From Wentworth Prison..

I had a double bill of Wentworth Prison actors showing up during my Australian soap viewing on Monday evening and yesterday.

First, while watching Monday evening's 'first look' episode of Home and Away on Five Star, we were introduced to Debra Fowler - mother of already established characters: Eden, Levi and Abigail.

Upon seeing the new character on my screen, I thought to myself 'Ahhh.. It's Kaz Proctor!'

Proctor was one of the main characters for a few seasons of Wentworth. From memory, she was a fan and later friend of Bea Smith. Following Bea's death, Proctor eventually became the prison's 'top dog'. She too ended up killed.

The actress who played Kaz Proctor is Tammy MacIntosh. It looks like she's only going to be in the series for a short stint as she's only listed in the 'Recurring and Guest Characters' table on Wikipedia.

That could obviously change, however.

As noted, Debra Fowler is the mother of characters that are already in the soap. A similar thing happened with yesterday's Neighbours. They introduced a new Ramsay in the form of Yvette Ramsay - mother of Max (plus Saskia, who was also introduced in yesterday's ep) and estranged wife of one of the OG Ramsay family members:  Shane. 

Yvette is portrayed by Libby Tanner, who spent a few seasons of Wentworth as psychologist: Bridget Westfall. She famously had a relationship with my favourite character from the series: Franky Doyle. 

It's quite funny how those faces showed up so close together - on different soaps - and at a period in my timeline when I'm watching episodes of the original Prisoner Cell Block H series every weeknight and bumping into actors years before they became famous - in my bubble -  on Home and Away and Neighbours.

This is kind of the modern version of that notion with actors from the, and I quote this because one of the crew of the series worded it like this to me on Twitter when I first heard of Wentworth being in production and I think it sums it up perfectly, 'reimagining of the original Prisoner series' popping up on Home and Away and Neighbours.