Round the Twist


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.
The early episodes of the series were based on stories by author Paul Jennings who also co-wrote the series screenplay in collaboration with creator and Executive Producer Patricia Edgar and co-director Esben Storm.
The series was developed by the Australian Children's Television Foundation, the media company created by Edgar.

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.
Edgar's instructions, based on research done on Australian children's viewing preferences, 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. The rest of the cast were to be gender-balanced. Edgar stressed the importance of jokes and humour and told Storm to push the boundaries, while grounding the series firmly in the emotions and issues of growing children.
Round the Twist was first produced by Edgar for the Australian Children's Television Foundation in 1989. The four series of the program won 16 national and international awards, including the Prix Jeunesse, the Banff Rockie Award for Best Children's Program, the Grand Jury Prize, two Gold World Medals in the Youth Category at the New York Festivals, two Australian Film Institute awards for Most Outstanding Children's program, and five Australian Teachers of Media Awards.
The series was screened in over 70 countries by broadcasters such as Fox Kids, BBC One, Nickelodeon, CBC Television, France 2, ZDF, Network 2 and NHK.
In 1998, Round the Twist was chosen in the international trade magazine KidScreen's "Dream Block" poll – a "Dream Two-Hour Children's Block" — by the world's leading programmers and distributors of children's television. Other programs selected for the “Dream Block” included Rugrats and The Simpsons.

Synopsis

Round the Twist is set around an old lighthouse in the fictional Port Niranda, on the rugged southwest Victorian coast and features the Twist family: fourteen-year-old twins Pete and Linda, eight-year-old son Bronson, and father Tony, a widowed artist who makes sculptures. Each episode finds the Twist kids involved in surreal, supernatural adventures.
The series has been categorised as humorous, contemporary fantasy.
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. The first series of Round the Twist was based on the popular novels Unreal!, Quirky Tales, Unbelievable!, Cabbage Patch Fib, and Uncanny! by Jennings, who had three books on the Australian children's bestseller list at the time.
Jennings was the scriptwriter for the first and second series. Storm was the script editor of the first series, co-writer for the second series, and screenwriter and script editor for the third and fourth series. Ray Boseley and Chris Anastassiades were also the writers for the third series. Louise Fox, Christine Madafferi, and Robert Greenberg were assigned the fourth series. The second, third, and fourth series shared elements with the first regarding style, characterisations, themes, locations, and genres with the original series. The third and fourth series were not based on Jennings' books, but served as continuations of the first two series.

Theme song

The lyrics and music of the theme song were written by Andrew Duffield and sung by Tamsin West, who played Linda Twist in the first series. It borrowed lines from nursery rhymes such as, "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly", "Humpty Dumpty" and "Rain Rain Go Away". In 2018, the song was used in a series of Halloween television adverts by UK supermarket chain Sainsbury's.

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.
Around sixty child actors from all over Victoria were divided into small groups and given the scripts to the workshop under Esben Storm's direction.
;Notes

Characters

The show revolves around the Twist family:
  • Tony Twist 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.
  • Bronson Twist is the twins' 8-year-old younger brother. He is obsessed with food and odors and uses comedic malapropisms, such as confusing widower with windower. As the youngest of the family, he often feels left out of what his older siblings are doing, and tags along their adventures despite the possibility of danger or ridicule. On a few occasions, he is treated as older than his age, such as in Series 1, where he is expected to take full responsibility for a green baby he found in the cabbage patch.

    Other

  • Helen "Nell" Rickards – the old woman who lives in a cottage next door, whose brother, Tom, had been the former lighthouse keeper. Her father, mother, and sister died when the ship they were on sank. The family's spirits, as well as Tom's, haunted the lighthouse.
  • Harold Gribble – a greedy real-estate agent and one-time Senate candidate, who often tries to force the Twists to move out of the lighthouse.
  • "Matron" Cecilia Gribble – Harold's supportive wife who is a nurse. She is just as scheming as her husband.
  • James Gribble – Harold's no-good son. He is a bully at school who often antagonizes Pete.
  • "Rabbit" – one of James Gribble's friends.
  • "Tiger" Gleeson – one of James Gribble's friends.
  • Fay James – Bronson's schoolteacher; Fay James is a love interest for Tony, and lives with the Twists in Series 3 and 4.
  • Ralph Snapper – Pete and Linda's teacher. He is a harsh disciplinarian who does not respond well to children's insolence, but is socially awkward around adults.
  • Fiona Richmond – Linda's friend, and Pete's sometime girlfriend.
  • Hugh Townsend – Linda's love crush in Series 1.
  • Anthony – A well-meaning nerd with a crush on Linda in Series 3 and 4.
  • Padre, Sacha, and Emily – Three girls Pete tries to win over in Series 4.
Characters who appear briefly in each episode of a series include:
  • Ghosts of Nell Rickard's family members – her parents Stanley & Louise Rickards, her siblings Tom and sister Sarah Rickards.
  • Ghost Matthew and Ghost Jeremiah – ghosts of two men whose spirits were trapped in the lighthouse during Series 2 after they failed to guide a boat to shore one hundred years earlier.
  • Ariel – a girl from the "Isle of Dreams" who wants to take Pete away in Series 4.
  • Mr. Nic Papadelioises – a local small deli owner who gave Bronson his first job.

    Storylines

Round the Twist pushed the boundaries of acceptability for children's television.
Four series of Round the Twist were made, each with thirteen episodes. Each episode has a self-contained plot. Each series has a recurring theme, usually an object or character which appears briefly in every episode, and develops until the final episode of each series, in which it is explained and resolved.
The Twist family has frequent conflicts with a ruthless local businessman, Harold Gribble, and his family. Gribble seeks to remove the Twists from the lighthouse in order to turn it into a tourist attraction. This is a continuing feature of the first series and a recurring feature of the third and fourth series.

Series 1 (1990)

The first series had the following episodes:
  • "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.