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Comedian Roy Hudd: 'I'm mad about it. I love Noelene Bourke - she's the prettiest. My wife Debbie does a great impression of her saying "Wot yer gonna do about it?" I think that's why I fell in love with her. I was amazed to find there's such a following. For Debbie's birthday treat I wanted to take her to the stage-show, but we couldn't get tickets.'
Keith Vaz, Leicester MP: 'I usually get round to signing all my papers at about midnight, and I always switch on Prisoner: Cell Block H, because life in Wentworth is so like life in the House of Commons it gets me in the mood. I'm a great fan of Bea Smith, and of course I follow what the Freak does. In many ways she reminds me of Margaret Thatcher.'
Jazz singer and art critic George Melly: 'It's the only soap I really watch, and I love it. I think it's because it brings out the lesbian in me.'
Terry Deal and Gillian Rodgerson of 'Gay Times' magazine: ' Prisoner stimulates the parts other soaps can't reach. And we especially like Mss Bennett. She keeps us off the streets on Thursday nights.'
Actor Leslie Grantham, former 'EastEnders' star: 'I now know why the inmates of Strangeways stayed on the roof. They were playing non-stop videos of Prisoner.. Cell Block H downstairs.'
Broadcaster Nina Myskow: 'I adore it. Obviously the actresses took ugly-pills. Amazing how they all worked.'
Australian writer Kathy Lette: ' Prisoner is our revenge for all the high tack you Poms have exported Down Under.'
Rock singer Vicki from Fuzzbox: 'I like it because there is a really positive view of women in it. -There’s nobody with shoulder-pads, or wearing tons of make-up or with glammy hairdos. It makes me laugh, but I'm addicted.'
Singer Ali Campbell of UB40: 'It's so over-the-top and unlike any other soap on TV. My favourite character is Bea Smith. I'd love the chance to play one of the screws and be a real bastard.'
Broadcaster Michael Parkinson: ' Prisoner is watched by two groups of people. One lot still think Elvis Presley is alive and working in a bar in Worthing. The others are lady sumo wrestlers.'
Chat-show host Jonathan Ross: 'There's that early-"Crossroads" quality about Prisoner.. Cell Block H. I'm very taken by some of the women. But I'm kind of glad they're in captivity and in Australia.'
CAROL BURNS (Franky Doyle) appeared in an episode of the British series Hannay in 1989.
ANNE CHARLESTON played three roles in Prisoner - Mum's daughter, a policewoman and Mrs Keen, mother of Rebecca Keen ('Red Keen') - before finding fame as Madge Ramsay in Neighbours.
STEFAN DENNIS played a juvenile runaway who hid in the roof of the house in which Doreen, during her tough period, was staying. He became close to Doreen and even Tossed her. It was an experience about which he was most ungallant later, describing it as his 'worst moment' in the show. He went on to play the charmless would-be tycoon Paul Robinson in Neighbours.
GARY FILES (Fred Ferguson) reappeared as unreliable plumber Tom Ramsay in Neighbours.
VIVEAN GRAY appeared as Edna, in Wentworth for fraud, before achieving greater notoriety as Mrs Mangel in Neighbours.
ANNE HADDY rose again from the grave of Doreen's estranged mother to be reincarnated in Neighbours as the worthy Helen Daniels, mother-in-law of Jim Robinson, artistic patron of Spray-Can Nick and probably the greatest painter ever to immortalise the Bungle-Bungles on canvas.
KATE JACKSON (Martha Eves) turned up in Ramsay Street for a while as a doting Italian momma.
GERARD MAGUIRE (Jim Fletcher) changed sides for a couple of episodes of Neighbours when he tried to rob Des Clarke's bank, even holding a gun to Des's head.
RAY MEAGHER, nasty Nam veteran Geoff Butler, is currently every bit as unlovable in Home and Away.
AMANDA MUGGLETON (Chrissie Latham) went on to Richmond Hill.
