"Picnic at Hanging
Rock" TV Series is an Australian
Television Drama Series screening on
Foxtel's Showcase on 6 May 2018. The
series was adapted from Joan Lindsay's
1967 Novel of the same name about a group
of schoolgirls who, while on an outing to
Hanging Rock, mysteriously disappear. A
gripping reimagining of the iconic
Australian novel that plunges us into the
mysterious disappearances of three
schoolgirls and their governess on
Valentine’s Day, 1900. Exploring the
event’s far-reaching impact on the
students and staff of Appleyard College
and its enigmatic headmistress, theories
soon abound, paranoia sets in, and
long-held secrets surface, as the Rock
exerts its strange power and the dark
stain of the unsolved mystery continues
to spread.
A
mysteriously vast narrative, as gripping
as a true crime saga and as playful as
the best contemporary fiction, the
central narrative follows the impact of
the disappearance on the students and
staff of Appleyard College, their
enigmatic and formidable headmistress and
the township at large. All the elements
are there. A compelling mystery,
dangerous secrets, provocative scandals.
Sex and murder. Love and death. Beauty
and cruelty. An eccentric Gothic mansion,
built with gold-rush winnings out in the
Australian bush. A cast of relatable
characters, twisting in a furnace of
change and reinvention. A magnificent
female antagonist, a handsome young hero,
a rebellious young heroine. It explores
the spreading stain of an unsolved
mystery. Theories abound, secrets are
exposed and hysteria sets in, until
eventually, the lives of our characters
unravel.
Each
episode pieces together the events that
led up to the disappearance. Pivotal
moments are shown from conflicting
view-points, creating fresh suspicions
and unexpected suspects. Events at the
picnic have a ripple effect. The stakes
are high. The clock is ticking. Time
plays tricks, as in the novel. Exposing
glimpses of the characters’ pasts
and futures.
Tapping
into our fear of the unknown, the series
explores issues of controlling sexuality
more relevant than ever at this point in
history, and speaks to modern notions of
nationhood and identity.
Nature
is the very heart of who we are. But can
we control it?
EPISODE
GUIDE
Episode 1
In the
final decade of the 19th century, Hester
Appleyard – a beautiful, mysterious
widow – arrives in Macedon,
Australia. She pays cash for the local
white elephant – a formal mansion
isolated out in the bush. Here, she
establishes a school for young ladies.
Six years later, Appleyard College is a
success. A bastion of Victorian England,
ruled with an iron fist by its enigmatic
headmistress. But something haunts
Hester. Is it the bush – dangerous
and untamed? Or is it her own secret
past? Appleyard College has three star
pupils. Sophisticated Irma, a Rothschild
heiress. Whip-smart Marion, daughter of a
High Court Justice. And rebellious tomboy
Miranda, a cattle-station princess. Their
friendship ignites the magical and
dangerous energy of
adolescence. They resist the edicts
of society. Confronted by the
unwelcome advances of a young
soldier headed for the Boer War,
Miranda impales his foot with a
pitchfork, earning her
headmistress’s contempt for her lack
of self-regard. But the girls have
already convinced Hester to allow a visit
to the local landmark. And so, as she
punishes devoted young orphan Sara for
Miranda’s recklessness by keeping
her back from the outing, and Miranda
retaliates by showing the headmistress an
unseen object which clearly reveals some
unwelcome truth, on Saint
Valentine’s Day, 1900, the Appleyard
girls and governesses go on a picnic, to
Hanging Rock. And there, in the strange
brooding landscape, something unthinkable
happens…
Episode 2
Hester’s
three star pupils & a governess have
disappeared. Led by dogged Sergeant
Bumpher, local men search for the missing
ladies. Not a trace to be found. Faced
with a mystery, the locals resort to
speculation. Has something supernatural
befallen the young ladies? Or has a human
outrage occurred? The last person to see
the girls at the Rock was the Honourable
Michael Fitzhubert. Mike has recently
arrived in the colony, trailing a
discreet hint of scandal. The revelation
that he has Miranda’s stocking in
his pocket indicates a special
fascination with the missing girl, but
Mike is contemptuously dismissive of
Bumpher’s insinuation that his
voyage to Australia was motivated by
anything improper. Hester tries to
contain mounting hysteria among her
pupils by putting the college into
lockdown. She believes the young
orphan, Sara, obsessively devoted to
Miranda, knows something about the
disappearance. But Sara’s
loyalty to Miranda cannot be
breached. Two strange riders were
seen at the picnic ground. Are they men
from Hester’s past, attempting to
ruin her? What is the missing
governess’s shocking secret revealed
in an ancient letter from her estranged
Hebridean father? As the days pass
and the mystery remains unsolved,
tensions increase to breaking
point. When the search is finally
abandoned, Mike feels compelled to return
to Hanging Rock, where he spends a dark
night with the ghosts of his own
past. Then, under the searing
Australian sun, he searches for
redemption, joined belatedly by his
uncle’s coachman Albert – with
whom he has forged a strong bond.
