Series spotlight: My Place

With 26 episodes spanning hundreds of years, My Place is one of the most ambitious children’s television series in Australian TV history. Based on the award-winning picture book by Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins, the television adaptation has become a timeless classic and left an indelible footprint in educational settings.

The book and series of My Place tell the history of an Australian community through the eyes of the children in it, exploring how some things in our community change over time, while others stay the same. It charts the imagined history of a Sydney neighbourhood over more than 200 years. The story is predominately centred around a single house inhabited by a series of families over the decades, and much of the story takes place around a spectacular, sprawling fig tree – a “special place” for the children, which represents a place of belonging.

It was this tree which planted the seed for the My Place story. Author Nadia Wheatley said she used to sit on the roots of a tree near her home when she walked her dog every day. “As I was thinking, I used to imagine generations of Australian children, from Aboriginal time right through to the present, playing in that tree,” she said. That tree, situated in a graveyard in the inner-Sydney suburb of Newtown, is the very same featured in the first series of My Place.

A blend of history and imaginative fiction, when the book was released in 1987 the Children’s Book Council of Australia judging panel declared it as “quite simply the most remarkable book entered for the awards this year”. It won both Book of the Year for Younger Readers and the inaugural Eve Pownall Award and became beloved by children and their families across the nation. One such family was that of television producer Penny Chapman.

“I used to read Nadia Wheatley's book to my daughter... She was quite young when the book came out and I loved it so much. For years I thought, ‘this would make a really wonderful children’s series’. Finally, I got around to trying to make it a reality and spoke to Claire Henderson, who was running children's programming at the ABC. She was interested, and we started development.

“What I loved most about it was the exquisite proposition that the children living in exactly the same place over 200 years told the story of their experiences in this place over [that time]. I thought, this is the most marvellous history, and if we could dramatise it, it would be really great.”

The first series of My Place, from Matchbox Pictures, adapts the book into 13 episodes about 13 children who live in the same house over 130 years, working backwards from 2008 to 1888. Series 2 adapts the final chapters of the book, spanning 1878-1788 and before colonisation. The book and series have a deliberate circularity, beginning and ending with stories centring on First Nations characters – a recognition of the continuity of Aboriginal experience in this country.

The series goes beyond the stories in the book, creating new narratives for the characters created by Nadia Wheatley, though Nadia was involved as a historical and story consultant. “We needed something to connect these children apart from the location they were in,” said Penny. “And so I thought, well, maybe all these kids have a propensity to get into some kind of trouble.” Each protagonist then has to extricate themselves from uncomfortable situations, as historical events unfold around them, demonstrating the social, cultural and political changes that have taken place in Australia over time. Journalist Anne Richey described the series in a 2009 issue of Screen Hub as “one of the ultimate pieces of episodic television”.

Chronicling a history of Australia through a child’s eyes was an ambitious undertaking. With each episode occurring in a different decade and featuring a largely different cast, Penny said the production challenges were immense.

“Without the ACTF's commitment to the making of this story, and the ABC, there was no way we would have got this off the ground,” she said. “Logistically, it was massive. It was a different set every episode, it was different costumes every episode. So we needed a crew who were committed to the logistical madness that this involved and found in it a wonderful creative challenge. It was massive. I don't know whether we'd be able to ever do it again.”

Dan Wyllie, Penny Chapman and Susie Porter on set

My Place involved a number of acclaimed Australian actors, writers, directors and other creatives. As well as established names Susie Porter, Dan Wyllie and Sarah Snook, it featured a talented child cast, with many of the young stars going on to have extremely successful careers both at home and in Hollywood, like Madeleine Madden and AACTA Award winner Odessa Young. Episodes were penned by a talented team of writers including Greg Waters and Brendan Cowell. Leah Purcell wrote episodes involving First Nations characters and also acted in the series.

ACTF CEO Jenny Buckland with then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and others at the launch of ABC 3

This series is significant in the history of the ACTF and, more broadly, the history of Australian children’s television, not only due to the ambitious nature of the project. My Place launched the first children’s free-to-air digital television channel ABC 3, which the ACTF had campaigned heavily for. The launch of ABC 3 marked a new era in the public broadcaster’s commitment to locally produced children’s television, a commitment which continues through to this day with the extensive offering available through the ABC’s children and preschool platforms, ABC ME and ABC Kids.

The series also had a huge uptake in Australian classrooms and is embedded in the curricula in primary schools across Australia. Nearly 13 years since it aired – and 35 years since the book was published – the My Place story has cemented itself as a timeless Australian classic. “It seems to be just as relevant today,” says Nadia Wheatley. “People still seem to be wanting to read it. It doesn’t seem to have gone out of date.” (You can read more about the educational legacy of My Place here.)

Irrespective of the challenges in production, Penny Chapman admits the idea of a 2018 episode is tempting. “The reality of being a 10-year-old or a young teenager these days is so different to what it was in 2009… it would be really interesting. It would be a fabulous big cultural mashup; I think I could see it as a culmination of all the cultures that have made the series over the decades, over the centuries, a merging of the culture that makes Australia so vibrant… it'd be fun. It could be enormous fun.”

Both series of My Place can be viewed on ABC iview or purchased from the ACTF shop.

My Place is a Chapman Pictures and Matchbox Pictures Production for the ABC, based on the book by Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins. Presented by Screen Australia and the Australian Children's Television Foundation in association with Screen NSW and Screen Tasmania.