Flair
Written byAlan Hopgood
Screenplay byAlan Hopgood
Directed byHenri Safran
StarringHeather Thomas
Andrew Clarke
Rowena Wallace
David Reyne
Country of originAustralia
Original languageEnglish
No. of episodes2 x 2 hours
Production
ProducerPaul K. Davies
Production companyFilm Victoria

Flair TV Productions

The Australian Film Finance Corporation
Original release
NetworkSeven Network
Release1 August (1990-08-01) –
2 August 1990 (1990-08-02)

Flair is a 1990 Australian miniseries about an ambitious designer who wants to break into the fashion industry.[1]

The plot concerns a driven career woman returning to Australia from New York to make her mark in the world of fashion design. Tessa (Heather Thomas) returns home to Melbourne to establish her own label while battling her devious younger sister, the mob, and a slew of other enemies including an alcoholic competitor, a stalker, drug dealers, jealous wives, corrupt police, and militant unions. Tessa also juggles love affairs with a married Australian businessman who may be a gangster, an American photographer, and a hot-tempered Irish thug, in between surviving various attempts on her life and investigating the “accidental” death of her father.[2]

The program was described as cross between Dynasty and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, with Australian media academic Albert Moran calling it: “an entertaining melodrama with its characters moving in a fantasy world of glamour, greed, wealth and sex.”[3]

Cast

Episodes

No.
overall		No. in
season		TitleDirected byWritten byOriginal air date
11"Part 1"Henri SafranAlan Hopgood1 August 1990 (1990-08-01)
Beautiful and talented Tessa Clarke (Thomas) returns to Australia from the U.S. intent on establishing her own fashion design business, and to reunite with her father Bert (Tingwell) and younger sister Sally (Annesley), a drug addict and call-girl with a taste for dangerous men and an intense jealousy of her older sister. Tessa’s fledgling empire is crushed when a former employer, Pamela Winter-Smith (Wallace), wins a court claim on her designs. Tessa flees to the Gold Coast where she falls for Chris (Healey), a handsome nightclub owner with underworld connections and a sordid past. Leaving Chris behind, Tessa’s business is saved by the investment of secretive millionaire Phillip Harmon (Clarke). Just as everything is looking up, Chris comes back to haunt Tessa and Bert is tragically killed in a mysterious explosion.
12"Part 2"Henri SafranAlan Hopgood2 August 1990 (1990-08-02)
Tessa reels from her father’s death, while Phillip Harman is intent on showing her his love and showers her with lavish gifts. Mindful of warnings issued by her increasingly disturbed ex-boyfriend Chris, and her American photographer friend Matt (Joseph Bottoms), Tessa is seduced by Harmon’s charms and begins an affair with him. His glamorous socialite wife, Samantha (Behets), advises Tessa not to probe too closely into Phillip’s business affairs, hinting that he too may have underworld connections. Meanwhile, Tessa’s wayward sister Sally goes missing and Tessa’s worst fears are confirmed when she finds her. As Tessa's relationship with Harmon cracks under the pressure and she grows closer to her friend Matt, Tessa must fight several attempts on her life, union black bans against her business, and continue the search for her father’s killer.

Production

Flair was filmed on location in Melbourne and the Gold Coast with a budget of $4.5 million.[4]

Like the earlier Australian melodramatic miniseries Return to Eden, Flair was an Australian response to glamorous American television melodramas of the era such as Scruples, Bare Essence, Sins, and Dynasty. Flair is notably more humorous and provocative than those American programs, as it included “nudity, many sex scenes, and sub-plots involving prostitution, lesbianism, drug abuse, and open marriages.”[2]

Thomas had two stunt doubles and a body double for nude scenes, telling the Sydney Sun Herald newspaper that: “I don’t believe in nudity, so I always have to have a body double. In Flair, none of that’s me. I’m a little taller and slimmer than that girl.”[5]

The casting of Americans Thomas and Bottoms, and Irish-Australian actor Healey (who had just completed a season-long role as Alexis's husband Sean Rowan in Dynasty) was indicative of a trend in Australian miniseries from the late 1980s and early 1990s to cast well-known foreign actors in leading roles to increase the potential appeal to international audiences.[2]

Broadcast and reception

Critical reviews of Flair were generally negative, but some critics appreciated it as a “pure escapist miniseries.”[6] The program obtained good audience ratings when it aired on the Seven Network in August 1990.[3]

The program was broadcast in Brazil with the title Flair: Estilo Perigoso (Dangerous Style). It was broadcast in Finland with the title Kateus Ja Kosto (Jealousy and Revenge).

Home media

Flair has yet to be released for home media in any form.

References

  1. ↑ Ed. Scott Murray, Australia on the Small Screen 1970-1995, Oxford Uni Press, 1996 p195
  2. 1 2 3 Humphries, Scott (2023). The Age of Melodramatic Miniseries. Jefferson: McFarland & Company. pp. 150–164. ISBN 9781476691626.
  3. 1 2 Moran, Albert (1993). Moran's Guide to Australian TV Series. North Ryde: Australian Film, Television and Radio School. p. 180. ISBN 0642184623.
  4. ↑ Murphy, Nicola (28 July 1990). "James flares up!". TV Week. p. 25.
  5. ↑ Sadlier, Kevin (29 July 1990). "Fall Girl still living dangerously". The Sun Heald (Sydney). p. 21.
  6. ↑ Idato, Michael (1 August 1990). "Sex-cess of fatuous trash". Daily Telegraph (Sydney). p. 22.
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