Hi Tricia,

Ridiculously enough, I was asked a series of banal questions about the show as a 'gateway program to horror' in children's television.

This was my admittedly long-winded response to the fifteen questions asked which I thought you should see, for the record:

There were several overarching considerations which every character and every story line developed in 'Round the Twist.'

The Australian Children's Television Foundation respected the academic work of Howard Gardner who proposed that there were eight forms of intelligence which needed to be nurtured.  This was further developed according to the ages of the viewers who varied from quite young to adolescent and then their families.  It was a family show oriented towards the child in each viewer regardless of age because however mature a viewer was, he or she expressed the maturation from childhood conceits, fears and delights to the very real need for quality entertainment that the whole family might enjoy together.  This meant defining those different tastes and developmental states and nurturing each stage within a story line.

Yes, it seems a little pompous and self-congratulatory, but the love for the show is best understood as the success of the creative process. 

Of course, it was more David Renwick than Guy Ritchie but anticipating the genius of both in that I like to think the show was what those geniuses might have conceived had they collaborated with the intention of creating a show for younger people and their families.  This is a personal conceit because I would have loved to play a role - even spear carrier third from the left - in anything written by these greats.

Because the value of the first series wasn't embraced by the commercial network - beyond buying it - where, rather clumsily, it was scheduled to be played early on Sunday mornings, I didn't see it for some time.  This was fortunate because it meant I could interpret 'Gribble' from the text rather than from enjoying Frankie J Holden's interpretation.  I didn't see the first series until well after we'd begun filming the second series; the first of the three series in which I played 'Gribble.'

Finding much of children's television banal and worthless, I leapt at the opportunity to become involved in the magnum opus of the ACTF - the Australian Children's Television Foundation - 'Lift Off' where I played the outrageously flawed authoritarian proponent of all things adult and unchildlike, the concierge, Mr Fish.  Once aware of the work of the ACTF, I was open to being involved in anything they developed.

After meeting Esben Storm, who was a creative force of nature and crucially linked to the project and finding him and the stories engaging, I was delighted to accept the role.  Previously, my reputation was established through sketch comedy as the only Australian to play a Greek couple.  So, the opportunity for exactly this kind of experience was compelling.  I found the world Esben devised, and Paul Jennings expanded upon, to be entirely engaging.  Australians tend to cling to the vast coastline of our continent.  I imagine the sight of land after our ancestors' year-long sea voyage was ingrained in our sense of relief, and that emotional imprint is almost instinctual.  It's certainly supported by almost every Australian child's idea of holidays at the beach.  Moreso, there is something wonderfully inspiring about the coastline in winter - the cold sea breeze and the pounding surf.  It's highly evocative and much loved.

So, the setting was perfect and broadly appealing but the characters inhabiting this almost timeless region were and are wonderful, even the flawed ones like 'Gribble,' a self-serving antithesis to the creative and warmly paternal 'Tony Twist' who lived with his children in the lighthouse.

Now, lighthouses are grist to the spooky mill.  As the sea rages and thunders, their beams of light warn of potential disaster and suggest that strange threatening things might be highlighted for the rest of us as each episode cast light upon equally unnerving or weird phenomena.

This was not the magical world of 'Harry Potter' but the strange and wonderful world that one might imagine finding anywhere near the sea where the ghosts of the drowned wander and the strange things that dwell just beyond the veil might interact from time to time.

The art and tone were vital to each series because we wanted to mirror children's imagination without frightening them; it was about upholding the value of their waking dreams but never their nightmares.

'Mr Gribble' was something of an all too familiar but never terrifying expression of a nuisance who knew the material appeal of his world but never understood its real value.  It required me to draw on my own foibles and wrap them in egotistical bravado which made comeuppance as inevitable and pleasing as potentially humorous.  It was a joy to play such a character - a baddie lacking any real power to threaten; essentially, one subject to the same experience of fear and confusion as the heroic 'Twists' but without the courage or common sense to understand why the world was suddenly so strange.

Discombobulation is a lovely response to creepy things because it's entirely reasonable.  Confusion tends to serve comedy rather than fear, however fearful the discombobulated feels as he experiences yet another comeuppance.  For 'Gribble' pride inevitably came before a fall.  The moral dimension of the show's characters defined the appropriate responses to creepy events or ghouls or the bizarre 'twilight' dimension.  The show didn't deal with horror per se but it did deal with what children of various ages might perceive as 'horrific' and mostly that was horrifically embarrassing like a boy falling pregnant because he urinated on a tree.

The musical theme was perfect, leaving everyone free to wonder is something happening that is crazy or am I crazy to imagine this?  It was perfectly appropriate and wonderfully compelling, and memorable.  For years, the American model of explaining the premise of a show in the theme music perhaps led to this simple musical device setting the scene and raising expectations of strangeness rather than mayhem.  There never was a threat to the viewers but a comforting reminder that our worldview might be limited.  Ultimately, it was gentle and fun promising the unexpected but without implying threat.

Before the episodes went to air, I secured a copy and played them to my children and their friends; there were 16 children altogether who watched with delight, transfixed and engaged with each episode.  I knew it was going to be a hit because my makeshift test audience loved it.  Having so decided, or realized, it was simply a matter of living through it.  In an interview in Australia, someone asked Russell Brand: ???have you ever??? whereupon he sang the theme song.  I realized it had already been well received in Britain.  Within a few years, I learned it was playing in over 47 countries and dubbed into over 100 languages.  I was delighted to see an example of the show dubbed into one of the African languages featuring clicks.

Filming the series was characterized by camaraderie and bonhomie.  Some shoots are perfunctory with the regular cast largely indifferent to the guest actors and the extras.

There were lightheartedness and joy filming our show.  I like to think the same spirit we felt and shared affected the outcome.  Its success suggested it did.

The strangest experience occurred when filming a scene where the Gribbles are trapped in a car wash by the Water Spirit whom 'Gribble' offends which results in a deluge of improbable acts of revenge: a cloud follows him and downpours ensue even in his office but the most violent was the car wash in his open convertible yank tank.

It was a cold day with a wind chill factor of about minus 4 degrees Centigrade.  Although we were wearing wet suits under our clothing, it was very, very cold in the cold-water car wash.  It was so cold, the proprietor bought us a bottle of brandy.  I poured it on myself and implored someone to light it.  This was after 6 hours being cascaded by cold water owing to mechanical issues with the car wash conveyancing belt.  'Mrs Gribble' and I emerged from the filming resembling bleached prunes, numb with cold but on screen, the scene was very credible.  We didn't need to act that day.  We were pleased the proprietor didn't ignite the brandy because the wet suits might have fused with our bodies.  That would have been horrific and beyond the remit of the show.

The ACTF led the world in children's television quite apart from winning awards,  it was loved proving that entertainment for children was timely and commercially viable.  At its peak, 'Round the Twist' had millions more viewers than 'Neighbours'  had at its peak worldwide.

It was well deserved.

I miss it.

I hope you both are well,

Mark x