Round the Twist is an Australian children's comedy drama television series originally broadcast by the Seven Network. The program follows the supernatural adventures of the Twist family, who leave their conventional residence to live in a lighthouse, in the fictional coastal town of Port Niranda.

History

Patricia Edgar agreed to have Jennings write the series, on the condition he would be mentored by and collaborate with the director, actor, and writer Esben Storm.

Edgar previously worked with Storm on the children's show Winners and the TV film series Touch the Sun. The partnership between Edgar, Jennings and Storm was an efficient team for the development of the first series, whose characters and community were set around a lighthouse on a coastline. Jennings and Storm drew from the plots in Jennings's existing short stories and created new ideas, sometimes using two stories in an episode to fill out the plots. was to balance the stories around a family with three leading child characters. The teenage twins Pete and Linda Twist, and their younger brother Bronson were given equal time throughout the episodes' stories. Each episode finds the Twist kids involved in surreal, supernatural adventures.

There were four series of Round the Twist made during the show's 11-year run. The first 13 half-hour episodes were part of a three-program package the ACTF sold to the Seven Network in September 1988, which also included Kaboodle and The Greatest Tune on Earth.

Casting

Making a show about children over the course of more than a decade necessitated a number of cast changes, as the child actors became too old for their parts. Three sets of children, the Twists, the Gribbles, and Fiona were cast. All of the major adult roles were recast at least once.

{|class="wikitable"

|-

! style="width:20%;"|Character

! style="width:20%;"|Series 1 (1990)

! style="width:20%;"|Series 2 (1993)

! style="width:20%;"|Series 3 (2000)

! style="width:20%;"|Series 4 (2001)

|- style="text-align:center;"

| Tony "Dad" Twist || colspan="2" | Richard Moir || colspan="2" | Andrew Gilbert

|- style="text-align:center;"

| Pete Twist || Sam Vandenberg || Ben Thomas || colspan="2" | Rian McLean

|- style="text-align:center;"

| Linda Twist || Tamsin West || Joelene Crnogorac || colspan="2" | Ebonnie Masini

|- style="text-align:center;"

|Bronson Twist|| Rodney McLennan || Jeffrey Walker || colspan="2" | Mathew Waters

|- style="text-align:center;"

| Fay James || colspan="2" | Robyn Gibbes || Trudy Hellier || Susanne Chapman

|- style="text-align:center;"

| Helen "Nell" Richards || colspan="2" | Bunney Brooke

;Notes

</references>

Characters

The show revolves around the Twist family:

  • Tony Twist ("Dad") is a widower with a kind heart who maintains a romantic interest in Bronson's schoolteacher, Ms. James, and regularly embarrasses the Twist children.
  • Pete Twist is Linda's 14-year-old twin brother who occasionally goes out with his classmate Fiona. Along with Linda, he enjoys teasing his younger brother Bronson. Pete finds himself in embarrassing situations, and is often under siege from Gribble Junior and his gang.
  • Linda Twist is Pete's 14-year-old twin sister, whose interests include feminism, environmentalism, and judo. She enjoys picking on her younger brother. She takes life quite seriously and tries to bring a sense of normality to her family who sometimes go out of control. Linda has a strong sense of justice, knows what is fair, and is prepared to go out of her way to achieve it. She is the most mature and spiritual of the Twist kids.
  • "Skeleton on the Dunny"
  • "Birdsdo"
  • "A Good Tip for Ghosts"
  • "The Cabbage Patch Fib"
  • "Spaghetti Pig Out"
  • "The Gum Leaf War"
  • "Santa Claws"
  • "Wunderpants"
  • "Lucky Lips"
  • "Know All"
  • "The Copy"
  • "Without My Pants"
  • "Lighthouse Blues"

The lighthouse is haunted by eerie music coming from upstairs. In the final episode, "Lighthouse Blues", the music is revealed to be played by the ghosts of Nell's deceased family. The ghosts help the Twists prevent one of Gribble's business associates from destroying the lighthouse.

In a subplot, Tony falls in love with Fay and spends the series developing a relationship with her, culminating in a marriage proposal at the finale. The answer to the proposal is left open-ended.

The series provides a lot of laughter and suspense and retains the surprise endings which made the books so popular among modern young readers.

Series 2 (1992)

The second series reintroduces the Twist family and the local identities from the coastal town of Port Niranda.

Series 4 (2001)

The fourth series has the following episodes:

  • "Welcome Back"
  • "Monster Under the Bed"
  • "Linda Godiva"
  • "Dog by Night"
  • "TV or Not TV"
  • "Face the Fear"
  • "Hair Brain"
  • "Princess and the Pete"
  • "Bird Boy"
  • "The Shadow Player"
  • "Radio Da Da"
  • "Skunkman"
  • "The Isle of Dreams"

In each episode, a knight in armour enters the lighthouse through a magical door. At the beginning of the series, the knight's face is hidden behind a visor; in the second half, the visor is raised. In the final episode, "The Isle of Dreams", the stranger is revealed to be a girl, Ariel, who offers the children a perfect life on the Isle of Dreams if Pete will become her husband. In the end, they decline, and Ariel disappears forever, along with the enchanted isle.

