RFDS co-creator and executive producer Imogen Banks (above) told the Mediaweek podcast she has been planning the new drama that launches this week on Seven and 7plus for close to five years.
Banks credits former Endemol Shine Australia CEO Mark Fennessy for originally talking to the Royal Flying Doctor Service about making the series. “He originally talked to me about it and asked if I was interested in doing something with them. Frankly I was nervous at the beginning because I certainly didn’t want to do a remake of The Flying Doctors.
“That is an iconic Australian television series and I was very nervous about interfering with that and doing something that looked like a remake.” That first series ran for over 200 episodes on Nine in the late 80s and early 90s.
Imogen Banks now operates her own production business Kindling Pictures. She is best known for her collaborations with John Edwards including Offspring. She also spent many years working for Endemol and later Endemol Shine Australia.
Banks told a Mediaweek RFDS podcast that she “fell in love” with the idea when the real RFDS took her out on a trip to Dubbo and Lightning Ridge. “I couldn’t believe how magnificent the interior of Australia was because I had not really been there. I was also impressed by just how compelling the stories I was being told were. I was really impressed just how much passion the people had about the work they were doing.”
Banks said she later went on a trip with the show’s co-creator and writer Ian Meadows to Broken Hill, which is where much of the show was filmed.
See also: RFDS on Seven: Everything you need to know
The show started pre-production in Sydney in February 2020 and then moved to Broken Hill in March, around the time that Covid-19 really started to impact Australia.
Banks: “We were just two weeks away from starting shooting and we had to close down. At the time the RFDS was high risk because they were transporting patients. They didn’t want to give it to us and we didn’t want to give it to them.
“We eventually started shooting in July about the time Victoria went into lockdown. We were very lucky to be at Broken Hill during that time and we were incredibly lucky that nothing went wrong. We had lots of Covid protocols in place and we were learning from all the other productions underway. We ended up using a lot of locals so we didn’t have to bring people into the region.”
In the first episode of the series there is no time wasted setting up how the lead character gets to Broken Hill. “The first episodes of anything can be so difficult,” said Banks.
“It’s really hard to rip through the information an audience needs to understand what is happening and why. We wanted to do that as quickly, as economically and as elegantly as possible. The first sequences of the first episode were probably written about 150 times. Ian Meadows was probably tearing his hair out, but I think he found a really beautiful way of telling her story without being too oblique about it.”
When asked about one of the cast who is only in the first episode, Banks said: “The casting was impacted by Covid in that some people originally cast weren’t able to do it. We were unbelievably lucky that person was available. [No spoliers!] It was sad that we were only able to work with them for a week.
“One thing that we kept finding during our research was how people in those communities were constantly facing life and death.”
Stephen Peacocke and Emma Hamilton in RFDS
The lead character is played by Emma Hamilton who is Dr Eliza Harold. Hamilton is not an actor that a lot of people may know much about. “We started to look at possibly having an English actor. But then we asked ‘Why?’ Emma is an Australian who has worked a lot in the UK and her name came up on a list and she tested for the role. Hearing her as someone from England seemed really natural and hearing her wouldn’t have been an obstruction to the drama. People watching wouldn’t have been asking, ‘Why is that lady speaking like that?’
“What we really loved about Emma was the sense of a complete complex woman.”
Listen to the complete Mediaweek podcast with Imogen Banks talking to Mediaweek’s Andrew Mercado and James Manning. Banks also talks about selecting the rest of the cast including Rob Collins and Stephen Peacocke.
Listen in your browser here or on the LiSTNR app or your favourite podcast platform.
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