Life was simpler in Pearl Bay
SEACHANGE HAS BECOME SOMETHING OF A LOCAL TIME CAPSULE. IT WAS A DIFFERENT ERA BACK THEN — ALL COMMODORES, WALK-SOCKS AND FAX MACHINES, PRE-GST, PRE 9/11 — AND AN ALMOST ‘OTHER’, PERHAPS MORE INNOCENT, WORLD.
OVER recent weeks, courtesy of Netflix, my beloved and I have been bingeing on – wait for it – SeaChange. Yes, SeaChange!
This AFI and Logie awardwinning Australian TV favourite, filmed mostly around the environs of Barwon Heads, is largely credited with putting this lovely but previously, well, reasonably sleepy village into the national spotlight, commencing a lasting resurgence of local property prices among many other consequences.
The term “sea change” even entered our vernacular – and morphed into “tree change” – and continues to be used in broader contexts to describe a significant paradigm shift.
The first of four SeaChange series dates to 1998, taking the careers of Sigrid Thornton and David Wenham – to name just two of the quality Australian actors featured – to new heights.
The premise is simple enough. Pearl Bay’s magistrate suffers a major breakdown and resigns in a blaze of glory.
Contemporaneously, Laura Gibson’s stellar legal career and city life largely disintegrates as her builder husband reveals an affair with her sister and is jailed for fraud.
So, the offer to become magistrate at this far-flung municipality becomes an escape and a chance to recalibrate her life.
Pearl Bay (pop. 1572, according to the town entrance sign) is different. For starters, Pearl Bay’s remarkably speedy justice system is impressive – a crime committed early in an episode is before magistrate Laura within minutes.
The ever-present broken bridge underpins Pearl Bay’s dilemma and impacts its identity. The community is largely isolated from the rest of the world, and mostly from Port Deakin, Pearl Bay’s nemesis town where they always seem to do things better!
SeaChange’s Pearl Bay has more love interests, intrigue and complications per square kilometre than most other small villages (or perhaps not!).
The romantic tension between the impossibly handsome, enigmatic Diver Dan and Laura evolves over the first series, moving from irritation and animosity to the inevitable realisation (obvious to even the most disinterested viewer) that they are destined to get together.
Yet, it’s not until that series’ very last episode that the relationship is consummated, off-screen of course!
Then there’s the gormless, increasingly disillusioned clerk of courts Angus and his rather excruciating on-again, off-again engagement with the delightful if a tad naive police prosecutor Karen.
And Pearl Bay’s lovelorn exmagistrate Harold who still holds a torch for Meredith, the owner of the local pub (St Leonard’s Hotel), whose forbidden union many years prior resulted in a love child, sadly given up for adoption.
The character of Bob Jelly,
Shire Mayor and confessed “big man around town”, gradually unravels – brought down by some rather dodgy dealings and a disintegrating marriage – after his loyal, yet troubled, wife Heather seeks to spread her wings.
Among Pearl Bay’s other residents, there’s absolutely no shortage of eclectic characters: the local police sergeant Graeme, doing his job valiantly while holding a tragic secret; Phrani, the clever Indian shopkeeper and hot curry exponent; and the mysterious “Bucket”, who is very often talked about but never, ever seen. Then there is Kevin, the ever-reliable, local handyman and caravan-park manager who, as a single dad, has a simply brilliant relationship with his teenage son Trevor. Their beachside philosophic chats conclude each episode, adding a poignant moment.
Laura’s beach house remains highly sought-after accommodation within the Barwon Heads Caravan Park, giving holiday-makers their own mini SeaChange experience.
While essentially a quirky, feelgood production, SeaChange deals with some weighty, real-life issues including youth suicide, stillbirth, domestic violence and bullying. They are issues most communities face, yet SeaChange tackles them not with a heavy hand but a light, compassionate touch.
Life in Pearl Bay is, of course, fictional, but somehow we wanted to believe it to be real. Yet life in that small village had its problems, perhaps best summed-up by Diver Dan: “Spend too long here and you end up building concrete boats in your back yard!”
Filmed well over 20 years ago, SeaChange has become something of a local time capsule.
It was a different era back then – all Commodores, walk-socks and fax machines, pre-GST, pre 9/11 – and an almost “other”, perhaps more innocent, world. Worth revisiting.