Period drama series The Castaways followed a group of passengers on board the ship the Mary Jane who in 1840 find themselves shipwrecked on an island.
The eight survivors are a German family, an English girl, a pair of convicts, a young boy and a man from the army.
The German family were Jan Lindburg, his wife Eve and daughter Angie looking to start a new life in the colonies. The English girl was Cathy Dunbar who was to take up a teaching post in Port Jackson. Meanwhile the convicts were Irving and Billy Rose, army sergeant Holt was the man in charge of them but of course that dynamic quickly changed once the shipwreck happened. The young boy, whose parents died in the wreck, was called David.
Most of the filming, which lasted 16 weeks, took place around Port Macquarie and the series was a co-production between the ABC, Scottish Television and Germany’s Bayerischer Rundfunk.
production details
Australia / ABC – Castaway Productions / 13×25 minute episodes / Broadcast 1974
Writers: Ian Stuart Black, Ralph Petersen and Ted Roberts / Music: Bruce Smeaton / Producer: James Gatward / Directors: James Gatward, Henri Safran and Frank Arnold
cast
Fred Haltiner as Jan Lindburg
Peter Gwynne as Sergeant Holt
Volker Eckstein as Mr Fletcher
John Bowman as Billy Rose
Don Barkham as Irving
Renate Schroeter as Eve Lindburg
Lexia Wilson as Angie
Alan Cinis as David
