Phillip certainly wanted the convicts to marry, but there is no evidence, of any kind, that he sought to keep them apart. And the suggestion that Phillip would have executed men for consorting with the women does him a great disservice. There never was a prohibition on sexual relations between convicts. The whole of the first episode is built on a false premise. ![]() It's a prison soap, in the spirit of Prisoner or Wentworth, which happens to be set in Sydney Cove in 1788. The Independent might want to believe the public officials who founded the penal settlement in NSW were evil bastards, but this isn't history. The series is, we are told, inspired by historical events – a flexible term that gives producers and scriptwriters an excuse to tell stories drawn from history without having to worry about the history. The Guardian wrote of "chests heaving, lips pouting, the sunlight falling in soft shafts through the branches, to light up Elizabeth's and Tommy's copper locks". The Telegraph warned us: "This production slathers on the melodrama more thickly than the TV crew's sun cream". ![]() It is perhaps not surprising that The Independent would fail to recognise that this is fiction, but the other papers got it and, in general, they were not impressed. ![]() Credit:State Library of NSWīanished was written and produced by Jimmy McGovern, the man who gave us Cracker, the 1990s television series starring Robbie Coltrane that broke new ground by introducing us to the consulting criminal psychologist. ![]() Detail of a portrait of Captain Arthur Philip painted by Francis Wheatley.
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