Acting royalty graces the stage at Phillip Island’s ‘Festival of Stories’

THIS year’s Phillip Island Festival of Stories was graced by the presence of Australian acting and scriptwriting royalty, Melbourne-born John Wood.

As well as being a two-time Most outstanding Actor Logie Award winner, and the readily recognisable lead actor in two of the nation’s most iconic TV productions, as Magistrate Michael Rafferty in Rafferty's Rules and Sergeant Tom Croydon in the long-running police drama Blue Heelers, he’s a pretty good bloke.

Together with his Cop Shop mate and regular collaborator Gil Tucker, he was more than happy to pose for a photo for the ‘Sentinel-Times’ and crack a few jokes about his career, acknowledging that the title of his memoir, ‘How I Clawed My Way to the Middle’ might have slightly understated the truth.

“I guess you could say I clawed my way to the upper middle,” he said with a grin.

“Yes, acting, and I have written several plays and a lot of scripts for TV.”

Among them are episodes of Prisoner and Cop Shop where he would have caught up with Tucker, who for almost a decade played the role of Constable Roy Baker, among numerous roles across such series as Neighbours and many more.

The pair collaborated again, reading some excerpts from Markus Zusak’s book ‘Three Wild Dogs’.

A product of the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), Wood began his professional career in 1970 with the Old Tote Theatre Company, performing in Death of a Salesman and has continued to remain highly relevant on stage in such productions as The Club, Cats, Chess, Art, and Love Letters and in The Wizard of Oz in 2019.

They weren’t the only star turns at a highly successful event in Bernenneit over the weekend with Australia’s best known true-crime journalist and writer Andrew Rule on stage interviewing outback crime thriller best seller Chris Hammer, garden expert Jane Edmanson, radio and TV personality Brian Nankervis, author and ABC presenter Sean Dooley and more.

A resident of the Yarra Valley, John Wood is not a regular visitor to Phillip Island but was enjoying his visit at the weekend.

“It’s pretty nice here too. My wife and daughter are out there now exploring. Enjoying it, yeah,” he said.

Maybe with the warm reception he received on a cool day at Cowes, he won’t be so much of a stranger in the future.