Lockdown, Lowdown… Ringside Report Looks Back at the TV Show Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

There is something quite appealing about historical crime fiction. It has its own genre for a reason.

Add into that an Antipodean element of it being an Australian take on the Jazz Age and then combine it with a sexually free and morally challenging protagonist and you are on an absolute winner. Phyrne Fisher, sumptuously played by Essie Davis, was the very epitome of her times. Her adventures, over 3 series, 34 episodes and one film, were a delicious addition to the crime mystery genre. Running from 2012 to 2020 it brought the novels of Kerry Greenwood to the small screen with style.

Set in 1920’s Melbourne, Miss Fisher challenged the sexual, moral and gender stereotypes of the 1920’s and, just for good measure also, the 2020’s! It was good enough to spawn the film, Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears, and a more modern spin off as Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries, set in the 1960’s, which has now completed 2 series of its own.

The premise is simple enough.

The (barely) Honorable Miss Phyrne Fisher is a private detective. She is surrounded by Detective Inspector John “Jack” Robinson, played by Nathan Page, with whom she is in love, but this does not become consummated until the film, with whom she often works – despite his huge reservations. She has a companion, as was the custom of the time, in Dorothy “Dot” Williams, played by Ashleigh Cummings, a devout Catholic who does not always approve of her mistress’s lifestyle choices. Mr. Butler, the butler, played by Richard Bligh, household manager and part time muscle, if need be, despite his advancing years and Constable Hugh Collins – eventual love interest for Dot – played by Hugo Johnstone-Burt.

Of the recurring characters, special mention goes to the lesbian doctor, Dr. Elizabeth “Mac” Macmillan, played by Tammy MacIntosh and real life gay icon and campaigner, Miriam Margolyes, playing Prudence Elizabeth Stanley, a very disapproving and much challenged aunt!

Miss Fisher herself was a challenging project to get together but once it was established, it became a staple of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Despite being popular, by the end of the second series it took a campaign from the fans of the show to get the third one green lit. The Corporation thought they needed a better offer for a young audience and the demographic for Miss Fisher was clearly not fitting that bill.

But the fans prevailed and series three hit the screens, though the writing was on the wall. Despite the beauty of the costumes, the meticulous historical research and the way in which the money in the show was visible on the screen, time was not on its side.

Central to the teasing of the narrative was Miss Fisher and Jack. Clearly from the very beginning this was a love story with both unable to express or find an opportunity to express their feelings and emotions to each other; it was the 1920’s after all. They had often come close but by the end of series three, they remained far apart. For a devoutly moral man like the Detective Inspector, Miss Fisher, for whom her moral compass was somewhat skewed, who drank, danced and flew planes, there was a greater challenge for him than anyone else.

And then we got the film.

Thanks to crowdfunding, finance was put together in a modest manner, for the filming and over two months it was shot and canned for our delight. Starting with Miss Fisher’s funeral, which she gatecrashes in a plane, it is a typical romp with her relationship with Jack, who has turned up to deliver a eulogy, that never gives up or lets the pace drop.

It ends with what we always wanted – Jack and Phyrne together!

In the UK, we got it on Sky through Acorn TV and in the US, as well as getting a behind the scenes special, it aired on PBS in 2013, and on Ovation, I believe.

It was beautifully filmed, well-acted and to be honest, the next phase of the relationship between Phyrne and Jack intrigued me. Should there be more films or another series I would buy the popcorn. What also appeals is that it is set in Australia, in Melbourne. It ranks there with the Canadian Murdoch Mysteries and Frankie Drake!

Of all the love pairings that make crime series work, because of the age in which it is set, that would be one of the reasons we would love to find out whether Jack could cope with Phyrne! We all believe that Phyrne could! After all she copes with almost anything!

British television is a curious affair. Begun through the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) it is funded through the universal license fee. In essence, if you wanted to watch the television, you had to pay the license fee. The BBC got it all and is state run, albeit at arms-length. Then came along commercial television in the form of the Independent Television (ITV) in 1955. Designed to bring a bit of competition to the BBC, it was paid for through advertising but still free to air… well they didn’t add another license fee to it. By the time that I was born, 1965, there was BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. And that was it. It was still years before Bruce Springsteen would moan that there were 55 channels and nothing on but here in the UK, we kept this going until in 1982, we added a fourth channel and in 1997, a fifth. With sparkling imagination, they were called Channel Four and ehm Channel Five… In between came Sky and we understood what Springsteen meant. And so, my childhood and leading up to early adulthood we had three options… But the programs made were exceptionally good. And so, here is some critical nostalgia as the lockdown has brought a plethora of reruns, new formats and platforms and old classics trying to make their way back into our consciousness as broadcasters flood their schedules with classics… or are they classics at all? Let me take you through an armchair critics’ view of what we have to see, to find out… Welcome to the Lockdown Lowdown…