Source : PERTHNOW NEWS
WA-born actor Lucy Durack is a die-hard Dockers fan. So when comedy powerhouses Robin Butler and Wayne Hope — the team behind Upper Middle Bogan, Little Lunch and Dear Life — offered her a role in a show packed with savage jokes about the West Coast Eagles, she jumped at the chance.
“When I read the script, there was a comment on The Eagles, and I was sold,” she laughs.
“I was like, ‘Oh my god, they are so right!’”
Durack stars as Angela Lipscombe, head of marketing for the fictitious Great Southern Football Club in ABC’s new workplace comedy, Ground Up.
The show stars Sam Pang as AFL official Hugh Shen, who has been dispatched to the Apple Isle to help set up Tasmania’s first AFL team.
Sound familiar?
If you’ve been following the news, you’ll know this is being done for real: the real life Tasmania Devils AFL team began competing in the VFL (Victorian Football League) competition in March this year, ahead of their AFL debut in 2028.
The establishment of the Devils — and the accompanying billion-dollar stadium being built to facilitate them — has been making headlines for a while now, and as Ground Up’s creator, Gary McCaffrie explains, he knew it was ripe for satire.
“For a country that is so obsessed with sport we’ve made surprisingly few films and TV shows about it,” he says.
“So being a resident of Tasmania, a lifelong supporter of an Australian Rules football club, and witnessing first-hand the split in the community over the entry of a Tasmanian team in the AFL being contingent on the building of a stadium, I figured this might be fertile ground to explore.”
In the series Pang’s character is tasked with working everything out “from the ground up”, (hence the title) with a brand new team in Tassie — think Utopia, but if that ABC favourite was set at an AFL club.
Durack co-stars as one of Hugh’s colleagues, and as she explains, while the series is entirely fictional, there’s bound to be a degree of reality in this blurred-lines satire.
“I would love to talk to someone who is actually involved in (setting up the team), because I do feel like there’s got to be a crossover,” she laughs.
A huge AFL fan — “I feel like being from WA, you can’t NOT be,”— she jumped at the chance to film the six-part series in her new hometown of Melbourne, and on location in Tasmania.
“Gary is a mad football fan and he infused it with so much love for the game,” she explains.
“I think it means that it never punches down — it has a lot of love for AFL in it.
“Essentially, it is a workplace comedy but around these very specific parameters.”
Every workplace comedy needs a boss, and Pang, in his first proper acting role, is great as ambitious Hugh, who is using this new job in Tassie as a stepping stone to move up the ladder and eventually become CEO of the AFL — that is if his boss, current AFL CEO Alistair Penfold (Josh McConville), doesn’t sabotage his efforts first.
“It’s Sam’s first acting job, and he is so good in it,” Durack says.
“(He plays it) like sort of a satirical Ted Lasso.
“His character is trying so hard, but he is so up against it, and Hugh really has the same ‘Sam Pang’ dry sense of humour about him, which is delightful, and so, kind of, comforting.
“Sam is like that in real life — he is such a team player.
“(Good sets) really come from the top, so having Sam, Robin and Wayne there made it a completely joyous experience.”
Along with Durack, there’s a stellar ensemble cast including Colin From Accounts’ Emma Harvie, Marg Downey, comedian Dylan Murphy, Christie Whelan Brown, Tegan Higginbotham, Toby Truslove and Dave Thornton.
“It was such a fun show to be a part of,” Durack says
“When you’ve got Marg Downey — she is just such a national treasure, I love her and I grew up watching her on Full Frontal — she has just got this great playfulness to her . . .
“And Emma Harvie — her and Sam lead the show, and they are both very fun, but they both sort of have to play it straight.
“They tread that line in such a genius way.”
