Runaway Island

1 9 8 1 (Australia/France)
16 x 25 minute episodes

This Australian/French co-production (from the Grundy Organisation and Revcom Télévision) is set in Australia in the 1830s.

Young Jamie and Jemma McLeod (brother and sister Miles and Simone Buchanan) are left behind on their father’s property, Victoria Farm, with their aunt Agatha (Cornelia Frances) while their father, Lachlan McLeod (John Hamblin), sails to England to ask the government to do something about the corruption in New South Wales.

The two children are subsequently told that their father has drowned at sea, and are left homeless when Agatha sells the farm.

Hiding on a nearby island, Jamie and Jemma are determined to find the map that will lead them to their father’s will to assert Jamie’s inheritance and escape the clutches of the wicked Captain Corkle (Ric Hutton) who took control of the family farm upon their father’s death.

Along the way, the children meet Red Tom (Rodney Bell), Nipper (Julian Gillespie) and Hendrik the Dutchman (Ivar Kants) who help them in their quest, but they are also wrongfully arrested and kidnapped by Blackhawk and his gang of bushrangers.

The 25-minute episodes were sometimes broadcast in an “omnibus” edition and, in the US, some were aired as stand-alone television movies.

Jamie McLeod
Miles Buchanan
Jemma McLeod
Simone Buchanan
Red Tom
Rodney Bell
Nipper
Julian Gillespie
Captain Corkle
Ric Hutton
Hendrik
Ivar Kants
Agatha McLeod
Cornelia Frances
Lachlan McLeod
John Hamblin
Molly
Kerry McGuire
Dixon
Terry Bader
Sgt. Musgrove
Martin Phelan
Undertaker
Harry Lawrence
Governor
Tony Wager
Joe Dunn
Michael Aitkens
Private Evans
Patrick Ward
Marceau
Alain Doutey

Episodes

Alone Against Everyone | The Tobacco Tin | Taken Along – Fellow Prisoner | Race Against Time | The Betrayal |  A Friend Named Joe Marceau | On The Run | Long Live Freedom | The Power of Gold | The Black Falcon | The Secret of the Gorge of Death | The Gold Mine | Trapped | A Ship From Spain | The Treasure of the Inca | The Duel

Video