Minty – Nostalgia Central

1 9 9 8 (Australia/UK)
13 x 30 minute episodes

17-year-old English schoolgirl Melanie Hobson (Angela Kelly) wins a trip to Australia in a competition.

While visiting down-under with her father, she meets her doppelgänger – a teenage Australian girl who looks like her identical twin.

She turns out to be a hot young actress named Minty Sullivan (also Angela Kelly) who stars in a dreadful Aussie soap opera called Ocean Beach and is treated like a princess, living in a luxury beachside apartment and driven around in a limousine.

Melanie yearns to escape her boring suburban existence, and Minty craves a normal life away from her hordes of fans and isolated life in the spotlight, so the two girls decide to intermittently swap identities and sample each other’s world.

Because nobody has ever seen them together, nobody knows there are two of them.

But while the two look identical, their personalities, talents and skills are quite different, which arouses suspicions from those closest to them.

Key characters included Minty’s Ocean Beach co-star Shane Connor (Damian de Montemas), producer Ric de Silva (Peter O’Brien), Melanie’s friend Cameron Davis (Kim De Lury), and Minty’s agent Pamela-Anne (Vivienne Garrett).

Over the course of 13-episodes, the identity swap becomes permanent, enabling Melanie to pursue a singing career in Australia and allowing Minty to embrace a newfound family life in England.

Filmed in Western Australia, the series was a co-production between Scottish Television and Perth’s RT Films in association with the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

The series was originally written for the twin blonde cheerleader stars of Fun House, Melanie and Martina Grant, but the project took so long to come to fruition that the Grant girls were too old to play the parts (at the grand old age of 25).

Lightweight, poppy and clearly aimed at an audience of 11-to-15 year old girls, every episode featured Angela Kelly in a Kylie-style video clip.

A soundtrack album was released in 1999 by Virgin Records, featuring ten original songs performed by Kelly.

Angela Kelly went on to star in the Australian children’s TV series Bambaloo from 2003 to 2004 before giving up acting for a brief career behind the camera.

Minty Sullivan/Melanie Hobson
Angela Kelly
Shane Connor/”Brad”
Damian de Montemas
Pamela-Anne
Vivienne Garrett
Willie Courtnay/Old Thane
Bill Kerr
Cameron Davis
Kim De Lury
Lionel Hobson
Michael Loney
Peg Hobson
Pauline Bennion
Alex Hobson
Phineas Glover
Ric da Silva
Peter O’Brien

Episodes

No Worries, Cinderella | No Probs, Princess | If I Were You | Dangerous Creatures | I’ve Got Who Babe? | Between Rock ‘n’ Roll and a Hard Place | The Great Escape | Secret Identity | Good One, Sport | Reality Bites Back | All The World’s A Stage | Double Exposure | All Good Things

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