Following the success of Almost Australian, Miriam Margolyes is back. This time for Miriam Margolyes Australia Unmasked, she’ll be heading west along the bottom of Australia – from Tasmania towards Western Australia. The mission? Find out whether or not the Fair Go is still something that Australians believe in.
Over three episodes worth of adventures, Margolyes takes a bite out of some road kill with Jacqui Lambie, attends both polo matches and bogan burnouts, and cops an eyeful during her stay at a nudist camp.
Mediaweek spoke to Margolyes ahead of the launch of Australia Unmasked on Tuesday, July 19 at 8:30pm on ABC and ABC iview.
“I’d done Almost Australian for Southern Pictures before which won the AIDC Awards for Best factual Series, so they asked me to do another one. They gave me some different topics, and asked which one interested me – it was the fair go that won.”
After spending months in isolation and lockdown, Covid left the eighty-year-old Margolyes feeling more vulnerable than ever, going so far as to say at the beginning of her journey that she was “starting from a position of terror.”
“I had to be very careful because I was meeting a lot of new people, and I didn’t know where they had been,” says Margolyes. “Everybody that came into contact with me had to take a RAT test, and all the people in the team that we travelled with – there were six of us – we all had to test every two days. We were all living all together in a bubble.
“We took enormous care not to catch it or pass it on, and I think that’s what people should be doing.”
Miriam and Tyler in beach wheelchairs at Henley Beach, in water with mum Amanda and Lifeguard
Once she had landed, however, there was no turning back. With the travels of Australia Unmasked now in the rear view mirror, Margolyes says she has been left with a major lesson from the series.
“It was, in a way, the first time I understood the beauty of the desert of Australia. It’s easy to understand the beauty of the forests, and the rivers, and the ocean. But to see the desert and understand that, was a great gift for me in this series.”
As for what she would like the audience to be left with?
“A pride in Australia and the determination to make it better.”
As with any show, there will always need to be moments left on the cutting room floor.
“There are a couple of things that have not been included that I wanted very much to be included,” says Margolyes.
“One of them is going to Menindee and talking with the McBride family about what happened in the Murray Darling River. I learned a lot about that. I also met a wonderful Aboriginal lady called Auntie Patsy, who I’m still in contact with.
“I feel very strongly that the Aboriginal story is not told enough, is not listened to enough by White Australians. Whenever something that is Aboriginal is left out, I feel upset. There’s just too much material and it couldn’t go in.”
Miriam and Kitana Mansell
Whilst not everything Margolyes wanted to make the cut may have made it in this time around, the opportunity will be there when she returns to Australian shores next year.
“I’m in the UK at the moment, but I’ll be back in April, and I‘ll be doing another documentary about Australia. I can’t get enough of it, and I hope that people will allow me to keep going on television. I’m kind of like a missionary – I want to tell people about their country, and I want them to tell me about their country too.”
Miriam Margolyes Australia Unmasked on Tuesday, July 19 at 8:30pm on ABC and ABC iview