Love Child

Australia’s favourite drama, Love Child, is returning for a fourth season next week.

 
Viewers will welcome back their favourites, including multiple Logie Award-winner Jessica Marais (Dr Joan Millar), Mandy McElhinney (Matron), Miranda Tapsell (Martha), Harriet Dyer (Patty), Sophie Hensser (Viv) and Andrew Ryan (Dr Simon Bowditch).

Joining the cast this season is world-renowned recording artist Ronan Keating (Dr Lawrence Faber), along with Dan Hamill (Dr Andrew Patterson), Danielle Catanzariti (Elena), Darcie Irwin-Simpson (Rita), Sophia Forrest (Debbie) and Matt Day (Father Ross).

It’s 1972 and eight months since we last saw Dr Joan Miller (Marais), who is now heavily pregnant and fighting for her right to continue her career after the birth of her child. But she encounters a major obstacle in the form of charismatic Dr Andrew Patterson (Hamill), a Vietnam veteran and her new boss at Kings Cross General Hospital.

Matron’s control of Stanton House is tested by three pregnant teens that play havoc with the rules: Debbie (Sophia Forrest), a hell-raiser from a privileged family; Elena (Danielle Catanzariti), an Italian migrant whose pregnancy threatens the safety of her relatives in Australia and Italy and Rita (Darcie Irwin-Simpson), a novice nun who has a mysterious “immaculate conception”, just what is the mother of this miracle child hiding?

Meanwhile, the older Stanton House girls embrace the opportunities and challenges of life in 1970s Kings Cross. Patty is brimming in the success of her crèche, Martha forges a career in the hospital while revelling in her new role as a doctor’s wife, and Viv is a respected nurse determined to buck the system.

This series will also see a shocking mistake and cover-up by Matron that threatens to destroy lives and careers. How long can she carry on with the burden of this secret?