The parenting gig
Hit comedy series The Letdown struck a chord with its hilarious portrayal of parenthood when it premiered in 2016. The show’s star and co-creator Alison Bell tells DANIELLE MCGRANE why the timing was right for the show and where season two is going.
Alison Bell and Sarah Scheller had a feeling when they created their first TV show, The Letdown, that they were on to something.
The world felt ready for this candid look at motherhood.
“We had nothing to lose as first-time TV writers, and we identified a gap in the TV market for both of us,” Bell said.
The show follows the story of new mum Audrey (played by Bell), who starts attending a parents group. It’s a simple premise but it has connected with audiences worldwide for its honest and hilarious portrayal of that first year of parenthood.
It also happened to arrive at a time when the gender disparity across all aspects of the entertainment industry was finally being called out and the world was ready for this female-led and femaledriven story, with a complex and flawed character at the heart of it.
“We started writing this show at a time when the world started acknowledging the problem with storytelling on our screens,” Bell said.
“The writing was on the
wall. And the dominance of men in comedy was starting to be questioned and the doors were opening to this kind of stuff.”
They noticed there was a gap, particularly in how mothers and their experiences were being portrayed.
“When it first came out in Australia, there was less discourse around contemporary motherhood, less honest stuff in terms of representation on television, and that was the real driving force for Sarah and I,” she said.
“We wanted to explore things that had been neglected on our screens or had been slightly taboo.”
As first-time writers in this field, even though they could see doors were opening, they still didn’t think they would get their show on a network, let alone the ABC ( which broadcasts the show in Australia) and then Netflix, which snapped it up for the international market.
“We didn’t expect to be picked up because we were not known writers so it was a wonderful surprise when the ABC said yes, and it was again a huge surprise when Netflix said yes,” Bell said.
With all that positive momentum behind them, the pair forged ahead with the second season that’s now about to air.
The story picks up at a very relatable point, a child’s first birthday, and looks at the pressure parents now face to go all-out for this milestone.
“It’s a whole new ball game and I don’t know what precipitated it, but we certainly make fun of it in our show. And we don’t make fun of it from a distance, I’m the maniac who stays up until 3am making a cake for my kid so I make fun of it from knowledge,” Bell said.
“So that’s where we start and I’m not allowed to give away much. But we do a similar thing in series two that we did in series one, in that every parent in the parent group gets a little story and we follow everyone again.”
The second season also continues to look at the relationship between the parents, Audrey and Jeremy (Duncan Fellows).
“We track Audrey and Jeremy through the whole series and we kind of shift from it being a series about the identity crisis of parenthood to a series about negotiating family and how even when you’re out of the trenches of the first year and you’re more clear sighted, you’re constantly confronted with challenges and decisions on a daily basis that affect not just you and your partner but another human, and how to navigate that without too much damage.
“That’s pretty key to the second series,” Bell said.