CRECHE COURSE FOR ALL SAINTS
Source: Herald Sun
Date: March, 2002
Libby Tanner's new role as mum to baby Edie is her best yet.
Channel 7's popular drama series All Saints has encountered budget
problems, and regulars Libby Tanner and Brian Vriends are to blame.
Thanks to the co-stars of the hit series, the network has had to
enlarge the Sydney studio creche.
Maybe it's something in the Sydney water, but the child count is growing among
the All Saints team.
First it was Georgie Parker, who produced daughter Holly in October
2000. Then, last December, Libby Tanner bore her first child, Edie.
Tanner says she and partner Vriends are over the moon at being
parents.
"Edie is just wonderful, an absolute darling." Tanner says in that
familiar husky voice. "I never believed there could be anything as good as
this."
Tanner, who plays All Saints nurse Bronwyn Craig, took 2 months off
in December for the birth of Edie. Her on-screen absence is explained in
Tuesdays
storyline, when Bron tells boyfriend Ben (Vriends) that she wants to
travel overseas to see the world before they marry.
While Georgie Parker and Erik Thomson carry most of the promotional
exposure for the show, Tanners performance as Bron has given All Saints much
of its soul.
"Bron's certainly had her share of ups and downs," Tanner says,
"but
that's what makes her such a great character to play.
"Between her gambling addiction and her colourful love life, not to
mention her relationship with her father, lifes never dull"
As a youngster, the Melbourne raised Tanner was always on the move.
"Mum had this thing for doing up old houses, selling them and moving
on to another. I attended nine schools as a kid," she says.
She took up classical dancing and jazz ballet when she was seven, and
first tasted the acting bug at 16.
"The drama teacher made me audition for the role of Eliza Doolittle
(in My Fair Lady)," Tanner recalls.
"I was petrified, but I landed the role and it started me thinking
seriously about acting"
Drama studies at Preston College led to her enrolling in Ballarat
University's performing arts course in 1991.
Since graduating, Tanner has worked with the Barnstormin' Theatre
Company and amassed an impressive list of televison credits, including
Neighbourse, Bony, The man from Snowy River, Frontline, Blue Heelers and Pacific
Drive.
"Pacific Drive was a real melodrama soap with outlandish plot-lines, but we
all had a lot of fun doing it," she says.
"Above all, the public support has been terrific and it's great to bea part
of something that is as embraced as this show has been.
"But as much as I'm enjoying the role with All Saints, it's the new role of
being a mum that's giving me the most joy,"
All Saints Channel 7, Tuesday, 8.30pm