Ten Pound Poms

If I had to summarize my experience of watching 'Ten Pound Poms' so far I would have to say that Danny Brocklehurst was determined to work his story around xenophobia and racism, and chose the Labour Camp outside Sydney as his best way to integrate those themes, as it brought many races closer together. Unfortunately, it makes the story flat as every day we see Terry going off to do his bit in a hole in the ground, and in the evening he gets together with the other immigrants for a drink or party. It's a generalization of course, but many members of the Maltese side of my family went to Australia at this time and they ended up in the big cities. I think this makes the whole story seem untrue. There may have been one of two places that were like the camp, but they were probably the exception rather than the rule and this is where this story falls flat for me.

The production values, acting, scoring, cinematography are all world class. It's just that the story falls flat, it is too crowded, and the characters are not three dimensional enough. I will make an exception for the Terry character, and I think the Michelle Keegan character could have been worked better. The orphanage scene was embarrassing and unconvincing.

I think the subject material needed a more sensitive approach and probably should have come from someone with more first jhand experience of the process of emigration.

I was a member of the family of £10 poms at around the same time as this drama is set and, although I was around 5, I have many vivid memories of that time as well as overhearing stories when my parents and their friends got together. Granted we only stayed on the hostel for around six months but I got the impression it was an exciting time for adults as well as kids. Maybe we were lucky being so close to the beach and the relatively big urban area of Wollongong. Our hostel was Balgownie, not to be confused with the fictitious 'Galgownie' which seemed to be simultaneously in the Outback and near the beach! Most hostels, in NSW at least, were near major urban centres and were nothing like depicted in the show. Jobs were plentiful and we were given a house in pretty short order. Most of the streets in the equivalent of UK council housing areas were 50/50 Aussie and mainly British immigrant families. There was never a hint of xenophobia from the Aussies and everyone just got on...probably down to the shared experience of WW2. Diggers and Tommies sharing war stories. Southern European immigrants probably weren't so lucky. Not exactly a premise for riveting drama, so can't really blame the makers for ratcheting up the tensions and concentrating them in a short time frame. Just don't watch it as a documentary!

Not an unforgettable drama or a terrible one, somewhere in the middle. One of those shows where you should probably bail if the characters and storyline in the first episode don't grab you.

It had decent production values, with a few sound and lighting wobbles and a solid ensemble cast. Michelle Keegan's character felt a bit far-fetched in some of her endeavours, but fans will no doubt forgive her. One of its strengths was the number of strong female characters.

If you get on board with the first episode stay with it, if you don't jump ship as it continues along the same path.

On the downside there was a lot of heavy-handed messaging that didn't need to be there.

In the 60's most large establishments had switchboard operators , like Hotels and Hospitals . To make an overseas phone call you would call the international operator , give them the country and phone number and the operator would call back when call was connected . This series was set in 1956 . From the 40's and onwards everyone had Radios for music and entertainment as well as for the BBC news and Cricket . Throughout this series no one had a radio . Radios were as popular then as mobile phones are as popular today . Steven Curry was completely outstanding as J. J. plus all the main character child actors were really good .

I was really looking forward to this show as I was a "Ten Pound Pom". I came out to Australia as a member of a large family who emigrated from North Wales. I was hoping it would be a semi accurate reflection of how life was at that time. It's not.

It's a cliched, overblown, melodramatic soap. It's entertaining but completely over the top. I've only watched two episodes and I'll persist but so far we've had a robbery, a break in to steal documents, an aboriginal child killed in a hit and run. Etc.

What next, a bomb scare or a terrorist attack?

I really like the cast, especially Warren Brown who is good in everything but they needed to limit the number of things happening in each episode and rely on character development. It's as if it was a competition to see how many things can happen in each episode. We saw nothing of the journey out here, one of my most vivid memories.

Anyone hoping for anything like an accurate portrayal of life as a Ten Pound Pom will be disappointed. This is more like a series of Coronation Street episodes with better production values. I hope it gets better.