Source:  Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia), March 22, 2001 p095.
                                                                              
    Title:  TELEVISION.(Features)

Byline: GARRY MANSFIELD


The Big Picture: The Beach


(9.30pm, Two)


IN SeaChange, David Wenham played a fisherman who seldom went to sea, a
romantic who took a whole season to fall for the charms of siren Sigrid
Thornton.


In The Beach, Wenham lends his distinctive vocals as narrator of a poetic doco
about Australians' fascination with our sandy fringe.


According to the doco, 75 per cent of us live within 15 minutes of the ocean.
Well, by helicopter maybe.


It is a heady concoction of beachscapes from past and present writers,
artists, filmmakers and musicians, though some may query whether Bazza
McKenzie's Chunder in the Old Pacific Sea counts as music.


It's an artsy doco -- our first to be shot in the high-definition format --
and includes interviews with notables Les Murray and Ken Done.


One previewer says it's ``one of the best locally produced docos for years''
and, for culture vultures, maybe it is.