australian television information archive

Razor gang hopes on a knife edge

IN THE background notes for Channel Nine's new series Razor, among the tales of henchmen and hookers, is an anecdote about two feisty young women involved in a fist fight. While topless.

So far, so Underbelly.

But this arguably ratings-winning scenario does not guarantee success for Nine's flagship franchise, for several reasons.

It's the first series not to be based on the writings of Underbelly authors Andrew Rule and John Silvester, for one.

It's also a rarity in Australian television - a big-budget scripted period drama.

While Razor is underpinned by the themes that marked the previous Underbelly instalments - crime, violence, sex, drama and drugs - it's a virtual reboot for a franchise that is no longer a guaranteed ratings powerhouse.

That Rule and Silvester are not involved does not mean their Underbelly source material has been exhausted as a television franchise. Far from it. "I think you will see a lot of 'characters' from series one return in future years," Silvester says. "Which will be great television."

While some cases involving gangsters such as Tony Mokbel are determined in Victorian law courts, others remain pending. So Nine and its producers were somewhat limited by the stories they could tell to recommence Underbelly as a prime-time concern.

The source material for Razor was the 2009 novel of the same name by Larry Writer. In the first episode, which begins in 1927, viewers are transported to a time of violence and poverty in which circumstances meant many were forced into prostitution or dealing drugs as a means of survival.

For those who believe crime has escalated or has become more sophisticated in the modern era, Razor will make intriguing viewing.

Early on at least, the Melbourne connection to Razor is strong. The brutal, notorious Melbourne criminal Norman Bruhn anchors much of the first three hours. He is played with chilling intensity by Jeremy Lindsay Taylor. "This whole job was a personal and professional jackpot," Taylor says.

'I got to explore almost every side of the human psyche within one character. It's a role of a lifetime."

This was a time where cocaine and opium use was rampant, for both pain relief and to simply escape one's life. Gambling and financial extortion was widespread.

Pistols were outlawed; this led to the prevalence of razors as weapons, hence the phrase "razor gangs".

It is said that the slashings were not always about killing people (although they often were). The razors were used to provoke fear; the horror of a steel blade against flesh. Hold a gun to the head of many of these men and they would barely flinch; put a blade to their cheek and they would crumble.

Which, in many ways, speaks to the primal psychological fears inherent of the time - viewers oblivious to this dark aspect of Australia's history might be surprised.

"Sydney was a horrifying, frightening city," Taylor says.

Director Shawn Seet, who has been involved in all of the Underbelly series, helms several of Razor's 13 episodes.

He says Razor greatly expands Underbelly as a concept. Further - although it might sound a stretch - he adds (with a straight face) that the series delivers a classy product more akin to HBO than commercial TV. On first view, the critical consensus has appraised the at-times camp Razor as the best Underbelly incarnation since the memorable first season.

"We're shooting in a more cinematic style," Seet says. "And Sydney's dark past is fascinating. I think people will be surprised how bloody it was."

The story of Sydney's razor gangs has long been floated as a TV series. When series producer Screentime acquired the rights to Writer's book, the production company behind the three previous Underbelly series sensed something special was at play.

Screentime executive director Des Monaghan says his company was taken aback. "To us it was a classic Underbelly story," he says.

"And a couple of other Underbelly stories we're working on are held up by various legal issues at the moment. I thought it would be a hard sell to do a period piece. But, surprisingly, Nine shared our enthusiasm and bought it immediately."

Monaghan is enthused by the leading role of women in Razor, unusual for Underbelly. Others enjoyed the history lesson.

"I'm fascinated by the sociology of what makes Australia up since the convict days," Seet says.

"One of our great heroes is a criminal. It says something about why Underbelly is so successful."

Indeed, we are perpetually fascinated by our criminal past. And this period, one of such indiscriminate, almost senseless, violence in what was essentially a new colony, is shocking.

Significantly, for a time in which women had little or no rights, Razor revolves mostly around two - Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine, played by Kiwi actors Danielle Cormack and Chelsie Preston-Crayford.

As Underbelly has previously portrayed in various seasons and telemovies, part of all criminality is the ability to take what's put in front of you in terms of the law and twist it to serve your purposes, essentially using legislative gaps and oversights to gain advantage and power illegally.

So, when the New South Wales laws changed to explicitly declare that men were not permitted to take money from women working as prostitutes, Leigh and Devine exploited a legal loophole. Just because men could not run brothels, it did not preclude women from doing so.

So the two proceeded to do so in a ruthless manner - Madams Leigh and Devine virtually controlled the vices of the Sydney underworld. Until Norman Bruhn arrived from Melbourne.

Crayford, who is positively radiant as Tilly Devine, admits she had not seen any Underbelly series before auditioning for the role. The writers, she contends, were determined to make the two female leads believable.

"And that's really surprising," she says. "Trying to get inside the mind of somebody who can do these types of things and also wear the vulnerability of someone so ruthless is difficult.

"The thing was, none of their empowerment sifted down the chain to other women, so things didn't change [for other women]. But when you look at our story, the amount of men who took these women on and lost is huge."

Australia had been a nation for just 28 years when the Razor story begins. Actor Guy Edmonds, who plays Greg "the Gunman" Gaffney, says the wealth-poverty divide was vast. "There was no middle class," he says. "So you were either loaded or blue-collar. And being blue-collar was tough. Then there's all these people in the underworld trying to avoid the law and fighting constantly for territory and drugs. I wouldn't want to be a part of it."

That's not to say hedonism was not keenly sought. Much of life in the Sydney criminal underworld was buttressed by booze, gambling, coke and hookers. For women, even those as powerful as Tilly and Kate, the threat of domestic violence often hung ominously and uncomfortably in the air.

