Neil Olivers soft Scottish lilt has a weary edge to it. Its no surprise: hes pulled in 80 days of filming across Australias vast coastline in just a few months. Its been a long road, theres no doubt about it, he says, on location in Byron Bay and nearing the end of the gruelling production schedule. But theres no easy way to film something like Coast Australia - its all about massive distances. From the outside, it does look in some ways like the best job in the world, but even the best job in the world can be tiring if you do it for long enough. The archaeologist and TV host is once again fronting eight episodes of the magazine-style show (which premiered on January 13), following its first season in 2013 which scored record ratings for the History channel. The charismatic and highly personable Oliver led the first season on a jaunt around obvious pitstops across Australia including Botany Bay, the Kimberley, the Mornington Peninsula, Great Barrier Reef, the Gold Coast and beyond. The second season, he says, will go deeper into Australias story. The first time around it felt a bit like, the stories were there and they were good, but they were all very much about showing Australia as a trophy girlfriend. You know, look at this [he mimes putting an arm around someone and puts on a Australian accent], Isnt she lovely? The stories this time around are better. Theyre deeper, theyve got more meat on them. This series will show a bit more of the character, the sense of humour. Its not just about the pretty face and the lovely dress. Its more about the personality of the place. Those stories include the Pilbara and Phillip Island, each of which come with various eco issues, although he says the show is not opinion-forming ... It doesnt have that agenda, its just observational. Season two opens in Victoria, with Oliver visiting an oil and gas platform 40 kilometres out from the Gippsland Coast. Later, when The Guide catches up with Oliver, hes filming at and around the Cape Byron Lighthouse. Built in 1901 and still bearing its original Fresnel lens, it remains the most powerful lighthouse in the Southern hemisphere despite looking quite modest, he says. The man tasked with interpreting Australias coastal landscape to TV audiences hadnt actually visited the country before January 2013, when he arrived to film the first season. He was commissioned following the success of the British Coast, which has circumnavigated the nations coastline since 2005, screening its ninth season last year. Oliver says the fact he is freshly acquainted with Australia lends a unique worth to the way he presents the show. What I bear in mind all the time is that Im not here to teach people about Australia, Im here to share with the locals my first impression, and what you get from that is to see somewhere for the first time again, even a landscape that youre familiar with. When you hear somebody else respond to it, just for a moment youre reminded of what it was like to see Sydney Harbour for the first time, or the Kimberley or wherever. So thats what I can bring. Olivers personal popularity is key to the Coast brand, however. His trademark long hair and animated delivery blows the image of stuffy historians out of the water. His own interest in history was sparked as a youngster by family stories. I was terribly fascinated by the discovery that both my grandfathers had fought in and survived the First World War, and that made the war at school more interesting for me, because one grandpa had been at the Somme and the other at Gallipoli. It meant I had a kind of personal connection, so it always seemed interesting to me to find out why we do the things we do. He studied archaeology at the University of Glasgow, and then TV came about purely by accident. He and friend Tony Pollard were excavating the Zulu battlefields before they were approached in 2002 to do Two Men In a Trench for the BBC, visiting British battlefields. Later, Coast beckoned. Fame and an academic approach are uneasy bedfellows, but Olivers wife Trudi, who he has known since he was 19 and has three children with, keeps him grounded. She knew me when I was a 19 year old with affectations to be a long-haired archaelogist and floated about in cheesecloth smelling of patchouli oil. She knows the skeletons, where all the bodies are buried, so I cant adopt a showbiz personality around her. However, its not just about Oliver - Coast Australia is co-hosted by the palaeontologist and writer Tim Flannery, marine biologist Emma Johnston, landscape architect Brendan Moar, historian Alice Garner and anthropologist Xanthe Mallett. If you dont like me, theres another five people - you just have to wait a few minutes and Ill be away, he says joking. Thats part of the genius of Coast in that you dont have to invest entirely in one presenter - they come and go.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 21:15:00 +0000
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