This ABC (Australia) miniseries followed a hunchbacked orphan as he rose from being a larrikin gang leader in Redfern (Sydney) at the turn of the 20th century – via an apprenticeship as a cobbler – to become the rich and successful owner of a shoe emporium.
Jonathan Sweet played the title character – a crook with old-style morality who marries a factory girl he doesn’t love and then has an affair with a piano teacher who he leaves when she betrays him.
Steve Bisley – barbecued in Mad Max (1979) and zapped with radiation in Chain Reaction (1980) – co-starred as Chook Fowles, Jonah’s second-in-command. Liddy Clark played Chook’s love interest, Pinkey.
A reconstruction of Redfern in the early 1900s was created in bushland north of the city by production designer Roger Ford.
Jonah Jones
Jonathan Sweet Ada
Clair Crowther Chook Fowles
Steve Bisley Pinkey
Liddy Clark Mrs Yabsley
Doreen Warburton Waxy
Mark Hembrow
