Picnic at Hanging Rock to be remade for Foxtel

A new version of the iconic Picnic at Hanging Rock is coming to our screens. Sorry, but why can’t we leave past classics alone?

Foxtel’s Picnic at Hanging Rock cast, left-right, Samara Weaving (Irma), Madeleine Madden (Marion), Natalie Dormer (headmistress Mrs Hester Appleyard) and Lily Sullivan (Miranda).

A new version of the iconic Picnic at Hanging Rock is coming to our screens. Sorry, but I am just not ready for a new Miranda.

Foxtel, the pay-TV network, is remaking the Australian classic as a six-part series and here’s the first image from the production (above).

The TV series will retell the famous story of the mysterious disappearance of three school girls and one teacher on Valentine’s Day 1900 at Hanging Rock, the ancient and highly atmospheric formation in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges.

Culturally, this is a big deal. Joan Lindsay’s 1967 novel, which left the fate of the girls open ended after her publisher cut the final chapter and stuck in a safe until she died, is regarded as a very important Australian novel. Certainly it had a huge impact, as did Peter Weir’s 1975 feature film, our first international feature due to its overseas sales.

In fact Picnic at Hanging Rock entered the folklore. It also became a play, a BBC radio adaptation and even a musical.

The original cast of the 1975 Australian film.

To my mind, wandering around Hanging Rock with its splendidly creepy atmosphere, and bellowing “Miranda” at the top of your voice (as dumpy Irma did as the girls wandered fatefully to their disappearance) is as Australian as a queuing up for meat pie at the MCG.

Yet judging by this cast picture of school girls and headmistress, the past is indeed another country. At its centre is headmistress Mrs Appleyard, played by big imported star Natalie Dormer of Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games.

Mrs Appleyard has been glammed up. Dormer is 35, playing a role that Rachel Roberts play in the film when she was 48.

Grouped around her are the actresses playing Irma, Marion and Miranda, the role made famous by Anne-Louise Lambert.

Dumpy Irma, left behind by the trio as they ascended to their fate on the rock, has also been glammed up. The women look not like a picture of naïve and ethereal schoolgirl innocence so important to the story, but like a confident young girl power posse, in figure hugging dresses they have just acquired after a group buying expedition to Zimmermann.

That is just a reflection of the times we live in. Which is exactly my point.

Actor Anne Louise Lambert as Miranda.

In one sense I am being very unfair. I haven’t seen the show, which is still filming. I am more objecting to the mining our rich creative heritage to retell stories already brilliantly realised.

In another sense it is smart play by Foxtel, as global streaming services have so much heft that drama like The Crown become global events for Netflix’s 93 million subscribers.

So Foxtel, which is riding high after its dramas A Place to Call Home, The Kettering Incident and Secret City scooped the pool in the most outstanding drama categories at last month’s Logies, needs a property that commands instant interest from audiences if it is going to outlay millions of dollars.

But I don’t think my desire to prevent favourite dramas from yesteryear being fished out of aspic and “reimagined” is an irrational one.

Leave the past alone. We can still enjoy the classics alongside the best new ideas. Foxtel and its production partner Fremantle Media must think it can do a better, more intense and detailed retelling of the story in six hours that Peter Weir did in nearly two, but that does not mean it will it be better. I am prepared at least to sample the new Picnic. And I realise that reviving the old favourite is an unstoppable tide. Witness forthcoming productions of Mary Poppins, The Birds, A Star is Born (starring Lady Gaga!), Lethal Weapon, Fatal Attraction,The Exorcist, Thunderbirds, even All Quiet on the Western Front.

Some of those stories are so of their time as to make a remake pointless. I am resigned to it all. But then I hear that Dynasty, the height of 1980s Reagan-era greed is good supersoaps, is being “reimagined”. You may as well reface the Mona Lisa.

A scene from the original Picnic at Hanging Rock.