I could be out spending my Cup millions (if I’d tipped the winner), or at the least sitting back watching a re-run of a favourite Packed to The Rafters character exiting the program last night. But there’s no point in watching it now because the car crash was plastered over the radio, papers and web today. Fans devastated by this tightly kept secret. Spoilers indeed!
I can relate to Packed to the Rafters* and the everyday ups and downs of family life. It seems to be played out more like our lives with normal joys, opportunities, disappointments and problems than the contrived affairs, drug pushers and corrupt organisations that are regurgitated on soapies like Neighbours and Home & Away.
Rafters is not afraid to show breast-feeding, tackle depression, and cast a cerebral palsy character (even if it’s Kristian Schmidt who is able bodied in real life).
A narrator walks the viewer though each episode and subconsciously you feel like you are listening to a book. One week it’s about breathing, the next it’s about feeling useless, and can involve all the family or centre around one character. There is always humour and embarrassment. I guess seeing others in that predicament makes one laugh.
Last nights episode was apparently about bubbles. The viewers saw the physical bubble blowing with the baby and memories of childhood, and the ultimate bubble bursting with the breakdown of a relationship between nephew and uncle and the final moments of a young married woman. Her husband’s bubble “popped” forever.
It’s hardly surprising that Marieke Hardy, broadcaster, writer and T.V panelist (especially on First Tuesdays Book Club with Jennifer Byrne,) is a scriptwriter on Packed to the Rafters. I knew this blog would some how find some relevance to books.
Just like a good book, Rafters leaves you hanging, lost in your thoughts and/or motivated to act. Maybe I will go and watch it…
P.S Zoe Ventoura, the actress who had the car accident in Rafters, has just got an acting break in L.A. I’m sure you knew that before me any way.
*Packed to the Rafters is casually known as Rafters and screens on Channel 7, Tuesday at 8.30pm – well worth a watch
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