Celia Pacquola and Luke McGregor.
Celia Pacquola says buying a whiteboard was the best decision she has ever made as she prepares to shoot Rosehaven – the ABC comedy series she wrote and created with Luke McGregor.
“It was only like a hundred bucks from Officeworks and it flips, it’s the greatest,” she tells IF.
The whiteboard in question, despite making the comment in jest, was how Pacquola and fellow comedian McGregor mapped out their new eight-part comedy series, which starts filming on Monday in Geeveston, Tasmania
The series, which also stars McGregor (Utopia, It’s a Date, Luke Warm Sex) and Pacquola (The Beautiful Lie, Utopia, Laid) was cooked up while both were on tour for their various comedy shows.
“Luke McGregor and I knew each other from standup but became really close friends from filming Utopia seasons 1 and 2,” she says.
“There was a lot of in-between-filming… talking shit and realising that we get along and find each other quite funny.
“We thought we would quite like to try and write something together. So we had a bunch of ideas that we sort of pitched. This one in particular came together from a base of Luke coming from Tasmania and a background of real estate and me coming from a small country town.
“So it was sort of a combination of those two ideas and above all of that it’s just a buddy comedy really – characters that Luke and I feel really confident with and us just having fun and being silly in what is we think a really interesting backdrop.”
The series, which will screen in the second half of 2016, is a Guesswork Television production.
It is produced by Andrew Walker and co-produced by Fiona McConaghy.
The executive producer is Kevin Whyte and the ABC executive producers are Rick Kalowski and Brett Sleigh.
Tasmanian actors have scored many of the key roles including the AACTA and AFI-award nominee Kris McQuade (The Kettering Incident, Wentworth, Killing Time), Katie Robertson (The Kettering Incident, Wanted) and 87 year-old Noela Foxcroft in her first on-going television series role.
They will be joined by David Quirk (Please Like Me, Sammy J and Randy in Rickett’s Lane, Problems), Sam Cotton (The Family Law) and Kim Knuckey (Peter Allen – Not The Boy Next Door, Wonderland).
Pacquola has just moved to Tasmania after hosting the Melbourne Comedy Festival Oxfam Gala – marking 10 years since her stand-up debut at the Raw Comedy competition.
“I only did six nights at the comedy festival but I was in the comedy theatre, which was by far the largest room I have ever played an hour to,” she says.
“It’s like almost a thousand seats and it was insanity to be playing a room that big and I got to host the gala so it was a huge year for me in many ways, but also a lot different, because I’m not used to not being there for the full festival and really running the show every night.
“It was nice timing. I don’t know why 10 feels so satisfying.”
Celia Pacquola in Working Dog's Utopia.
Pacquola, from the hills of Yarra Glen in Victoria, said there was a range of ideas thrown up before settling on Rosehaven.
“This was maybe the fourth idea that we came up with, but it’s the one we liked the most,” she says.
“It was sort of good to go through the process of trying on a few ideas. There were ideas in there with haunted towns and vampires and us as a married couple, we really went all over the place before we settled on this one that felt right.
“From there it was a lot of talking. We were both eager to get to writing the jokes. But we have realised through this process there’s a lot more sitting down and discussing back story and structure and arcs and that type of stuff.
“But I bought a whiteboard – that was the first step. I bought a white board, I put in my flat and there was a lot of discussion, which paid off in the long run. So when we got to the bit when we could just write jokes we had done all the groundwork, so it was easier.
“The whiteboard was the best decision that I have ever made because there are so many details and so much change and so many characters. It’s a whole town. Just to try and keep tabs on people – I found the whiteboard approach was very useful. Whereas Luke prefers spreasheets, just if you’re wondering, Luke loves a spreadsheet.”
In the series, McGregor plays Daniel McCallum, a Tasmanian living on the Mainland, who returns to his hometown of Rosehaven, to take over his family’s troubled real estate business.
He is shocked when his best (Melbourne) friend Emma (Pacquola) joins him, on the run from a marriage that didn’t make it past the honeymoon.
Kris McQuade co-stars as Daniel’s mother and Rosehaven Real Estate Agent, Barbara McCallum and Katie Robertson will play Grace, the town doctor.
Pacquola said the writing process presented few problems.
“At the core of it we get along and we trust each other’s comedy instincts, so we could always have a discussion about why we thought something was funny or why we thought something should be kept in and we had Michael Lucas as our script editor who was really helpful with any sort of dramatic stuff or structural stuff that we don’t have the experience with.
“But as a general day-to-day rule we had a fun time. It was mainly him managing my moods and me managing his OCD.
