DELVING UNDER THE SHEETS
TURMOIL ON AND OFF THE SCREEN FINALLY COMES TOGETHER IN THE SECOND SERIES OF FIVE BEDROOMS
Still lambasted for killing off Dr Patrick Reid in season 4 of the much-loved Offspring, which devastated fans across Australia, writers Michael Lucas and Christine Bartlett hint there’s similar heartbreak to come in the second instalment of their latest drama, Five Bedrooms.
“I hope we don’t upset you,” Lucas cryptically says, laughing when I tell him I’ve managed to forgive him for Patrick’s tragic death.
“I might remind you of that. There’s a rollercoaster of emotions in this second season.”
That rollercoaster of emotions was not restricted to on-screen, with filming on the second series shut down as the first wave of Covid swept the entire world.
We also laugh as we recall our first chat on set in February 2020 before the world irrevocably changed. Then our biggest complaint was Melbourne’s unseasonably freezing weather and pouring rain which meant we were huddling under a makeshift cover on a suburban street as we observed Liz (Kat Stewart) bump into her ex-husband Stuart (Rodger Corser, who was a surprise addition to the cast).
Roy Joseph, who plays plastic surgeon Harry, can barely remember those simpler pre-Covid times.
“I feel like I was a different version of myself,” he shares.
“I was a child compared to now, it really feels like we have all aged, and I don’t mean to say I’ve been super negatively affected in the way some people are. I’ve been able to work.
“I just think the world, obviously, is completely different having everything rattled.”
The second season also became a very different version of itself. Filming first stopped as production was right in the thick of the story. Border closures and Covid protocols meant a swift and hectic rewrite when the show – one of the first in Australia to get the green light – got back to business. There was a 72-hour period where Lucas or Bartlett barely slept. The writing duo, who have also worked together on hits such as political drama Party Trick, desperately adjusting scenes, including giving Corser’s character a bigger role than initially planned.
“If I’m honest, I think I sometimes do my best writing when there’s a sudden development of emergency,” Lucas admits. “There’s something about the adrenaline that can sometimes lead to some brilliant ideas.
“I’m not the kind of writer who spends ages labouring over something and considers it unassailable and perfect. I sometimes like the creative challenge of this is what we’ve got to work with and how do we make the best possible thing.”
Script rewrites were not the only curve balls thrown their way. Even the way they were able to film had to change.
“The most hilarious one for me was the specific size of rooms and the number of people allowed in them. None of the bedrooms were big enough,” Lucas says.
“And early on, we had all five in a car and we really loved that and we had big plans for a lot more. But you couldn’t squash them all in.”
Bartlett adds: “Also it being a rom-com we had a lot of passionate scenes planned – there’s a lot in the first episode, but then we had to become creative.
“I can say now with the benefit of hindsight it was quite a good creative challenge to see if we could take the restrictions and come up with something even better.”
The result is out now as all eight episodes drop on to their new home on streaming service Paramount+. There’s no hint of the turmoil behind the scenes as we see the surrogate family – Liz (Stewart), Harry (Joseph), Ben (Stephen Peacocke), Heather (Doris Younane) and Ainslie (Katie Robertson) – having lost their first communal
home, leaping back into the property market. The next best option is advertised as five bedrooms, but really, it’s four bedrooms and a shed and will only work if they attempt a renovation and if Ben and Heather decide to take the plunge, share a room and experiment with life as an actual couple. With Ainsley’s pregnancy advancing and time ticking, they’ve got to make a decision fast.
Robertson jokes she went full method acting – a la Daniel Day-Lewis – for her second time as the eternal optimist Ainslie. The week she learned she was pregnant with her son George, she was shooting the scenes where her on-screen alter ego also discovers she was in the family way. While Ainslie was glowing, radiant and sleeping like a baby – “just a mother nature goddess”, Robertson was the complete opposite.
“I was a grumpy whale,” she confesses. Although she concedes Ainslie deserved an easy pregnancy, given she’s pregnant to the hapless Lachlan (Hugh Sheridan) who has also fathered a child with his on-again, off-again wife Mel (Kate Jenkinson).
It was a completely life-changing year for the 31-year-old. She married her partner – actor and garlic farmer Jesse Dugan – in her home state of Tasmania in February. All of the close-knit cast was invited and as many who could make it were there to celebrate.
George was born in November, 2019, and it was a huge shock to the system “in all of the ways”. “Not only becoming new parents and juggling working with a newborn, but negotiating all of that through Covid and the uncertainty,” Robertson says.
“But, you know what, we look back at that time and think we were gifted that. It was just the three of us in our little bubble getting to know our new family member. There was something quite peaceful.”
She was fearful the series would be abandoned in those early, uncertain days.
“I’m always scared – unreasonably so – so when shutdown happened I was waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and say ‘sorry, the dream’s over’,” Robertson shares.
“But I have so much faith in our producers – they are the ones you want captaining your ship through a storm.
“But, really, we had to finish it – there was far too much on the line to just drop it. I think we produced something special.”
She needn’t have worried. The series has been greenlit for its third season this week. Filming is already under way in Melbourne and is again riding the rollercoaster of Victoria’s fifth and sixth lockdowns.
“When we reconvened for season 3, I made this speech that we really had our work cut out for us in season 2 and how we really pulled it all together and how I was hoping we didn’t have to worry about Covid this time and just enjoy ourselves,” Lucas shares.
“I totally jinxed us, didn’t I? I was going through with the line producer what we’d do if there was another outbreak in Melbourne – I was like ‘we’ve handled it before and we’d handle it again’. She said ‘what if there was an outbreak in Sydney?’ and I was honestly all like ‘Oh, I don’t think so’. Yes, I am really eating those words now.”
It’s a standing belief among the cast that Five Bedrooms will stretch to at least 10 seasons. So, are they a little worried every time they joyfully meet up for new series, there will be a Covid outbreak?
“Honestly, I mean who knows?,” Joseph muses. “I mean it does sort of look like any time we go to start production, there is going to be an outbreak.
“But, as tough as it can be. It’s just amazing to get to do it and to be working.”
He’s excited about the third time as the kind-hearted, cautious Harry, who had to come out to his incredibly traditional and over-involved Indian mother in the first series and gets to explore a whole new side of himself in the second. He’s also over the moon about being on a streaming service.
Five Bedrooms, streaming now, Paramount+