andrew mcfarlane aCtor
From Play school and the sullivans to underbelly, he’s a Familiar presence.
elizabeth Wilson learns ho W Wa’s albany shaped the veteran actor.
CLOCK WISE, FROM ABOVE Baby Andrew
with sister Christina and his parents
outside their Albany home; a four-year-old
fishing for ‘gilgies’, the WA yabby; aged
five, riding Paddy the lawnmower; in the
backyard chook pen — “I used to bring
them inside to keep warm by the fire, much
to my mother’s horror and amusement!”
if you live in a household with pre-school children, you’d be
accustomed to seeing Andrew McFarlane singing and shimmying in
your lounge room. He is one of the regular presenters on ABC TV’s
perennially popular children’s program, Play School, and it’s a gig he loves.
“The best thing about it is the licence to be a very young person
again,” says the veteran actor, whose television credits over three
decades run from Matlock Police through to Underbelly.
However, it was The Sullivans that catapulted his career. It’s more
than 30 years since Andrew played the role of the tall, dark and
handsome eldest son, John Sullivan, but he is still recognised by fans.
At 57, Andrew is still tall, handsome and only slightly greying, with
a high-wattage smile that beams regularly as he recounts his early years
in Western Australia’s Albany. It was a 1950s childhood he describes
as “golden” and “unspoilt”. He loved the small community and its
characters, which, he says, helped to inform his roles in The Sullivans and
the equally enduring and popular The Flying Doctors in the late 1980s.
He grew up in a warm, loving and close-knit family where a sense
of humour was pervasive. His large extended family would leave
him abundant material to draw upon in his work, especially for
his induction into the Sullivan family. “Everything about that
family was very familiar and accessible to me. And when my dad
watched the first episode, he recognised it all. In many ways,
he thought my character was him.”
As a child, Andrew performed in concerts and did puppet shows,
“but my theatrical leanings weren’t on display in any conscious or
obvious way”. Years later, he abandoned an Arts/Law degree and was
accepted into the highly coveted National Institute of Dramatic Arts
in Sydney. He loves television and stage acting equally (“They are
both very different ways of story telling but it’s that difference that
I like”) and is currently touring with the musical Fame.
