Hidden truths hit home

Host of Every Family Has a Secret Noni Hazlehurst is amazed by people’ s pasts, writes Holly Byrnes

TUCKED away “on a hill,” keeping company with native birds and the natural beauty of the Gold Coast hinterland seems the perfect place to wait out a global pandemic.

For Noni Hazlehurst, it’s both a refuge in these crazy times and where she sharpens her thoughts and theories about the wild world beyond its boundary fence line.

Venturing out only three times since the coronavirus crisis took hold in early March, “the most exciting place I’ve been,” she tells Play, “is the local IGA [supermarket].”

After the local success of her one-woman show, aptly named Mother, the Logie and ACTAA Award-winning star was preparing to take the show on the road in the US before border closures put paid to that.

Ever the optimist, the 67-year-old is “just waiting for the US embassy to open so I can have my interview to get a green card,” she explains, “so it’s still possible.”

Never one to chase the bright lights of Hollywood, content with the “amazing opportunities here”, Hazlehurst has instead been on a journey as the host of SBS factual series EveryFamily HasaSecret.

Like WhoDoYouThink You Are?, the second season of this gripping documentary series follows a diverse group of ordinary Australians in search of the extraordinary secrets that lay within their family histories.

While filming wrapped before the lockdown took hold, Hazlehurst argues its a program that fits perfectly with our times.

“To me, it’s proper reality television. What has become to be understood as reality television bears little resemblance to reality and it exploits and manipulates not only the subjects but also the audience,” she says.

“But like OneBornEvery Minute, which is one of my favourite shows,” the PlaySchool favourite explains, “you really do see people in real time, who are on a journey to find something out and it’s incredibly important to them.”

Over three episodes, six Australians seek to uncover or explain secrets from their family’s past; often painfully so.

Hazlehurst used her experience on her own episode of WhoDoYouThink You Are? to empathise with those whose hand she holds in this new season.

A common theme is the shame which acts to bury these stories from the generations to come after them, but as Hazlehurst says, it’s what tears families apart.

“Shame is caused by judgement, either real or perceived and our whole modern culture, probably for centuries really, is about judging ourselves and each other.”

As she found with her own family history, “if there are these mysteries around people, you can’t have a real open and honest relationship with them and that denies you that human connection with your own family.”

Empowered by what she learned, she adds: “I completely understand how brave these subjects are to put themselves forward and make themselves vulnerable in this way.”

EVERY FAMILY HAS A SECRET

7.30PM, TUESDAY, SBS