PLAY TELEVISION LAWFULLY FUNNY, FOR REAL

Law knows how to turn tragedy into comedy. The writer and creator of The Family Law made his family problems the subject of the popular TV show, which has returned for a second season.

“What we’ve made is a comedy about one of the saddest things possible. It’s a comedy about divorce,” Law said.

“I was 12 when my parents split up. It’s like a huge tear in the fabric of family and of your existence, but there’s that saying that time plus tragedy equals comedy and when you look back on those instances as an adult, as I’ve been writing the TV show, you can see the kind of grim comedy in a lot of these situations.”

The first season of the show followed the exploits of the Chinese- Australian Law family, loosely based on what Law and his family really went through.

But, as the second season lands in the present day, the writer/ creator stresses that this is not an onscreen play- by- play of his childhood and teenage years. One of the show’s central characters is Ben’s mum Jenny, played by Fiona Choi, based on Law’s real- life mother.

“The people who know real Jenny say it’s probably one of the rare instances where the onscreen version is slightly tamer than the real- life version,” he joked.

“Australian TV has been very monocultural for a really long time.

“We’re really proud of the fact that it’s the first Asian- Australian family at the centre of their own show.”