TOM OLIVER (Ken Pearce) suddenly turned up in Neighbours as a millionaire car-dealer and briefly rivalled Harold Bishop for the hand of Madge Ramsay. He was given to prodding Harold in the belly and taunting him with recollections of the humiliations he had made Harold suffer at school. This eventually brought Harold as close to fisticuffs as he is ever likely to get.
ANNE SCOTT-PENDLEBURY, who appeared briefly in Prisoner as a former lover of Judith Bryant, achieved more lasting fame as prim and proper Hilary in Neighbours.
IAN SMITH (Ted Douglas) seems set to achieve immortality as portly Harold Bishop in Neighbours.
JAMES SMILLIE who played dashing lawyer Steve Wilson, reappeared as the equally dashing doctor in Return to Eden.
FIONA SPENCE (Vera Bennett) subsequently re-emerged in the highly successful Home and Away.
PEITA TOPPANO, who played the righteous Karen Travers, was next seen as the thoroughly unscrupulous villainess in Return to Eden.
ROWENA WALLACE, famous as Pat the Rat in 'Sons and Daughters', played Anne Griffin in Prisoner, inside on a robbery charge but found to be mentally unbalanced (or 'two sausages short of a barbi') and eventually sent to a psychiatric hospital.
MARY WARD ('Mum') appeared briefly in Neighbours as Mark Granger's protective
(American) mother.
buckless: hopeless (as in 'You've a buckless chance of doing that)
buy-up: the weekly opportunity for the women to use their wages to buy cigarettes, biscuits and 'feminine items'; usually the first privilege to be withdrawn in the event of trouble
compo: compensation (i.e., for wrongful imprisonment)
curry: big trouble (as in 'You'll get curry for jobbing that cop')
buckless: as in you've a buckless chance of doing that - means hopeless
dag: frump
dill: idiot, half-wit, twit
dob [someone] in: betray, grass on
drongo: real dope, moron
giving me the irrits: getting on my nerves
the good oil: inside information, intelligence, low-down
grog: booze (always illicit, usually home-made)
job: attack, work over (as in 'You'll get curry for jobbing that cop')
lag: inform the authorities; betray
have a lend of: string someone along, kid someone (as in 'I was just having a lend of you')
the pound: punishment section, where wayward prisoners are sent to spend time in solitary confinement
preggo: with child
Rack off! Clear off
Ripper! Wonderful!
screws: prison officers
silvertails: the well-off, the well-connected. the privileged
smoko: (unauthorised) break from work for a cigarette
sprung: caught (as in 'Bourke pulled a swifty and got sprung')
sticky-beak: inquisitive person, Nosy Parker
stirrable: easily annoyed or teased
stumblebum: not successful (e.g. Martha)
swifty: (as in 'pull a swifty') con, dodge, swindle, trick (the implication being that it is a swift and simple opportunist crime)
VJ.. Visiting justice - local magistrate brought in to try serious cases of indiscipline
Well, bugger me gently! You amaze me!
'Where's Bea?'
'She's in her cell writing a play.'
DOREEN: Did ya hear about the case of hepatitis they had in D Block?
MARGO: That lot'll drink anything!
MARGO (to Noelene): Rack off, Hairy Legs!
LIZZIE (on Martha Eves): She gets bigger every time I look at her.
You'd need a pickaxe to get behind her.
JANET DOMINGUEZ (recently arrived at the prison and feigning ignorance):
Miss ... Bent, isn't it?
VERA (icily): Bennett.
LIANNE BOURKE (explaining how - against all odds - she has managed to
land a job as a checkout girl at the local supermarket): -The manager couldn't
take his eyes off me tits.
ANDRE REYNOLDS (having informed the police that his assistant, Kay White,
has absconded with the payroll): They're putting out a general description.
VINCE TALBOT: What of - her or the money?
DOREEN (trying to convince herself that telling husband Kevin that she
is expecting someone else's baby won't be all that difficult): All I have
to say is that I got pregnant because I got raped. I don't have to
go into details.
BEA: You've gotta expect a few questions, love.
JUDITH BRYANT(on Vera Bennett): If I had a dog with a face like that, I think I'd shave its bum and teach it to walk backwards.
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