''The Truckies'' is an Australian television drama which first screened on the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

in 1978. ''The Truckies'' was about the pressures of life on the road for transport driver Chris and his wife Carol.

Cast

Michael Aitkens Michael Aitkens (born 1947) is a British actor and writer of drama scripts for movies, television and stage. His BBC situation comedy '' Waiting for God'', first shown in 1990, was BAFTA nominated. Michael Aitkens was educated at Haileybury ...

as Chris * John Wood as Stokey *

Colleen Hewett Colleen Hewett (born 16 April 1950) is an Australian singer and actress. Hewett's top 40 singles on the Kent Music Report include " Super Star", " Day by Day" (both 1971), " Carry That Weight" (1972), "Dreaming My Dreams with You" (1980) ...

as Carol * Michael Carman as Jeff * Frank Wilson as Wally *

John Ewart Jon Ewart (06th May 1996) is a British television and film actor. Ewart attended the prestigious National Youth Theatre, Identity School of Acting and has appeared in many successful Television shows. Biography Career Ewart, who was born in M ...

as Spanner *

Lois Ramsey Lois June Ramsey (; 18 June 1922 – 22 January 2016) also billed as Lois Ramsay, was an Australian actress, best known for her regular roles on television series '' The Box'' and '' Prisoner'' as two different characters. As a character actr ...

as Dora

Production

It was executive produced by

Oscar Whitbread Oscar Ralph Whitbread (26 November 1929 – 16 May 2016) was an English-Australian producer who worked extensively in television. He moved to Australia in the late 1940s. Whitbread started his career at the ABC in 1956, where he served as the H ...

and was made by several of the team behind the TV show ''

Power Without Glory ''Power Without Glory'' is a 1950 historical novel written by Australian author Frank Hardy, following the life and ambitions of John West, a politician born into a working-class family who rises to prominence in Australian federal politics. ...

''.

Critique

John Wood later recalled: "I thought it was a tremendously innovative show, but it came aground on the reef of ABC internal politics. Obviously there were things wrong with it, and I guess by going for truthfulness they stuffed up in a sense, because one of the problems in driving along in a truck and doing different angles and two shots and reverses is that it's totally impossible to match the engine revs at any time. But apart from that problem of not being able to match the soundtrack, I thought it was a wonderful show. Unfortunately it caused a lot of havoc, because the guy who took over as head of drama in Sydney had been an ex-sound recordist, and he regarded it as beneath his 'golden standard', so he was very willing to sabotage it. And it was a great excuse for the Sydney mob to say you stuffed up down there."

References

External links

''The Truckies''
at Australian Television Information Archive
''The Truckies''
at

IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Truckies, The Australian Broadcasting Corporation original programming 1978 Australian television series debuts Australian drama television series English-language television shows