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A Country Practice
1981
A Country Practice was an Australian television drama series. At its inception, one of the longest-running of its kind, produced by James Davern of JNP Productions, who had wrote the pilot episode and entered a script contest for the network in 1979, coming third and winning a merit award. It ran on the Seven Network for 1,058 episodes from 18 November 1981 to 22 November 1993. It was produced in ATN-7's production facility at Epping, Sydney. After its lengthy run on the seven network it was picked up by network ten with a mainly new cast from April to November 1994 for 30 episodes, although the ten series was not as successful as its predecessor . The Channel Seven series was also filmed on location in Pitt Town, while, the Channel Ten series was filmed on location in Emerald, Victoria.
Shane Connor
A prolific Australian performer, Shane's career spans nearly 20 years in film, theatre and television. A Victorian College of the Arts graduate, Shane has earned several industry awards including: the 1984 Penguin Award for Best Actor, 1995 Green Room Award for Outstanding Fringe Performer and a nomination for the 1998 AFI Showtime Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Television Drama. Shane's previous theatre credits include: The Doll Trilogy, Backbeat, Harp in the South, And the Big Men Fly, Fool For Love, Byzantine Flowers, The Custodians, The Old Man Comes, Rolling Home, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Coast Mongrels, Nil, Cat and Buried, The Snake Pit, Gary's House, The Shifting Heart and Wonderful Ward. Also a recurring presence on the small screen, Shane has appeared in countless Australian television series including: Prisoner, Carson's Law, Cop Shop, The Keepers, A Country Practice, Emerging, Prime Time, Matthew's Passion, Harp in the South, Army Wives, Sons & Daughters, Poor Man's Orange, Flying Doctors, Living With The Law, No Hard Feelings, GP, Phoenix, Police Rescue, Heartlands, Fire, Feds, The Man From Snowy River, Good Guys Bad Guys, Raw FM, Moby Dick, Halifax f.p., Blue Heelers, WIldside and most recently, Stingers.
Josephine Mitchell
Cast · Known for A Country Practice
Josephine Mitchell (born 21 May 1965) is an Australian actress and playwright with a lengthy career in theatre and television soap operas and serials. Jo Mitchell is married to Australian director and producer Chris Martin-Jones and they have two daughters. The pair met when Martin-Jones was a director on A Country Practice in 1989. She has a double degree from Sydney University, in Medieval and Religious Studies. She is currently focusing on her work behind the camera as writer, having finished a feature-length movie titled The Cult and the TV movie, Aren't U Spesh!
Louise Pajo
Louise Elisabeth Pajo (31 July 1940 - 23 November 2020) is a New Zealander former television and film actress for four decades, working firstly in the UK and then in Australia. Louise graduated from RADA in the mid-1960s and has appeared in classic UK shows like The Avengers, Doctor Who and U.F.O. After emigrating to Australia, Louise appeared in most of the top Aussie shows of the '70s, '80s and '90s including the cult classic Prisoner (Cell Block H), The Flying Doctors, A Country Practice, Cop Shop, as well as her two-year stint playing Marjorie Carson in the period classic, Carson's Law.
Mitchell McMahon
Mitchell McMahon (September 30, 1981) is an Australian actor. He appeared as a teenager in the 1990s Australian TV shows included The Girl from Tomorrow, A Country Practice, E Street, G.P., Police Rescue, Water Rats, Wildside, All Saint and Home and Away.
Sophie Heathcote
Sophie Heathcote (25 December 1972 – 4 January 2006) was an Australian actress, known for her regular television serial roles, including A Country Practice, Water Rats and Grass Roots. Heathcote died in Connecticut, USA, from an aneurysm at aged 33. She had also been suffering from skin and pancreatic cancer. She was survived by her husband, their daughter, and their son.
Rob Carlton
Cast · Known for Apex
Rob Carlton (born 4 May 1971) is an Australian actor and writer. He is best known for writing and starring in the comedy series Chandon Pictures. Carlton has been a professional actor since the age of 14 and has appeared in many television series from Young Ramsay to A Country Practice, Home and away, Blue Heelers, Water Rats, Fireflies, McLeod's Daughters and All Saints. In the mid-1990s, Carlton was living in Los Angeles. He accepted the role of continuity coordinator for an Australian film in Melbourne. Carlton is also a professional speaker, who has worked as a master of ceremonies, compère, facilitator and motivational speaker.
