In 1992, reality TV was unknown in Australia. When Sylvania Waters premiered that year, audiences tuned in out of curiosity – and stayed to gawp, to laugh and to judge. The show centred on a family in an affluent Sydney suburb, particularly on Noeline Donaher and her partner Laurie, who ran a successful business together but were mainly depicted rowing, boozing, smoking, and sailing their boat, the Blasé.

Although such naivety is barely credible in the 2020s, Noeline and her family had no idea that the five months of footage shot in their home would be cut into 12 episodes carefully edited for maximum drama, playing up the couple’s drinking and their friction with Noeline’s eldest son, who was struggling financially with his pregnant girlfriend. Experiencing the cruel reactions as the program aired was traumatic (Noeline claimed it drove her to the brink of suicide), and when it was over the family went on a number of talk shows to tell their side of the story; Noeline also wrote a book, The Sylvania Waters Diary.

During their 1992 appearance on The Midday Show, we see some clips from Sylvania Waters. In the opening moments of the first episode, Noeline’s teenage son, Michael, narrates an introduction over syrupy strings that evoke the idyllic domestic scenes of 1950s commercials. There is a cut to Noeline, who warns us, ‘You’re going to see me as I am – as me. I’m me! I can’t be nice, and I can’t be Joan Collins … I’m me.’ Later on in the episode, there is a heated spat between her and Laurie. Noeline threatens to pack her bags, shouting, ‘There’s more drama living in this house than living out of it!’ – immediately framed by the show as a brassy loudmouth.

In this appearance on The Midday Show, one of their first after Sylvania Waters ended, Noeline, Laurie and Michael stride onto the stage to ‘The Toreador’s Song’ from Carmen, establishing a triumphal air, and despite Noeline’s vulnerability as she describes her ordeal, their mood is defiant. She would go on to record a cover of the Walker Brothers’ 'No Regrets'; the clip showed her in a sapphire ballgown, waltzing with Laurie by the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

During the Midday Show appearance, Noeline, shown crying on Hard Copy, says, ‘I don’t think there’s anything else that could be written about me in my life. Except, perhaps, the day I die.’ When she did die, in 2023, it took a year for the media to notice. In only three decades, reality TV had so swamped the world that her notoriety had vanished without a trace.

Notes by Rose Mulready