australian television information archive

Grumpy old man

Colin Friels’ character in BlackJack is a throwback to the days before all local TV cops had to be young, clean and well-mannered. Producer Nick Murray spoke with Brian Courtis.

Comedy actor-writer Shaun Micallef first came up with the idea for BlackJack 10 years ago, but by the time it received the network go-ahead it had become something of a cold case.

When Micallef first pitched the idea to producer Nick Murray, it was long before the Americans and British had produced pilots for their successful cold-case series, and well before the Victorian and NSW police forces had set up their real-life cold-case divisions.

Back then, television was focused on young cops. They were in Sydney’s scenic Water Rats, out in the country with Blue Heelers and, later, they were tough, funky and hard-playing in Young Lions on Channel Nine.

We also glimpsed them among the wide-eyed cops of White Collar Blue on Ten.

“I’ll tell you what I liked about (central character) Jack Kempson,” says Murray.

“When we were developing this, with Shaun and Gary McCaffrie, the idea was to try to capture the essence of what some of those British character crime dramas had given us - that interesting, flawed, you know, grumpy-old-bastard type of thing.”

We wanted a guy who had experienced bad things in his life and was starting to get a bit shortfused.

A bloke, a character, who was justified in feeling grumpy about the world. That was what we set out to do, find an interesting older character.

And that’s what we did.”

Colin Friels? A little young to be an interesting older character, surely? Did Murray and drama chief Sue Masters have much difficulty in recruiting him to their force?

“When it had all been written we went to Colin,” says Murray. “Colin is quite colourful in his approach. He will do things sometimes simply because he likes them. Otherwise, he would prefer to go and feed the horses at his neighbour’s farm, that type of thing.”

But he read it and immediately loved the character.

So, as for how easy it was to get him on board, it was a joy. And he will only come on to something he really wants to do.”

The current BlackJack trilogy differs considerably from those TV neighbours, Nine’s Cold Case and the ABC’s New Tricks, and not just in format.

The US show, with its stylised cinematography, morphing effects, flashbacks and scene-setting music, and the British program, with the grumpy-old-men/smart-youngwoman conflicts and humour, both tend to solve their crimes for the dead person and their own satisfaction.

The motivation in BlackJack, however, is always Detective Senior Sergeant Jack Kempson’s desire to right a wrong for those left behind, those left suffering.

His work is for the parents, families or friends - for what the police now call “secondary victims” of serious crime. If he scents lazy or incompetent police work, well, that seems to spur him on.

This, of course, to his delight, continues to enrage Jack’s slightly shady career-cop nemesis, Inspector Terry Kavanagh, played by the excellent David Field. Jack has made few friends in the force.

The best of them are Senior Constable Christine Vallas (Doris Younane) in the forensics department and the coolly efficient, young, feisty and ambitious constable, Sam Lawson (Marta Dusseldorp). Two wonderfully portrayed and very different women, they add stability to the detective’s working world.

BlackJack: In The Money, written by Katherine Thomson and directed by Ian Watson, is this week’s telemovie. It takes Kempson on a difficult path that involves the murder of a seemingly innocent mother many years ago and on to what appears to be a more contemporary attempt on the life of her husband, a leading figure in the greyhound business.

It also involves some surprising secrets and the possible role of Jack’s own father-in-law, Howard (Max Cullen).

In BlackJack, the complexities of family life are never allowed to slip from Kempson’s mind.

His wife committed suicide 18 months after giving birth to their daughter, Liz, who was born with spina bifida. Liz (Gigi Edgley), now about 30, has a difficult relationship with her father, though there is clearly great affection between them. And, despite his efforts, Liz seems determined to keep what little family she has left together.

“Jack is a slow learner,” adds Murray.

“He’s a very slow learner. He’s into his 50s, he’s probably not going to change his ways, and that type of frustration his daughter has with him, well, the people at work share it.

“That’s the beauty of the character. He’s a Luddite about technology and all those things that his job now finds him dealing with. Jack is a very real character. There is nothing sort of super-hero about him, except that he has a good gut instinct for crime. That’s what drives him.”

There’s no question that Colin Friels is the pivotal element of BlackJack. The lines are written as much for him as for Kempson.

The writers use his light, dry humour, the flippancy, his tackling of authority (sometimes from unexpected angles); there is apparently a great deal of the actor in the character we see on screen.”

I love hanging around with him because he’s very gentle, but he’s very funny and he’s very dry,” says Murray. “So some of what you’re seeing there is his personality coming out. It is written like that.

“We know how he’s going to treat the lines, and it’s an enormous advantage.”

One of the treats of this week’s telemovie is Marta Dusseldorp’s performance as the tolerant, occasionally mischievous protege, prepared to allow Kempson leeway just so long as it balances out. It is a warm, cleverly developed relationship.”

Marta’s not someone you would normally see in television, because she’s mainly a theatre actor,” says Murray.

“A lot of the cast, the support people, guests, people like Max Cullen, Helen Thomson - we’re able to bring in some theatre heavyweights not so often seen in series TV.”

BlackJack does not get any police PR departments’ ticks of approval. In fact, Murray says he has seen a letter advising the force not to go anywhere near it. But perhaps familiarity will change that.

Channel Ten has signed up the squad for another trilogy next year and the first of the films recently won its timeslot on BBC-1, at a time when Kath And Kim were going great guns on BBC-2.

Remarkably, BlackJack has done it without offering the world a shot of the Sydney Opera House.

Open the windows in the basement of the factory the show uses as Jack’s office and you feel the Parramatta River will flow right in.

“We’re not trying to do Water Rats,” says Murray. “When the location people come aboard, they seem to love it. We tell them, ‘Look, we don’t want any harbour, we don’t want the bridge’.”

That doesn’t mean they’re only interested in bland settings, though.

“We do choose visually interesting places, even if it means we have to clean them out, get rid of the pigeon poo and all that kind of stuff before we let the actors in and start shooting,” Murray says.

“Doesn’t really matter, you know. It looks right.”

BlackJack, Sunday 8.30pm, Channel 10

By Brian Courtis
September 11, 2005
The Age