Penny Cook
Cast · Known for A Country Practice
Penny Cook (13 July 1957 – 26 December 2018) was an Australian actress, stage director, TV presenter and writer. She played roles in the soap opera A Country Practice, as Vicki Dean Bowen from 1981 to 1985, E Street as lead anchor-character, Dr Elly Fielding, between 1989 and 1991, and Neighbours in the recurring role of Prue Brown from 2007 to 2010. Cook died from cancer on 2018, aged 61.
Di Smith
Cast · Known for A Country Practice
Di Smith (born 1958) is an Australian actress and producer. She is best known and well loved as Dr. Alex Fraser in the classic Australian series, A Country Practice.
Anne Tenney
Cast · Known for A Country Practice
Anne Tenney (born 1954) is an Australian film, television and theatre actress, perhaps best known for her soap opera roles as Melissa "Molly" Jones in the television drama A Country Practice (1981-1985) and Liz Taylor in Always Greener (2001-2003). Tenney is married to Australian actor Shane Withington, who played her character's husband Brendan Jones in A Country Practice, they has a daughter, actress Maddie Withington.
Mark Owen-Taylor
Cast · Known for A Country Practice
Mark Owen-Taylor (born 27 January 1962) is an Australian actor, who has also worked variously as a narrator and voice-over. He was best known for his role as school teacher Peter Manning in A Country Practice in 1986–1987, appearing for 88 episodes and replaced Robert Hughes as the star of Hey Dad! for its final two seasons in 1993–1994.
Wendy Strehlow
Cast · Known for A Country Practice
Wendy Strehlow (born 1958) is an Australian actress, particularly in soap opera and theatre, she has appeared in numerous TV series and tele-dramas but is probably best known for her role as the much loved nurse sister Judy Loveday in the television soap opera A Country Practice, from 1981 to 1986. Wendy has performed in both Sydney and Queensland Theatre Companies respectively, many of Wendy's theatre credits include Sold, Flags, Return To Earth and many more. Wendy also received a Logie Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in A Country Practice in 1985. And she is the mother of Australian soap actress Sophie Hensser.
Alyssa-Jane Cook
Alyssa-Jane Cook is an Australian actress and television presenter. She has appeared in numerous television drama series including Sons & Daughters, A Country Practice, E-Street, Home and Away, The Strip and Packed to the Rafters and has been a regular guest on Good News Week and Beauty & The Beast. Alyssa-Jane’s television hosting experience includes Sex Life, Breakfast Time, Australia’s Funniest People, Sale of the Century and Bright Ideas. Alyssa-Jane is currently a regular presenter on Foxtel.
Noel Trevarthen
Noel Trevarthen (January 10, 1938 - December 3, 1999) was a New Zealander actor. As a young man he moved to the UK and throughout the 1960s appeared in many British films and TV shows. These included Dixon of Dock Green, The Saint and The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967). He also had an uncredited role in The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night (1964). Although he moved to Australia and began to work in the industry there, he was back in the UK until the mid 1970s. Back in Australia he had roles in The Sullivans, The Young Doctors and Chopper Squad. He then was cast as Jeff Archer in The Restless Years (1977-79). He had another lengthy spell in series TV when he played Gerard Kent in Carson's Law (1983-84). Just before his stint on Home and Away, he played Malcolm Clarke in Neighbours. He also appeared in A Country Practice, GP, Rafferty's Rules, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys/Young Hercules.
Peter Maxwell
Peter Maxwell (23 January 1921 – 5 April 2013) born as Peter Magitai, was a British, and later Australian director and screenwriter of television and film. He was born in Vienna, Austria, to newspaper journalist Leo Magatai and wife Johanna. His family fled Vienna in the 1930s, and he changed his surname to enter the British Army. After having been posted to India, he returned to Britain to work as an assistant director to Alexander Korda in 1949. He worked briefly in Australia in the early 1960s before returning to England. In 1967 he emigrated to Australia permanently, where he directed such films as Country Town and television series including Bellbird, Rip Tide and A Country Practice.
Sonia Todd
Sonia Todd (born 1959) is an Australian actress. She is a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), Sonia has worked extensively in television, theatre, and film. Whilst at NIDA, she was one of the group of students (including Baz Luhrmann) who devised the play Strictly Ballroom in which she subsequently starred. She most recently appeared in a regular role on the long-running series Home and Away for the Seven Network and in the ABC series Janet King. Her other notable television credits include GP, Come In Spinner, A Country Practice, Mother and Son, Over The Hill, Heat, Water Rats, Simone De Beauvoir’s Babies, Halifax F.P. and All Saints.
