Lavish series Ten Pound Poms bustling with characters and plots

For such a big cohort, there have been fewer stories on screen focusing on the hundreds of thousands of British immigrants who sought a new life in Australia after World War II than you might expect. Perhaps it's why this new six-part television series on streaming platforms has a hint of déjà vu. Of course, there have been the documentaries with 10-pound Pom backstories, but it is less likely that aspect of their lives will feature.

For good reason, some would say. One of the funniest signs I heard about once was posted near the ticket booth at the old African lion safari zoo west of Sydney, where the wild animals were viewed from the safety of a car. It went something like "Brits on bicycles admitted for free". Aussies have long been conflicted about their relationship with the Old Country, and sympathy for the whingeing Pom has always been in short supply. So it goes.

The post-war assisted immigration scheme that encouraged immigrants to book passage to this country for £10 ran from 1945 until 1982. For a tiny fee, which was waived for anyone 19 or under, it was easy for an entire family to take the plunge, although they had to undertake to stay for at least two years.

This lavishly staged production comes from British-based company Eleven. Two eminent directors have worked on the first season. They are young Scotsman Jamie Magnus Stone, a BAFTA award winner and nominee, and Ana Kokkinos, whose television work became well known to Australian audiences after her remarkable breakthrough fiction feature, Head On, screened in cinemas in 1998. British writer Daniel Brocklehurst, also a BAFTA nominee, holds the screenplay credit.

There are only three British actors as the rest of the cast, including youthful performers like Declan Coyle (a young Russell Crowe lookalike) and Hattie Hook as British teenagers, are locals. The shoot, with Meg White on camera, took place in NSW.

The series' narrative is bustling with characters and plots, too many really. However, the lives of a married couple from Manchester, Terry and Annie Roberts (British actors Warren Brown and Faye Marsay), and their friend, single mum Kate (played by Michelle Keegan, also a Brit), supply the central throughlines.

The first three episodes that I had access to follow Terry and Annie, and their two teenage children, to Australia.

Lured by the prospect of year-round sunshine, they decide to immigrate Down Under in search of a new life, which is code for a new start for Terry's prisoner-of-war experiences in Dresden that are affecting his ability to live a normal life. He suffers from PTSD, and drinks and gambles. The pair are engaging and empathetic.

Kate, a nurse, is aboard the same ship and lands alongside them at the hostel, a collection of Nissen huts in the bush with an old lookout tower that suggests an ominous former life.

In retrospect, it is surprising that no scenes take place on the six-week journey across the sea. It surely offered lots of opportunities for character development, but it's straight to regional Australia.

Here our gentle, unassuming migrant family encounter several crudely drawn Aussie caricatures, in particular David Field's scary workplace bully Dean who takes Terry for a spin in his Holden ute one evening.

It did feel like we were veering dangerously close to Wake in Fright territory. The ugly Australian, the pub culture, the racism in that seminal Ted Kotcheff film are haunting still. Perhaps the British showrunners watched it one too many times during lockdown. Stone has been comfortable to let Field's maniacal character fill the frame.

On the other hand, the intersections that Terry and Annie each have with the local Indigenous community set up promising trajectories.

Rob Collins, an Indigenous actor with significant presence, plays Ron, a community leader and friend to Terry at work.

Even if the show is set in the 1950s, the migrant experiences overall in this first season seem unlikely to encourage many in post-Brexit Britain to contemplate a move to Australia. It isn't hard to imagine why 25 per cent returned home.

If you have ever seen the beautiful, arty posters that advertised a new life in Australia you cannot be surprised by the appeal they had for Brits pummelled by years of war. It will be interesting to see where this big, ambitious production takes us.