Cop gives shop a break

The four-week shoot begins in Melbourne tomorrow with McCune playing the emotionally abused wife of Brett Climo, star of Banjo Paterson's Man From Snowy River.

Inner Sanctuary also stars Kym Wilson as a social worker and former heroin addict and small screen veteran Gerard Kennedy as a priest.

DASHING DEBUT

MEANWHILE, Blue Heelers has signed a recruit. Recent National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) graduate Tasma Walton has joined the drama as Constable Deirdre McKinley, thankfully nicknamed Dash.

Walton, whose credits include Cody and Home And Away, will be seen in June.

CRACKERS OVER ANIMALS

LEGENDARY board wobbler Rolf Harris was spotted at the RSPCA in Yagoona last week but his visit had nothing to do with tying kangaroos down. Harris hosts a British series called Animal Hospital and presented the special, Animal Hospital Down Under, on Channel 9 last night.

Nine is considering making an Australian version of the series and Harris was at the RSPCA last week to shoot a segment for the pilot episode.

The Australian version of Animal Hospital will be fronted by former Midday Show co-host Tracy Grimshaw, who presented the recent Zoo Doctor special. Judging by the ratings of Zoo Doctor, which was the third most-watched program in Sydney with 622,000 viewers in the week it went to air, things are looking good for an Australian Animal Hospital.

NEW TERRITORY

AARON Pederson will star with Steve Vidler, Susan Lyons, Robert Mammone, Jamie Croft and former Cop Shop hunk Peter Adams in a telemovie for Channel 7 called The Territorians.

In production in South Australia, The Territorians is about a murder in the outback with Pederson playing the lead role.

Seven has not yet scheduled the telemovie, which is being produced by Robert Brunning.

MORE FLIES

WHAT is it with perve TV? After the success of Channel 9's fly-onthe-wall series RPA and Weddings, SBS and the ABC are sticking cameras in places usually considered private. SBS has just completed First Person, a six-part series in which six ordinary Australians record their lives on a video diary.

Among the six people chosen from hundreds of applicants are a former prisoner, an addicted gambler, a transsexual and a lonely taxi driver who discovers she has an IQ of 144.

Meanwhile the ABC is making Family Snapshots, in which several families use a video diary to record their lives with the first episode recording the birth of a baby.

First Person goes to air next month and Family Snapshots is expected to air later this year.

HOME BECOMES HOUSE

ANYONE who watched the now-defunct Home Show will remember young renovators Steve and Jennine Montell, a couple who bought a wreck and made home improvements as the program followed their progress over two years.

Unfortunately The Home Show was axed by the ABC before viewers could see the final fruit of the Montells' labours. But Channel 9's own home show, Our House, has caught up with the couple and will screen the result of their hard work in a story this Wednesday.

Apparently the Montells' Balmain cottage looks fabulous but now it's on the market because the couple are moving to Queensland.

HUNTER, NOT HUNTED

WHEN a grim-faced Holly Hunter handed the Gold Logie to Ray Martin at Sunday's awards ceremony, she excused her lack of enthusiasm by telling host Daryl Somers she was jet lagged. Hunter's expression may have had more to do with an exchange of words at the rehearsal. According to Airwaves' sources, Somers teased the American actress about her protective attitude to her private life, hence the lack of southern charm on the night. Viewers enjoyed the ceremony, however, with 1,797,200 tuning in.