay They are usually dressed in shabby prison uniforms. Jim Fletcher Gerard Maguire while those on remand usually appear in fairly ordi- Erica Davidson Patsy King nary clothes. Their faces suggest no makeup, and they Colleen Powell Judith McGrath range in bodily shape from skinny wizened old Lizzie Bob Moran Peter Adams (II) (loving, concerned, and kind, yet also a mischievous Tammy Fisher Gloria Adjenstrat old lag rather like a child, liable to get herself into trou- Officer Green John Allen ble) to the big girls like Bea. Doreen. and Judy. Their Jean Vernon Christine Amor faces, luminously featured as in so much serial melo- Camilla Wells Annette Andre drama, are shown as grainy and interesting, faces full Di Hagen Christine Andrew of character, with signs of hardship and suffering, al- Reb Kean Janet Andrewartha ternately soft and hard, happy and depressed, angry or Valarie Jacobs Barbara Angell bored. The women are not held up voyeuristically as Meg Morris Elspeth Ballantyne

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