Sara Dane


Sara Dane is a 1982 Australian television miniseries about a woman transported from England to Australia for a crime she did not commit.

Original novel

The mini-series was based on the best-selling 1954 novel of the same name by Catherine Gaskin. Gaskin had spent two years researching the book, which was inspired by the true story of Mary Reibey, a woman convict who married an officer while travelling to Australia, went on to become a successful businesswoman in her own right, and whose image has been featured since 1994 on the Australian $20 note.
The novel was Gaskin's most successful, selling over two million copies. Film rights were sold and Gaskin announced in 1955 that a movie version would be made at Elstree Studios the following year, but this did not occur.

Production

In 1980 it was announced the South Australian Film Corporation would make a mini-series of the novel for Network Ten, possibly starring Judy Davis and Sam Neill. Eventually Juliet Jordan was cast.
Gaskin later said that Juliet was "not at all what I expected in Sara... but I'm more than delighted Juliet was cast... My young Sara was supposed to be a very strong character. You would have had to have been, to have survived and succeeded in the early days of Australia. If anything, the television Sara is even stronger than the novel's leading character in the end."