Delirious Mike points up the Rock to
where Albert finds one of the missing
girls lying exposed to the elements. But
is she dead or alive…?
Episode 3
It is
the Rothschild heiress Irma who has
returned, remarkably unharmed. As she
recovers from her nine day ordeal at the
Fitzhuberts’ summer mansion, she
claims to remember little about the day
of the picnic and nothing since.
She doesn’t know where the other
missing girls are. She takes refuge
in dreams of a future with her rescuer
Mike, the handsome young nobleman she
loved at first sight the afternoon of the
fateful excursion. Mike’s
uncle and aunt encourage him to marry the
heiress – Irma would be a prize to
rival the great debutantes of London.
But Mike is falling in love with
the possibilities of this untamed
colonial world. Where he can change
the path mapped out for him by his
ancestors. His friendship with
Albert flowers. He is haunted by
the missing girls – but has also
been infected by their rebellious energy.
Meanwhile, rumours abound and the
Sergeant turns his attention to the
College. What secrets lie hidden
behind the locked gates? His
ongoing investigation intensifies
Hester’s growing paranoia.
Memories of her dark past loosen her
decorous façade. Does she recognise the
marble mason Tomasetti who passes in his
cart? And the orphan, Sara, knows too
much. Is increasingly defiant
– as if being driven by the wild
energy of the missing. When Mike
romantically rejects Irma, events spiral
out of control. Heartbroken, Irma
returns to the college, where she is
interrogated by the headmistress, then
surrounded by a hysterical mob of girls,
all demanding to know what happened at
Hanging Rock. Irma reveals
nothing. She leaves for Melbourne,
to await the ship that will take her and
her secrets back to the old world.
But not before she makes one parting
confession to kindly French governess
Mademoiselle de Poitiers: I hate Miranda.
The shadow of the Rock continues to
lengthen …
Episode 4
Hester
takes the remaining girls to church, as a
display of normality. She leaves
the young orphan, Sara, behind, as
punishment for ongoing defiance. When a
malign intruder breaks in, Miranda’s
impaled young soldier, Sara locates the
headmistress’s Enfield revolver and
shoots at him. The Sergeant is
galvanized. Why does an upper-class
English lady own a highwayman’s
pistol? Sara tries to warn him that
Mrs Hester Appleyard is not what she
seems, but he dismisses the child as a
fantasist. An ongoing series of
flashbacks have been telling the story of
the missing girls, in the months leading
up to the picnic. Their dawning
fear of what the future holds for young
women. Their growing sense of the
erotic. Of their unbridled
power. We’ve watched the
volatile, competitive friendship between
Miranda and Irma. Now we discover
there was an unconsummated romance
between Marion and the missing governess,
Miss Greta McCraw. Meanwhile, aftershocks
from the disappearance continue to
disrupt the old order. Students are
withdrawn by worried parents.
Irma’s influential father arranges
for a Scotland Yard detective to sail out
to the colonies, to investigate.
The publicity has focussed attention on
Hester – now the marble mason
Tomasetti pays her a menacing visit and
clearly they share a history. Mike
rejects his family’s conservative
demands and invites Albert to explore
Australia with him, perhaps to pay a
visit to Miranda’s family in
Queensland, however, fearing they would
not be equals, Albert declines.