Vincent Ball
Vincent Martin Ball OAM (born 4 December 1923) is an Australian-born retired character actor of radio, stage and screen, active in the industry for nearly 55 years (with a brief return) firstly in Britain and then his native Australia. He has also authored a number of books. He is best known for film roles in British and Australian films and TV movies, including A Town Like Alice, Breaker Morant, Phar Lap, Muriel's Wedding and The Man Who Sued God. He appeared in numerous TV roles, primarily in cameo guest roles, but had recurring roles in serials like Rush, The Young Doctors, A Country Practice and Home and Away. Vincent Ball has also worked variously in theatre, including Shakespeare, with productions of Henry IV and Romeo and Juliet and a musical based on Charles Dickens famous novel Great Expectations. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shane Porteous
Cast · Writer · Known for A Country Practice, Home and Away
Shane Porteous (born 17 August 1942) is an Australian actor, screenwriter, animation layout artist and animation voice artist. As a screenwriter, he is sometimes credited as "John Hanlon". He is best known for his role as the TV series, A Country Practice, as Dr. Terence Elliot.
Robert Baxter
Robert Baxter is an Australian actor. Baxter was first seen onscreen in the 1977 movie The F.J. Holden. He played a policeman, a role he was to reprise many times during his career. Between 1979-1983 he played Petty Officer 'Swain' Reynolds on the TV series Patrol Boat. Throughout the 1980s he had guest roles in shows such as Prisoner, Sons and Daughters, Rafferty's Rules and A Country Practice. In the 1990s he popped up in Police Rescue, All Saints and Joh's Jury. In 2010-2011 he worked as a voiceover artist on the computer games Dead Rising 2 and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record.
Syd Heylen
Cast · Known for A Country Practice
Syd Heylen (25 May 1922 - 4 December 1996) was an Australian character actor of radio, stage, television and film, comedian, and variety performer and soldier, he often performed in a traditional vaudeville style in the vein of Roy Rene. Heylen was best known for his role in A Country Practice, as the RSL club manager, barman and chef Vernon 'Cookie' Locke, who he played from 1982 until 1992. After he left A Country Practice in 1992, he and his wife Patti retired to their Gold Coast, Queensland home. Occasionally he would do public appearances and performances.
James Davern
Writer · Known for A Country Practice
James Davern, is an Australian television director, writer, script editor and producer. Davern was employed as a writer and script editor with Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) television branch in the 1960s. He worked as a producer and director in drama and music programmes and was involved in establishing a script production line. In 1967, Davern was director and producer of the very first episode of Bellbird, Australia's first successful television soap opera, set in a rural community. Davern moved to the Seven Network where he created the highly popular series A Country Practice, one of the most popular drama series in Australian television history. Davern wrote episodes for Homicide, Alpha Scorpio, Rush, Patrol Boat, A Country Practice, and Warming Up. As producer or executive producer, he worked on shows such as Rush, Alpha Scorpio, Barnaby and Me, No Room to Run, Patrol Boat, A Country Practice, Queen of the Road, Warming Up, Hector's Bunyip, Land of Hope, Whipping Boy, The Hostages, Reprisal, Without Warning.
Rob Steele
Rob Steele (born 1940/1941 - May 14, 2022) was an Australian film and television character actor who appeared in Australian films spanning four decades and he racked up more than 80 credits in TV and film during that time. Steele began acting in the early 1970s and had guest roles in TV shows such as Homicide, Matlock Police, The Young Doctors, Cop Shop, Prisoner, Carson's Law, Sons and Daughters, E-Street, A Country Practice, All Saints, Police Rescue, The Flying Doctors and Blue Heelers. He also appeared in Muriel's Wedding (1994). His final on-screen appearances were in 2007.
Vincent Gil
Cast · Known for Mad Max
Vincent Gil (1939 – 22 August 2022) was an Australian film and television actor best known for his portrayal of the character Nightrider in the 1979 film Mad Max, and Stone. Gil had also starred in many Australian television shows such as Matlock Police, Neighbours, A Country Practice and Prisoner.
Gordon Piper
Cast · Known for A Country Practice
Gordon Piper (3 June 1932 – 18 September 2004) was an Australian actor, theatre director and scriptwriter and comedian active in all facets of the industry including radio, stage, television (including soap opera and TV movies) and film. He remains best known as plumber Bob Hatfield in A Country Practice.