Brock - The Mini Series

[Steve Holmes]

Did anyone else see this?

[Jac Mac]

Yep, second part next week i think.

[Roger Dowding]

Did anyone else see this?

Steve, ran it in Aussie over two nights, Sunday 9th , after Bathurst, how appropriate, then final two hours on Monday.. hope it will be repeated as I missed about 45 minutes first night ..

[GD66]

It was bagged mercilessly here but then they do tend to whinge A LOT, especially in NSW. Anyway I didn't think it was too bad, within the constraints of trying to mix old footage and newly-shot inserts....did see a Bridgestone tyres sign in 1969, and even a Super Cheap Autos sign, also a big Mobil sticker on his A30 but hey, at least they were able to borrow the cars and give them a run. Will Hagon and good old Mike Raymond have dropped in plenty of clichéd commentary, and the casting of John Harvey and Larry Perkins is pretty much abysmal, (and then there's Brendan Cowell's Moffat, with accent) but these shows have to be taken with a grain of salt and Matthew Le Nevez as Brock did a pretty good job of picking up heaps of his mannerisms and speech idiosyncracies. Needless to say everyone grumbled about the portrayals of Bev and Julie but again, it's just a dramatization and that is made clear in the opening credits. Worth a look, and I imagine all the moaners are the same people who would sit round for years bemoaning the fact that "they" have never made a tv story about the life of Brock. The only thing that made me cringe was the story of his 9th win, when he'd run third but the Eggenberger Sierras were disqualified. In the telemovie with Greg Rust (in an appalling moustache) announcing on the Bathurst dais that the Sierras were dq'ed to rapturous applause, whereas it was a few weeks later at the Adelaide GP that that decision was announced. Otherwise nothing too scary....not amazing, but as I said, worth a look.

[Roger Dowding]

It was bagged mercilessly here but then they do tend to whinge A LOT, especially in NSW. Anyway I didn't think it was too bad, within the constraints of trying to mix old footage and newly-shot inserts....did see a Bridgestone tyres sign in 1969, and even a Super Cheap Autos sign, also a big Mobil sticker on his A30 but hey, at least they were able to borrow the cars and give them a run. Will Hagon and good old Mike Raymond have dropped in plenty of clichéd commentary, and the casting of John Harvey and Larry Perkins is pretty much abysmal, (and then there's Brendan Cowell's Moffat, with accent) but these shows have to be taken with a grain of salt and Matthew Le Nevez as Brock did a pretty good job of picking up heaps of his mannerisms and speech idiosyncracies. Needless to say everyone grumbled about the portrayals of Bev and Julie but again, it's just a dramatization and that is made clear in the opening credits. Worth a look, and I imagine all the moaners are the same people who would sit round for years bemoaning the fact that "they" have never made a tv story about the life of Brock. The only thing that made me cringe was the story of his 9th win, when he'd run third but the Eggenberger Sierras were disqualified. In the telemovie with Greg Rust (in an appalling moustache) announcing on the Bathurst dais that the Sierras were dq'ed to rapturous applause, whereas it was a few weeks later at the Adelaide GP that that decision was announced. Otherwise nothing too scary....not amazing, but as I said, worth a look.

GD66, best character, Steve Bisley as Harry " The Fox " Firth.. he was good and funny !!

[Ray Bell]

No...

The only character who seemed pretty right was the one who played Geoff Brock.

They had Peter meeting Bev seven years too early, had his first divorce three years early, totally missed his engagement to Karen McPherson, and did he really beat a road-going Jaguar at Hume Weir?

The opening scene showed him driving the A30 on the road, a girl beside him, a police car in chase and a beer in his hand. Never!

In those days if you lost your road licence you couldn't race, the ONLY thing PB wanted to do those days was race, he would never have done those things. If he did drive the A30 on the road, it would only have been a few hundred yards in front of his parents' home, where it was built, it was too close-knit an area for him to ever get away with doing any more. Or more than a couple of times.

[Oldfart]

An interview I spotted has some of his family up in arms about accuracy.

[Ray Bell]

And why not?

The Peter Brock they knew didn't jump around in excitement all the time, his public persona was always measured and controlled. Except, it has to be said, when he was angry with his female companion.

That said, there were many things Peter held to be facts which did come out. His view of his business improving Holdens in the post-John Sheppard days was shown as he saw it - that he was a major car manufacturer. I understand he was convinced of this by Barry Lake, and his unstoppable progress to the Director dispute and insistence on using the Polariser were the result of this belief.

It's also true that 'Splitpin', Phil Brock, was miffed at the attention Peter got and the lack of support he was to enjoy from the family. That was probably the reason he moved so far away, first to Brisbane and then to Darwin.

Bev's husband, by the way, was not a Dealer Team mechanic as he was depicted, he was a Sydney Mini racer.

I'd like to know John Harvey's take on all of this. He was another depicted fairly poorly by the actor playing his part.