“I mean who knows, once we start shooting we may have a complete meltdown and have separate trailers. But so far we have got away with it and are still friends, amazingly.”
Pacquola said there was a lot more pressure than doing a stand-up show.
“With a stand up show it’s just you. You’re the one losing money. If it’s a flop, it’s just on you. This feels like a lot more pressure because there are people giving up their time and who are working on this and it’s going to be on their resume and I really want it to be good for them as well as us. I feel like there is more pressure on this. But at the same time because it’s the first time it’s like look ‘I have no idea how it’s going to come out’.
“We start filming on Monday so that will make it super real. Already, it’s odd coming into the office and there’s a lot of props strewn around that we have written – that we had just written as a dumb joke in a room and now someone has had to go out and find that and buy those things. I think Monday it’ll sink in when action is called for the first time.”
Jonathan Brough (The Family Law, Sammy J & Randy In Rickett’s Lane, It’s A Date, The Time Of Our Lives) will direct seven of the eight episodes, whilst Hobart based director Shaun Wilson (Noirhouse) will make his long form television directorial debut.
While rural Australia is often depicted as a dusty, surnburnt furnace, Rosehaven will try to show another side of the country.
“We just really think its beautiful scenery that isn’t seen that much,” Pacquola says.
“It’s sort of a big middle earth. It’s very green and hilly and looks cold. We like the idea that it’s a television show that’s set in rural Australia that isn’t desert. Usually when you think of country Australia you think of dry and hot. We just thought it was beautiful scenery that maybe hasn’t been seen very much on TV and Luke’s parents live here so it’s win-win.
After already playing a real estate agent on two occasions, the setting was also familiar territory.
“The real estate thing we like for two reasons: One it’s close to Luke’s heart because his parents run a real estate agency in Tasmania, but also it’s a setting that allows you to go directly into people’s homes and in a small town everyone has had at least one dealing with the real estate.
“It just gave us a real reason to meet characters in their intimate settings. We just thought it was really rich for comedy.”
Tasmanian actors have also been cast in over 80 per cent of the sixty roles in the series.
As far as development processes go, Pacquola says Rosehaven was rather painless.
“We have got a really great team. Andy Walker our producer is excellent. I was lucky to meet him when I did a show called Laid years and years ago.
“All of the hard work seems to be not in front of our eyes. It seems to be happening. It seems like everyone is in a good mood, everyone is excited, but it’s the first time I have done it so maybe that’s just what it always feels like. Maybe behind closed doors they are hating it.
“It feels like people are enjoying working in Tasmania. A lot of the cast and crew are from here, which is the idea. So they’re excited that something is being made here and people who from out of town are excited to get a change of scenery and a move to Hobart.
“It seems like pretty positive vibes. And the idea is, you know, hopefully would like this to be something that goes on past one season. I’m sure everyone says that. But we would really like to set up something in Tasmania that could keep generating work.”
Despite being seemingly everywhere this year, Pacquola says her career has been a slow build.
"Acting popped up whilst I was doing stand up and then I went back to stand up. Laid was a show I did ages ago and then I did a cameo on Librarians. They were always like six months apart it was never just out of nowhere doing everything.
“Every time I have got a new job, it’s been a challenge, but just enough of a challenge past the last one I did that it feels like I can manage it, if that makes sense.”
“If I never get another job again I’ll be disappointed but at the same time I have had a really good run. I got to work with Working Dog, which I loved and then I got to do Beautiful Lie, which is a drama. So I got to do a drama where I get to slam a door in a man’s face and yell at him and cry. I’ve been very lucky.”
She says her favourite character so far has been Nat in Utopia.
“The poor thing is so downtrodden. I’d feel bad for her if she was a real person and had that life. But it will be interesting because this character in Rosehaven is probably the closest to me as a real person.
While creating your own show is a major step for a comedian, Pacquola, is modest about the impact the show will have on her career.
“I don’t know if it’s a turning point, I don’t know if it will change everything, but for me it’s definitely a milestone in that it’s something I’d never imagined as something I would do let alone getting it to this point that it’s actually being made. I’m not expecting it to change everything, but it will definitely be a 'before and after this' – just for me.
After juggling a busy schedule across the creative spectrum, Pacquola is now happy to be able to focus on one thing.
“It’s actually really nice to be able to just reply to emails: ‘Nope, sorry can’t… sorry busy. I don’t want to look back at this time and say I wish I’d just dedicated all of my time to it.. I’ve been doing a lot of other things but right now I just want to focus and give it everything I have got.”