"It was a very hard place to be a young woman," Crayford says.

In Razor, the Kiwi actress has a magnetic but at times beguiling onscreen presence. Her character is something of a monster, difficult for the audience to like, so it is almost remarkable she is able to elicit empathy for her.

"Even though it's this incredibly gruesome story, I really responded to these two women," she says. "They were brutal but they had to be [in] commanding so many shady characters.

"They were so big and brash, which I haven't seen in that many female characters."

Being Underbelly, there was a requirement for Crayford, like all the female actors in the cast, to disrobe if the scene required it. The requisite was almost a deal-breaker for her.

"I had to agree to do it in order to audition," she says. "I tossed it up quite seriously. I have turned down roles before because of things like that. But I was so taken with the character of Tilly - and I knew it was a good-sized role with more to do than just get naked that I thought I'd take the risk."

Crayford was relieved, then, that during her first meeting with the writers, she was told her character would not be required to take off her clothes. "I got off really lightly," she says. "I didn't have to do any nudity."

The youthful Anna McGahan, who in Razor gives a breakout performance playing teenage working girl Nellie Cameron, was not so "lucky." She spends much of the first two episodes nude.

Similarly, former Home and Away star Lincoln Lewis is au fait with the series' risque tone.

Playing the crim Bruce Higgs, who debuts in episode six, Lewis found himself filming an "intimate scene" with Cormack's Kate Leigh on his first day of shooting.

"Danielle was very professional about the whole thing," he says. "She made me feel comfortable. But it was very full-on.

"I've never done anything like it before."

To prepare for their roles, cast members were unofficially required to read Razor and scrutinise a small kit of notes by the production's research team.

The kit contained court papers, interview transcripts and other pages of documents surrounding the real-life activities of their respective characters.

Still, some liberties were taken in the production.

"Accurate isn't always dramatic or interesting for the audience," Edmonds says.

"So there has to be a little invention that comes along with the documentary style of getting all the facts right."

Stakes are high. As its most valued scripted franchise, Underbelly's success is vital to Nine.

On set, this has been tangible.

"There is a sense how important it is to [Nine]," Edmonds says. "But we feel like we're making a good show."

On location last month in Redfern, the financial commitment from the network was apparent in the expansive sets. The day Green Guide visited, the crew was preparing to shoot one of the series' key moments: Kings Cross's Kellett Street riots of August 1929.

The male actors spend the afternoon rehearsing their fight scenes. For these guys, it's not just a chance to don a three-piece suit and fob watch but to immerse themselves in the era.

Lewis, for one, says he has so far preferred to cop the punches doled out in the staged fights - with the exception of to the head - rather than have his combatants hold back.

"You're in different mobs," he says, between takes. "So at the start, I wasn't sure whether to keep my distance. Some of the blokes have this ice-cold stare when they are in character. They are very, very scary."

One of the most imposing men on the set is burly veteran character actor John Batchelor, who plays Wally Tomlinson, Leigh's right-hand man.

"I knew the brutality of the story," he says, "but when I got out of make-up for the first brawl, it was quite confronting. You knew they weren't holding back. It's very graphic."

Still, being network television, the directors have had to exercise some restraint. "Some of the slashings have to be more suggestive than graphic," Seet says. "But it feels incredibly strong. Just seeing the blade …"

Screentime's Monaghan says the production is under significant pressure.

"I don't know how you quantify how much," he says. "Any major series is a gamble. Nobody sets out to make a bad show. But it's always a risk with something new and that creates pressure. The plus is that we don't have any of the normal legal pressures we normally have."

What they do have to contend with, of course, is that creating a Sydney from 80 years ago requires vast set builds and additional strain on wardrobe and costume departments.

"Every time we do an Underbelly, it comes under a lot of scrutiny," Seet says. "There's an onus and you feel a great duty to make it work.

"Nine are pinning a lot on it, sure, but they always do. It's becoming their flagship series. Because the series changes each time, it always feels new. Everybody gets a bit nervous thinking, 'We've gone too far here'."

Monaghan says, however, that Razor is not the end of the John Silvester-Andrew Rule dynasty.

"We do plan to go back to the Mokbel story," he says. "We can't touch it now for a host of reasons. But my guess is Mokbel will not be the next series but the one after.

"There are so many complications with Mokbel. But it would allow us to return to some of the characters in series one."

Underbelly: Razor screens August 21.

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Critic's view

Underbelly: Razor

Channel Nine, Sunday August 21, 8.30pm

SURE, we open with a naked lady in a bath. But in an unexpected departure to form, the one thing we don't get in this opener to the latest Underbelly instalment is wall-to-wall titties. In fact, after the mild disappointments of the past two series and the hit- and-miss nature of the telemovies, this could well be the best effort since the original: not because it returns to that sort of gritty true crime but because it embraces what the franchise has become. "Once upon a time…" begins that dratted narration from Caroline Craig. And while the production design, the key characters and the basics of the plot all strive - successfully - to stay true to Razor's premise (that is, the stoush between booze runner Kate Leigh and brothel impresario Tilly Devine in the years between 1927 and 1936), from there this is pure fantasy. A strong cast (Danielle Cormack as Kate and Felix Williamson as Phil "The Jew" Jeffs are particularly good) enter into their roles with vigour, clearly having the time of their lives. Yes, there's some genuinely flinch-making violence. No Underbelly would be complete without it. But there's also a lively sense of humour and a heartfelt invitation from everyone involved to just jump on board and enjoy the ride.

MELINDA HOUSTON

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By Andrew Murfett
August 11, 2011
Sydney Morning Herald