When Albert receives a generous reward
for his role in saving Irma, he
immediately starts searching for the
sister he left behind in a local
orphanage. He has no idea how close
she is – a pupil at Appleyard
College, but when he is told that her
guardian would take some time to contact,
Albert writes to Mike to accept his offer
to travel together. Meanwhile, Sara
has become the focus of Hester’s
fear and paranoia. Wise beyond her
years, all-seeing, all-knowing.
When Albert visits the college to seek
help in writing a letter to Mike, Sara
sights him from afar, and is overjoyed to
learn that her beloved brother is
coachman at nearby Lake View.
Later, Sara tries to run away, only to be
forcibly detained by brutal hands at the
college gates. We must fear for
Sara’s safety.
Episode 5
French governess
Mademoiselle is plagued by guilt. She was
in charge of the girls at the picnic. At
the college, more students are being
withdrawn, and the “dark stain”
of the unsolved mystery continues to
spread. When Mademoiselle discovers Sara
is missing from class, she is informed
that the young orphan has been
unexpectedly collected by her guardian.
But Mademoiselle grows suspicious when no
staff can testify to seeing her
collected, and Mrs Appleyard’s
increasingly erratic behaviour fosters
fears for Sara’s well-being.
Mademoiselle visits the Sergeant, who is
beginning to suspect that the girls may
simply have run away, “not wanting
to be found”. Bumpher tells her that
without proof of the danger Sara’s
in, he cannot act. That night
Mademoiselle spies a drunk and tormented
Mrs Appleyard wandering the college
hallways. In her delirium Hester revisits
her own days in an orphanage, and her
removal by her future husband, Arthur,
into a childhood of crime. The past, and
recent events, are closing in on her and
the next morning Hester dismisses
Mademoiselle and the remaining staff. But
not before Mademoiselle, searching for
the proof Bumpher needs, finds
Sara’s abandoned suitcase. However,
Bumpher is in Melbourne, prompted by his
conversation with Mademoiselle to seek a
last interview with Irma before she
departs for England. Through flashback,
it is revealed that the girls planned to
make a vow to their secret selves at the
top of Hanging Rock. But the only
revelation Irma shares with Bumpher is
their collective determination to
“never surrender”.
Episode 6
It is the Christmas
holidays before the picnic, when Sara
joined Miranda on her family’s
cattle station. Sara is the happiest she
has ever been but Miranda is furious at
having to return to the college, refusing
to be groomed for marriage, and
threatening to run away. Back in the
present, Hester has grown increasingly
paranoid that vengeful Arthur is behind
the disappearances and coming after her.
As Mademoiselle arrives to present
Sara’s abandoned suitcase to
Bumpher, Sara’s guardian Cosgrove
reaches town, further confirming Mrs
Appleyard has lied to them all. At the
college, Mrs Appleyard is packing her
things and preparing to flee. She
remembers her final night in London,
having abandoned shot-wounded Arthur, and
stopping to buy soap to wash the
bloodstains from her skin. Appleyard
Soap. The soap from which she took her
name and motto. Her new identity. Refine
and Purify. Her memories are interrupted
by traumatised gardener Whitehead, who
takes her to the flowerbed under the
tower window, where Sara’s bloated
body lies dead. Mrs Appleyard is happy to
let the befuddled old man believe Sara
jumped, instructing him to stay at the
college whilst travelling directly to
Tomasetti, determined to find out once
and for all whether Arthur is behind the
disappearances. But when she arrives, she
learns that Arthur is long dead, that he
perished the very night she left him, and
she realises that all her fears of
retribution have been unwarranted. She
travels to Hanging Rock, and, as she
ascends, we see in full all that led to
her demise. Miranda threatening to reveal
Mrs Appleyard’s fraudulent identity,
which she has discovered from the soap
tin. The rivalries and jealousies that
consumed and bonded the girls, the climb
up the rock on the day of the picnic.
Mike following them. The girls finally
feeling free as they remove their corsets
and stockings. Their secret vow. Finally,
Mrs Appleyard reaches the top of the
Hanging Rock. All lost, she throws
herself from it, surrendering to the
mysterious power of nature. And, like the
audience, to never knowing for certain
what actually happened to Miss McCraw,
Marion and Miranda.
|
