As deliciously dramatic as he was in his creative life, it makes sense that David Bowie loved the juicy drama that can come from soap operas — and his favorite turned out to be an Australian soap called “A Country Practice.”
“A big favorite of ours. We watched it all the time in Switzerland,” Iggy Pop, a legendary musician and friend of Bowie’s, confirmed to Mojo Magazine (via Daily Mail and Australian Broadcasting Corporation) in a 2010 interview. “David loved that show.”
The series, which followed the lives of the staff and patients of a rural hospital in a town called Wandin Valley, was a long-running mainstay Down Under with more than 1,000 episodes produced throughout its 13-year run. It started airing in 1981 on the Seven Network and spent 13 seasons there before moving to Network Ten for its final season in 1994.
Bowie made his fandom known
One of them was Shane Withington, the actor who portrayed Brendan Jones for the first six seasons of the serial’s run. “We knew that David Bowie liked [‘A Country Practice’] because he would have copies of the show taped and sent to him,” Withington divulged to ABC Radio Brisbane (via the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) in 2020. Bowie even went as far as to invite the actor to a show on his tour.
“I was in the makeup room getting made-up, while the other actors were in there as well, when my breathless publicist came running in,” Withington revealed during the radio conversation. “She went, ‘Shane, we’ve had this unusual request … David Bowie has asked you to come to the [Glass] Spider tour tomorrow night.’ I went, ‘Oh, that is so typical of David. No warning, nothing, just ring up out of the blue.'”
Needless to say, it was an unforgettable night. “We turned up at the Glass Spider tour and it was phenomenal, of course, because it was David Bowie,” the actor gushed. “I was ushered back with probably the most beautiful people on Earth. Just the wealth and beauty of the band and the backing singers was just so cool, and I felt really daggy. David came out, with his mismatching eyes, and came over to have a chat and said how much he loved the show.”
The legend connected with multiple stars from the soap
But Withington wasn’t the only “A Country Practice” actor who received an invite from Bowie. Leading man Shane Porteous, who played the show’s central doctor Terence Elliott, took his kids to a Bowie show in Sydney on invitation from the Thin White Duke back in 1987.
“There was no way Dad was going to that concert without his three teenage kids! We got to meet him before the concert,” his daughter, Fiona Porteous, revealed to Private Sydney (via the Sydney Morning Herald) in 2020. “It was an amazing experience, and I remember we all towered over him, David was quite short, and how exhausted he looked.”
Porteous’ daughter also revealed that Bowie had been dying to meet other stars from the series too, including the show’s leading furry friend. “The funny thing is Dad wasn’t David’s first choice. He had wanted to meet Fatso the wombat, but Featherdale Wildlife Park wouldn’t let him out for the night,” she explained to the outlet. “Then he asked to meet Grant Dodwell [who played Simon Bowen], but Grant had already left the show by that stage. So poor Dad was Bowie’s third choice!”
Bowie passed away in 2016 at age 69, but he was clearly able to make a huge impression on the cast of “A Country Practice” with his passion for the series.