A subplot in this series is Fay's pregnancy with Tony's baby, named Ariel, who is born in the series finale.

Production

thumb|250px|The [[Split Point Lighthouse was used for the exterior scenes of the Twist family's lighthouse home.]]

thumb|[[Aireys Inlet with the lighthouse in background]]

Series 1

The first series of Round The Twist went into pre-production in March 1989 and production began on 4 April and ran for 13 weeks. Filming took place at Melbourne Film Studios and the lighthouse on the Victorian coast.

Throughout the series, several locations in Victoria, Australia, were used for external shots. Exterior scenes of the Twist family's lighthouse home were shot at the Split Point Lighthouse in Aireys Inlet. The school and some town scenes were shot in Williamstown, Point Lonsdale, and Queenscliff.

The seventh episode of series one was supposed to be "Frozen Stiff", but that had to be changed as it was too expensive to freeze a house and thirty animals inside large ice blocks.

Nell was supposed to die in "Lighthouse Blues", but Storm told Jennings, "it's too depressing after thirteen weeks. We can't finish the series by killing off a well-loved character."

Series 2

Following the success of Round the Twist both in Australia and in overseas markets, the ACTF developed a second 13-episode series. The second series was in pre-production in April 1992. Filming took place from 23 March to 19 June 1992 and finished on 23 June 1992.

Edgar continued as executive director, and Jennings and Storm wrote the scripts. It was pre-purchased by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation, Ravensburger Film, and TV Gmbh (for German-speaking territories), and Tri Star Gmbh (for Italy). It was produced by Edgar with Bernadette O'Mahony and written by Storm, Chris Anastassiades, and Ray Boseley. The series was directed by Boseley, Storm, and Pino Amenta. The series was pre-sold to the ABC, BBC, Nickelodeon UK, and Disney European channels, and financed by the Australian Film Finance Corporation. In early 1999, filming took place on location at Aireys Inlet and Crawford Productions' studio in Melbourne. In 2000, the ACTF completed the development of the fourth series of Round the Twist, which was written by Storm, Boseley, Louise Fox, Christine Madafferi, and Robert Greenberg. In November 1999, pre-production of the fourth series began, with principal photography starting in February 2000 and ending in May 2000. Production was planned for 1997–98, but funding for the project was not granted. It was so popular that TV4 contacted the ACTF to acquire the second series so that it be immediately aired.

The acquisition of Round the Twist by FOX Network coincided with the repeat of series one on BBC1 in the UK.

Launch

To launch the program, the ACTF and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) transformed one of the ABC's Elsternwick studios into a Round the Twist set. Four Foundation staff members attended the MIPCOM market in Cannes, France, in October 1992 to launch the second series of Round the Twist and Lift Off on the international market.

The second series of Round the Twist was a major success when it was screened on BBC1 in the United Kingdom in early 1993. It was rated the first most popular children's program in the United Kingdom by the time it had finished airing. BBC Enterprises entered into a contract with the ACTF for the release of Round the Twist in the United Kingdom.

Series 3

Round the Twist rated number one on the BBC in the middle of 1998. and the attraction included the characters and adventures of the popular series, and featured a tree spirit, a Viking shipwreck, and a hall of distortion that culminated in a slide from the series’ lighthouse icon. Two episodes from the fourth series, filmed earlier in the year, were screened at the new Melbourne Museum's theatre. Many fans met their favourite characters from Round the Twist at the Festival on 29 October 2000; the Festival was jointly hosted by the Melbourne Festival and the Melbourne Museum.

The cast were the emcees for the day, and they introduced national and international performers including Ethiopian Circus and Wild Moves.

|-

|1990

|Cinematographer of Cabbage Patch Fib: Jan Kenny

|Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS), New South Wales

|Cinematographer

|Merit

| Compilation videotapes of the series were sold in department stores by CEL. The first volume featured the stories "Pink Bow Tie" and "Nails".

Series 1 and 2 were sold to the NHK in Japan. The ACTF received a large quantity of fan mail from Japanese children who enjoyed the series.

Series 1 and 2 were acquired by broadcasters in Ghana, Hungary, the Cook Islands, and Spain. Both series were re-licensed by the BBC in the UK.

In 2005, the seven volumes were sold as a boxed set of the entire series before being repacked and reissued in 2009.

On 2 February 2010, Magna re-released the whole series as a new packaged box set named the "Completely Twisted Collection".

On 19 April 2023, the Australian entertainment company Via Vision released the entire series in an eight-disc DVD package, entitled Round the Twist: The Complete Series (Remastered).

Stage adaptation

A stage musical based on the television series was developed, with book, music and lyrics by Paul Hodge incorporating the original theme song. It premiered in Brisbane at the Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre in November 2024, directed by Simon Phillips for Queensland Theatre.

See also

  • List of Australian television series

Notes

References

  • Round the Twist website
  • Writing Round the Twist (Paul Jennings)
  • Learning resources for Round the Twist from the Australian Children's Television Foundation
  • Round The Twist at ClassicKidsTV.co.uk
  • The original Bronson on Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Life Matters, Friday 26 August 2016
  • Round the Twist at the National Film and Sound Archive