User Reviews

After roles in harry potter and jame and the giant peach, miriam margolyes goes touring around australia. Her mission is to find out what the aussie dream is. And are people finding it. First stop, a high end real estate agent near sydney. Then westward, to orange and trundle. Much more down to earth, every day people. Lots of cussing, so not for the kiddies! She speaks her mind. On to visit with people of aboriginal ancestry. Beautiful, varied landscapes and scenery. Nhill, with ka-ren people from vietnam. Alice springs. Darwin. Really good! We hear some quite touching stories of aussies, some are finding that dream, and some are not. The funny thing about having only one person appear in the cast list is that it made adding in a quote by miriam quite easy! There was no doubt about to whom I should credit the line! Really interesting stuff. Currently showing on the netflix...

Miriam the adventurer! In her mid 70s, she's full of life, curiosity, get up & go, all while remaining mellow and non judgmental. I felt again in my early 20s when my bestie & I would rent camper trucks and head out to a new locale. Hop along for a tour of the great down under. Miriam's POV is so comfortable as she spends time with lifelong residents Dow under offering a unique deeper dive into lifestyles and celebratory events of local Aussies the viewer would likely never see if visiting as a tourist. Offering 3 episodes, the first asks "What's the Australian Dream?". My favorite was the second episode when Miriam truly mixes it up with all walks of life from successful ranchers to a local drag show. Third episode of this in depth 1 month exploration asks what is "Australian Lucky" can you own Australian Lucky as both a "Have" & a "Have Not"? Looking forward to her next Aussie adventure. .

Miriam Margolyes: Almost Australian is a charming series about connection, culture, and country. Miriam is a delightfully no-nonsense woman who does not shy away from sharing her opinions. This personality type is understandably not universally-appealing but I find her authenticity extremely refreshing. Miriam has the moxie of a New Yorker and the refined speech of a Proper British Lady. In short, I was charmed. The stories of the people Miriam connects with on her travels are the heart of this docu-travel series. The audience travels with her as she forges meaningful bonds with various communities. She interviews many people from many different walks of life and always keeps and open mind and kind heart. The message is simple, maybe even at times reductive. However, this is an easy bump to navigate through the 3 episodes because of the level of genuine connection and engagement Miriam is engaging with the real people she meets along her journey. Finally, I was having a bad day today and watching this series helped make it just a little bit better. Overall score 8/10, highly recommend.

I couldn't believe the initial 6 reviews entered for this series. It appears that there was a contest to see who could sling the most mud the quickest. Their political and cultural biases were easily apparent. It's a shame that they think this is the best forum to express their bitterness and lack of empathy.

Unfortunately, I've only seen the first episode. I really prefer to watch the whole series before rating or commenting, but the thought of people turning away from this brilliant show due to the unfairly negative scores prompted me to do so right away.

I'm familiar with with Miriam from the Miss Fischer series and several movies, so her celebrity enticed me to tune in, as well as being a fan of Australian movies & culture. But this was much more than a travelogue. Yes, she does cover a lot of ground (20,000 km in the first show), but it's her interaction with people that is really enlightening and endearing.

Don't know how they uncovered many of the subjects, but all are gems. Real people telling their stories as only they can. I don't care if they're representative or not; it's their individuality that matters. Dare anyone to watch this without misting up, unless you're one of those heartless sort, like the Original Six I mentioned earlier.

I find Miriam's personality to be very funny & very honest. Maybe some don't care for those attributes. I am looking forward to watching the remaining episodes, and I hope to track down some of the other series she's hosted.

Why they would have a female curmudgeon such as this woman take an amazing adventure across Australia I will never understand !?! This is an incredibly bitter woman who seems to take little pleasure in anything much outside her own comfort and this is possibly the worst travel documentary I could think of watching. There are many sad parts of any culture which need light shed on them, but this is a woman actively seeking the bitterness and contempt that seems to excite her very being. Shame on you Netflix for wasting your money on this series. I never paid this actor much attention in Harry Potter, but now I am just irritated that a woman of professed detest of children made money in a movie aimed at children...well, I think says a lot for her credibility....if I could give a minus review I would. -5.

This show is much more about the self-important opinions of the presenter than it is about Australia. She spends much of the time interviewing indigenous people in Australia about wrongs of the past, but she doesn't happen to mention that she has accepted the "honor" of Officer of the British Empire (OBE). What hypocrisy! I invite you to look up the much more talented and famous people from the last century who REJECTED that so-called honor. She lectures a kid on a drought-stricken farm about global warming and decries the mine that produced the materials that built her house. She seems feel privileged to portray her opinions and values as superior to what presumably is the "typical" Australian. I'm disappointed that I didn't learn more about Australia.

I love Miriam. But - this is not great. Setting out to capture Australia she really missed the mark. From rural NSW to Melbourne, Bondi, Alice, Darwin, and to finish on the Gold Coast (one of the worst places in the world!, made for Japanese tourists).

I was really disappointed. This ISN'T the true Australia- well.... She had some little gems mixed in but most of it was crap. A few Ockers here and there, farmers dealing with drought. Obviously this was filmed and distributed before Lidia Thorpe went totally feral, dragging the Aboriginal flag through mud recently when police tried to arrest her for breaching the peace, or her arrest outside a Sydney strip club, or her swearing in Parliament. They're changing Parilimentary process because of Lidia's behaviour so the can be dismissed instantly for undignified, disgusting behaviour. I also thought it was a bit weird for an old lesbian to be perving at her teenage daughter on the tranpoline. She literally missed half the country!!! This is in no way anywhere close to a true representation of Australia. The token remote Aboriginals was quite exploitative. The violence in the Alice was totally missed out. The alcohol problem in the Territory wasn't mentioned. She/the producers picked bits of Australia that showed a tiny part of our country and not very well at that. It's a great shame, as I expected better from such an intelligent woman. Please don't think this is a true representation of Australia, it really isn't. 🙄

Almost Australian

Miriam does a really good job but the whole thing does seem overly contrived. Seeming hellbent on knocking down the country that has made such strides forward in recent years.

The outdated stereotyping of Australian men, the plight of aboriginals and dwelling on the hard cases and the scoffing at a wholesome women's club I found distasteful.

We all know lovies should never stray into politics because their very professions require them to adopt a victim mentality to be effected actors. Usually they are all left of Marx without the insight that the capitalist market produces the income for the welfare state and they work outside any market, and communism is a busted flush.

Miriam needs to stick to observational comedy and not investigative journalism.

This was certainly not her finest hour but I still enjoyed it.

This show is awful. It's just some grouchy old lady who is mean to people she meets , criticizes things and people she doesn't understand; and thinks she's funny when she really just has a naive and predictably canned world outlook. She acts as though she's above everyone. No one needed to see her sit on the toilet. Overall this is boring, frustrating and disappointing. It's a shame she didn't do a better job discovering Australia with an open mind. I am not sure why anyone would think her identity politics schtick is funny. I never write reviews but was prompted to by how incredibly self absorbed and out of touch she was. She is downright rude to strangers she meets along the way. Sad.

Remarkably dull, shallow series of a narrow minded woman demonstrating her prejudices scene after scene as she tries to force her uninformed generalizations and insensitivities on real-life hard working humans who have generously agreed to interact with her on camera.

I continued watching as I hoped for her to show some redemption or at the very least some inkling of humour, alas it wasn't forthcoming. Her self-proclaimed insights were not. Remarkable that this series was aired let alone filmed.

The side characters were of course the stars of the show, more educated worldly and informed than the narrow minded dullard narrator who seems to not have stepped outside her home/tv studio in three decades.