The Reverend Alex Bartlett is already on thin ice with the diocese after turning his Sydney parish green into a profit-spinning mini-golf course. Banished to the drought-stricken hamlet of Bulawot, he proposes a church-wide prayer meeting for rain, and the skies oblige almost immediately, transforming him from pariah to prophet overnight.
Shot across three hour-long instalments, the series pairs ecclesiastical satire with outback magical realism. Peter Sumner plays Bartlett as a restless idealist whose stunts, sacred or secular, keep enraging the establishment, while Peter Collingwood's purple-faced Bishop fumes from the safety of his city office. The supporting cast, including Wendy Hughes as Bartlett's apprehensive wife and Helen Morse as a sceptical local teacher, watch the clouds gather and wonder whether faith, coincidence or something stranger is at work.
Heavy rain and snow halted production in Stuart Town, the ironically sodden stand-in for the story's dust bowl, yet the delay only sharpened the contrast between the parched fiction and the saturated reality the crew endured. First broadcast by ABC between 21 November and 5 December 1974, the mini-series wrapped before Australia had finished debating whether a clergyman should moonlight as a meteorological messiah.
Production Details
ABC / 3 Episodes / 1974
Created by: Charles Stamp
Writer(s): Charles Stamp
Main Cast
Peter Sumner as Rev Alex Bartlett
Peter Collingwood as the Bishop
Wendy Hughes as Beverley Bartlett
