REMEMBERING Kingswood Country - 'YOU COULDN'T GET AWAY WITH IT TODAY!'

It was colourful, but the cast admit the series belongs in the past

- Glen Williams

It was the show that mirrored our own lives in a time now gone. Kingswood Country mocked 1980s Australian suburban life mercilessly, and we all laughed along.

We loved it so much, taking the blustering and rather problematic Ted Bullpitt, brilliantly played by Ross Higgins, to our hearts.

His colourful sayings, like “Pickle me grandmother!” and “The Kingswood! You’re not taking the Kingswood!” became part of our idiom. Televisions right across Australia flickered happily with the madcap antics of the Bullpitts. The show was a ratings sensation and a cultural phenomenon.

ANOTHER TIME 

Lex Marinos, who played Bruno, the often-taunted Italian son-in-law of Ted, readily says Kingswood Country, despite it still having a warm place in Australia’s heart, couldn’t be made today.

“That show was so good to me,” he says nostalgically. “I look back fondly for all sorts of reasons. On a personal level, it offered me job security at the time I had a young family.

“It was colourful culturally. It felt great to be playing a migrant on what was pretty well ‘white’ TV in those days. It was very much a show of its time. You couldn’t make it today.”

So does Lex think Australian viewers have lost their sense of humour?