A cut above the rest

Nine is responding to period drama popularity by sending its flagship series back in time, writes Michael Idato.
THE outlaw antics of wild colonial boys and 1920s-era razor gangs sound like risky territory for a television industry accustomed to serving up hospital and contemporary police dramas. But the winds of change are gusting through the genre and a new wave of period drama - not seen since The Sullivans and Carson's Law were on our screens in the 1970s and 1980s - is coming.
As Channel Seven puts the finishing touches to its bushranger-era drama Wild Boys, Channel Nine is sending its Underbelly franchise back in time, to the near-lawless world of 1920s Darlinghurst. ''I don't know why period is so popular,'' Underbelly executive producer Des Monaghan confesses. ''It's something in the zeitgeist. Look at Downton Abbey - it's doing extraordinary business. It's outrageously soap but it's superbly made. And Boardwalk Empire. And even Mad Men. These things are cyclical.''
Underbelly: Razor stars Danielle Cormack and Chelsie Crayford as underworld rivals - sly-grog baroness Kate Leigh (Cormack) and brothel madam Tilly Devine. Like preceding instalments of the franchise, it spans the best part of a decade (this time, 1927-36) and is populated with a rogue's gallery of players from the time, including notorious prostitute Nellie Cameron (Anna McGahan), pioneering policewoman Lillian Armfield (Lucy Wigmore), gangster Guido Calletti (Richard Brancatisano) and standover man Norman Bruhn (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor).

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Underbelly: Razor.

The era is not remembered for the power and privilege it afforded women, and Monaghan describes Devine and Leigh as the extraordinary exceptions of their day. ''These women are in no way representative of the general fate of women at that time,'' he says. ''And there are some particular reasons why they flourished. Tilly, for example, became the uber-madam because men were not allowed to run brothels - the law forbade them from living off the immoral earnings of women.''
The series is based on Larry Writer's book Razor, which explored the seedy, often violent world of late 1920s Darlinghurst. ''We talk about a lot of change now but it's nothing compared to what was going on at that time,'' Monaghan says. ''And, of course, smack-bang in the middle of that period is the Great Depression, which had such a traumatising effect on that generation and … the subsequent generation.''
It's not hard to find parallels with contemporary life. Razor's central story - the rivalry between two underworld figures and the war it precipitates - is a curious echo of the first Underbelly story, in which the rivalry of Carl Williams and Jason Moran set the stage for a similar bloodbath.
Sydney in 1920 was also a city grappling with a drug problem - the widespread use of cocaine - and a massively erratic economy. Monaghan, however, is quick to stress that the Depression was far more serious than our latest economic woes. ''We have no understanding of what poverty means as experienced by people living in that era,'' he says. ''The issues are superficially very similar and the responses to the issues, both social and political, but they were dealing with levels of poverty and deprivation that, thank god, we are not exposed to.''

Underbelly: Razor is the fourth instalment of the franchise and the most expensive so far due to its period setting. It has involved an expanded wardrobe department, the construction of complex period sets and the assembly of a real 1920s-era Darlinghurst street, located on an unused street in Redfern. ''The cost may have gone up 25 per cent-plus but the workload has gone up 50 to 75 per cent, for certain departments in particular,'' Monaghan says.
''Wardrobe, you can imagine, has a far, far bigger challenge than anything they've had to deal with before. We have a major location in the centre of the city but if you move the camera half-an-inch to the left, suddenly we have something very, very modern in the frame. Getting all of that right adds enormously to the time and pressure on the crew.''
Underbelly: Razor employs visual effects - a rarity for a locally produced drama - to digitally remove some modern elements in the background of some shots and give 1927 Sydney its unfinished jewel, an incomplete Harbour Bridge. ''We have to erase or alter all those signs of modernity and the impact, particularly on the camera department, is extraordinary,'' Monaghan says. ''Luckily they're all mad, they're all passionately committed and they all love it.''
In the past, he says, visual effects were ''too complex, too expensive and too time-consuming for television''. In the first Underbelly, for example, images of the Melbourne skyline featuring the Eureka Tower - finished in 2006, a decade after the setting of the story - were left in-shot because they were too expensive to remove.
The success of Downton Abbey should make Nine a little more relaxed about its significant investment in a period drama.
As for how it will be received by fans of the franchise, Monaghan is optimistic. He believes audiences are more sophisticated than they are given credit for and that Underbelly has a proven record of rule-breaking.
''One of the principal reasons for Underbelly's success was we broke the mould - not so much that we were telling a story from the underworld perspective but that we were reflecting real life in all its messiness and unpredictability,'' he says.
''So when Alphonse Gangitano gets killed at the end of episode two, that surprised the audience … because it didn't follow the normal strictures of a conventional television drama.''
One benefit of the period setting, of course, is that this instalment should avoid the legal hurdles of its predecessors. After all, the stakeholders are dead.
But is it worth double-checking that all the matters relating to Devine, who died in 1970, and Leigh, who died in 1964, have been resolved? ''How can I answer that without tempting fate?'' Monaghan says, laughing.
Underbelly: Razor
Nine, Sunday, August 21, 8.30pm.
WHAT'S THE BUZZ?
Who
 ■ Kate Leigh was born in Dubbo and rose to become a sly-grog operator, drug trader and major underworld figure. Underbelly executive producer Des Monaghan says she was ''an exceptionally smart businesswoman and as tough as old boots''.
■ Tilly Devine was a London-born prostitute who became infamous in Sydney as the owner of more than 30 brothels. Monaghan describes her as a ''what you see is what you get'' sort of woman. ''Tilly was out for Tilly, end of story,'' he says.
Did you know?
 ■ Underbelly was first brought to Channel Nine's attention by Eddie McGuire, though at that stage it was a proposal for a documentary on the Melbourne gangland wars.
■ Razor is the fourth series instalment, following Underbelly (2008), Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities (2009) and Underbelly: The Golden Mile (2010). Three Underbelly telemovies also aired earlier this year.
■ Underbelly: Razor has played host to an unofficial Sea Patrol reunion, with John Batchelor, Conrad Coleby, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor and Saskia Burmeister all landing roles.
■ The first Underbelly spin-off produced outside Australia, Underbelly NZ: Land of the Long Green Cloud, will air later this year on New Zealand's TV3. The six-part drama will be set in the 1970s and will serve as a prequel to A Tale of Two Cities.
■ The US network Starz announced a ''remake'' of Underbelly last year, though the project has not progressed. Starz said they would not use the original Melbourne-based Underbelly but replace it with an American crime story.

Source: The Age