''Rude Awakenings'', a New Zealand comedy-drama
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
series, aired on
TV One on Friday evenings. The first episode aired on 9 February 2007.
By March it was averaging almost 320,000 viewers.
It has been confirmed there will be no more episodes, with TVNZ citing low ratings as the reason despite the show receiving much praise from viewers.
The series centres on two families who live next door to each other in a fashionable street in
Ponsonby, a suburb of
Auckland
Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...
.
The Rush family has just moved to their newly renovated house in Ponsonby from a
lifestyle block
A hobby farm (also called a lifestyle block in New Zealand, or acreage living or rural residential in Australia) is a smallholding or small farm that is maintained without expectation of being a primary source of income. Some are held merely to ...
in
Kumeu. Dimity, the mother, is a human resources manager; Stuart, the father, is an anaesthetist, and Julian and Ollie are their sons. They immediately hit a wrong chord with their new neighbours, the Short family.
Arthur Short has recently had his wife Sharon leave him for a lesbian relationship, and he is unemployed and with few prospects. His two teenage daughters, Amber and Constance, live with him. Their house, where they have been tenants for the last 20 years, is up for sale, but they are determined to remain where they are.
The series was recently released to DVD.
Cast and characters
*
Danielle Cormack
Danielle Cormack (born 26 December 1970) is a New Zealand stage and screen actress. She was one of the original cast members of the long-running soap opera ''Shortland Street'', though she is also known for her role as the Amazon Ephiny in the ...
as Dimity Rush
*
Carl Bland as Stuart Rush
*
Jaxin Hall as Julian Rush
*
Mark Davies as Ollie Rush
*Patrick Wilson as Arthur Short
*
Hannah Tasker-Poland as Amber Short
*
Rose McIver as Constance Short
*
Marise Wipani as Sharon Short
*
William Walker William Walker may refer to:
Arts
* William Walker (engraver) (1791–1867), mezzotint engraver of portrait of Robert Burns
* William Sidney Walker (1795–1846), English Shakespearean critic
* William Walker (composer) (1809–1875), American Ba ...
as Ralph Gubb
*
Fiona Samuel
Fiona Samuel (born 1961) is a New Zealand writer, actor and director who was born in Scotland. Samuel's award-winning career spans theatre, film, radio and television. She graduated from Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School in 1980 with a ...
as Bonnie Buckley
*
David Mackie as Jase Buckley
*
Hera Dunleavy
In ancient Greek religion, Hera (; grc-gre, Ἥρα, Hḗrā; grc, Ἥρη, Hḗrē, label=none in Ionic and Homeric Greek) is the goddess of marriage, women and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she ...
as Dara
*
Peter Feeney as Spencer Fantl
*Michael Lawrence as Michael "Horse" Grieve
*
Gene Hollins-Werry
In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...
as Max Buckley
References
External links
M F Films websiteTVNZ websiteEPisodeWorld: Rude Awakenings episode guide
*{{IMDb title, 0985477
2000s New Zealand television series
2007 New Zealand television series debuts
2007 New Zealand television series endings
English-language television shows
New Zealand comedy-drama television series
Television shows filmed in New Zealand
Television shows set in Auckland
TVNZ 1 original programming