Foxtel's adaptation of Cloudstreet by Tim Winton started on their pay TV Showcase channel on Sunday night, May 22. By all accounts it was well-received. I haven't watched it as yet as I seem to find Sunday nights difficult to pin down. But I have every intention of getting to it when I can.
Reviews
Herald-Sun: "Cloudstreet is a big, risky move for Showcase. To ensure their survival, subscriber channels simply have to go the extra metre, producing original material good enough to belong on an even bigger screen and that's what Showcase has done. At the same time, it has taken on a novel so loved across a couple of generations of Australians that it potentially has set itself up for a fall. It won't happen this time, though."
The Australian: "The 1999 stage production brilliantly captured it in a very literal transformation. This miniseries does just as well not to be sucked into easy options -- cheesy nostalgia, overwrought visual effects or you-beaut Australiana -- that could have spoiled the visual rendering of a classic. Cloudstreet is fine, involving filmmaking that will meet impossible expectations, those of our own imaginations. The six hours begins grimly in the first two-hour episode, as it must, but soon opens into a delight that justice has been done to a grand novel."
You can read an interview with Tim Winton, conducted by ABC Radio in Perth, here.
Reviews
Herald-Sun: "Cloudstreet is a big, risky move for Showcase. To ensure their survival, subscriber channels simply have to go the extra metre, producing original material good enough to belong on an even bigger screen and that's what Showcase has done. At the same time, it has taken on a novel so loved across a couple of generations of Australians that it potentially has set itself up for a fall. It won't happen this time, though."
The Australian: "The 1999 stage production brilliantly captured it in a very literal transformation. This miniseries does just as well not to be sucked into easy options -- cheesy nostalgia, overwrought visual effects or you-beaut Australiana -- that could have spoiled the visual rendering of a classic. Cloudstreet is fine, involving filmmaking that will meet impossible expectations, those of our own imaginations. The six hours begins grimly in the first two-hour episode, as it must, but soon opens into a delight that justice has been done to a grand novel."
You can read an interview with Tim Winton, conducted by ABC Radio in Perth, here.
