5 January (2006-01-05)– 9 February 2006 (2006-02-09)
RAN (Remote Area Nurse) is a six-episode Australian drama series that aired on SBS on 5 January 2006.
Synopsis
After Helen Tremain's (Susie Porter) mother dies, she returns to a remote island in the Torres Strait where she previously worked for five years as the Remote Area Nurse charged with providing medical services to the Torres Strait Islanders community. She is talented, determined and yearns to belong in a place she feels a strong connection to. The community loves her but ultimately wants her gone.
Helen discovers the island is no longer the tropical paradise she remembers, with an incompetent substitute nurse, indigenous health workers rebelling and the community divided. She butts heads with the health department over controversial decisions, gets involved in island politics, navigates an outbreak of Dengue fever, and struggles to fight her attraction to married island Chairman, Russ Gaibui (Charles Passi).
The series also explores Russ's somewhat dysfunctional extended family, alcohol abuse, domestic violence, smuggling, love, marriage, death, politics, native title issues, religion, outsider influence on island life and other social dynamics.
The first television drama ever made in the Torres Strait, the series was filmed entirely on Masig Island (better known by its European name Yorke Island), a tiny teardrop-shaped coral cay in the far northeast of the strait. The remote location is a three-hour flight from Cairns, and closer to Papua New Guinea than mainland Australia.
Series producer, Penny Chapman said the series was inspired by her sister Peta, who worked as a remote area nurse in the Torres Strait. Yorke Island nurse Robyn White was another of the inspirations for the character of Helen Tremain, spending three months on set as a medical consultant.
Casting director, Greg Apps spent months in the Torres Strait islands, Townsville, Brisbane and Cairns, conducting an extensive search for the Islander cast and engaging liaison people in each community.
Many of the cast were islanders, most acting for the first time. Dan Mosby, one of the elders on Masig Island, played a role in the series. Masig locals were hired as crew and employed to make traditional costumes, mats and decorations for feast scenes. Islanders spoke among themselves in their local dialect, with subtitles provided for the television audience.[citation needed]
While working on the series, the film crew lived in tents, had cold bush showers and had no access to alcohol. Producers rented houses to use as office space and to accommodate the cast.
