A Big Country delivered 30-minute windows onto shearers' sheds, drought-blasted paddocks and one-horse towns when colour television was still new to Australia. ABC crews, four people at most, travelled from a Sydney base to wherever a rural stringer had spotted a yarn worth filming; 370 of these mini-films went to air between 1968 and 1991, always in prime-time slots and always to healthy ratings.
The programme treated its subjects as neighbours rather than curiosities: a wheat farmer gambling on rain, a teenage ringers' race at a remote gymkhana, an old woman who still made her own soap by the river. Each segment carried the same calm narration and steady camera that let viewers in Melbourne terraces or Perth flats feel the texture of red soil or smell lanolin on a shearing board.
Logie wins in 1976, 1979 and 1981 recognised the series' knack for turning small incidents into national conversation pieces, and the companion paperbacks kept the stories circulating long after the credits rolled.
Production Details
Unknown / 4 Seasons / 6 Episodes / Unknown
Main Cast
