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The morality of Morrell

Geoff Morrell steps up as the new moral force in Mt Thomas, writes Debi Enker.

In the under-appreciated ABC series Grass Roots, Geoff Morrell played Arcadia Waters mayor, Col Dunkley. Created by Geoffrey Atherden, the wily, pragmatic, opportunistic but essentially decent Col was one of the most richly drawn protagonists ever to grace an Australian drama.

In John Doyle's miniseries Changi, Morrell was cast as doctor Rowdy Lawson, a paternal figure and a rock of wisdom and compassion amid the horrors of the POW camp.

In Doyle's second miniseries, Marking Time, which Morrell regards as "the piece of work I'm most proud of", the actor played a "middle-aged leftie", a school teacher and a dad trying to maintain his sense of fairness at a time when his government and some people in his community were dismaying him.

Decent, steady, fatherly, wise. Those are the kinds of qualities attributed to Morrell's best-known TV characters. A former teacher, honours history graduate, father of two adult daughters, partner of actor Tara Morice and keen artist, Morrell claims he's limited as an actor.

His specialty, he says, is "the decent Aussie bloke". That's what series producer Gus Howard and the team on Blue Heelers wanted when they cast him as a policeman.

Sergeant Mark Baker reported for duty late in 2004, when the Mt Thomas police station was in the throes of upheaval. "The Boss", Senior Sergeant Tom Croydon (John Wood), was suspected of a revenge killing following the rape and murder of his wife.

After a fatal bomb blast, there was an influx of recruits, which changed the dynamics at the station. Baker was ushered in to steer the troubled ship and calm the troops when the captain couldn't.

"We knew that the things we had planned for Tom were going to knock him hard and that he was going to find it hard to display the qualities that we had built the character on," recalls Howard.

"We didn't want to lose the human quality of the show, so ... we decided to bring in an operator, an administrative sergeant who would be the civilised, steady, reliable person, a humanist, a trifle more intellectual and more detached than Tom, so that the show's feet could stay on the ground and there'd be a counterpoint while Tom was on a rampage.

"In the same conversation that we decided what to do, we looked at each other and said 'This is a Geoff Morrell character.' Geoff's screen persona embodies all those things. His characters tend to exude that interesting combination of detachment, wisdom and justice, in a humble kind of way." Agents were called, lunches were had, offers were made, and Morrell signed on.

But now The Boss is back, and he's not happy. The new-look, cranky Tom Croydon is intent on re-establishing his authority and he's not enamoured of this new bloke who sailed in and took over his station when he was having troubles.

As time goes on, he'll regard him even more disdainfully as a pen-pusher and a "social worker", not a real cop but a pedant preoccupied with matters of proper procedure.

Where once, Howard observes, Baker and Croydon might have respected each other's different approaches to policing, in the post-explosion Mt Thomas, the scene has been set for simmering tension between the two.

While the creative team found what they were looking for in Morrell, the actor also negotiated a deal he was happy with at this stage in his career. He was ready to move away from the grind of theatre.

He wanted to spend time with his family and to work on his art at his house in the NSW southern highlands.

For Heelers, he flies to Melbourne for a three-day working week. To date, that has meant only studio work, so Baker hasn't moved far beyond his desk.

Morrell says that in addition to the producers being amenable to the working conditions he proposed, Blue Heelers offered other attractions. "I've always wanted to do a cop show," he says.

"I'd played cops, but mainly cops who blow themselves up. I blew myself up in Fallen Angels and in Good Guys, Bad Guys. I was a bad cop. But I grew up with Homicide and Matlock and Division 4, and the whole package just appealed to me.

"It was pitched to me that there was a serious intent in trying to make the show work in the long term, and I think it's really important that shows like this are made. It holds a strong place for a lot of people: there's incredible loyalty to it."

But making a commitment to commercial television hasn't precluded an anger about what he sees as the regrettable state of the ABC, the home of his best-known roles.

"The ABC has been asked to operate as a commercial station," he says. "They're told 'Sorry, you're not getting any extra money and you can't have ads.' So what do they do? They do lightweight stuff. They do Fireflies instead of Grass Roots.

And we have a situation where for six months there has not been one Australian drama. We might as well call it the British Broadcasting Association. If you're asked to operate as a commercial network, then the choices you make are going to be informed by that. So who's going to do quality drama? Drama that says something, like Marking Time."

Morrell believes that these priorities are now evident in the casting choices made by the ABC: "They tend to choose actors now like the commercials, thinking of whether they can get a TV Week cover. I understand that as a commercial kind of thing, but that's not how you tell stories in their best way."

He cites the casting of Brendan Cowell and Dan Wyllie in Foxtel's drama series Love My Way as examples of getting the right actors, even though they might not be mass-market magazine darlings.

As he enjoys a stint on commercial TV, Morrell is also looking forward to a solo exhibition of his work which is running through March at a Sydney gallery. His paintings and assemblages feature an array of found objects: fragments of old lino, pieces of metal and wood, deconstructed signs.

On screen, stay tuned for his ongoing testy relations with Tom Croydon and, when Baker does come out from behind his desk, expect a storyline involving his 20-year marriage and the woman next door. Before that, though, for this steady, by-the-book copper, there will be a serial killer to catch, clients to serve and proper procedure to be duly observed.

By Debi Enker
February 24, 2005
The Age