TV Show Prisoner to Return

[John]

http://www.perthnow.com.au/entertainment/p...l-1225923453936

ALMOST 25 years after it ended, the popular gritty drama is being remade into a new series set in a detention centre.

Ten, which was home to the original show featuring Maggie Kirkpatrick as Joan "The Freak" Ferguson, Val Lehman as Bea Smith and Fiona Spence as Vera "Vinegar Tits" Bennett, is re-imagining the jail drama under the new name Inside Out.

Ten's programming chief David Mott hopes the new show will become a long-running series like Prisoner.

"It's a story in a detention centre about a woman who, wrongly accused, seeks her revenge."

"We're very excited about it. We've looked at Prisoner for some time now and wondered whether it's time to revive the style of that show."

Prisoner was a twice-weekly hit for Ten from 1979-86 and featured Colette Mann, Kerry Armstrong, Lynda Stoner and Sigrid Thornton in its line-up.

Set in the fictional Wentworth Detention Centre, it ran for 692 episodes and became one of Australian television's biggest exports.

Inside Out is one of many new shows Ten hopes will deliver a blow to its opposition in the ratings war.

Ten, which has the Delhi Commonwealth Games coverage, Undercover Boss, and outback factual series Keeping Up With The Joneses in its 2010 arsenal, has commissioned many new concepts to hit our screens in 2011.

The network, which has given the green light to a second season of Offspring, is also desperate to establish more franchise reality shows.