It begins, as all great love stories do, with a flash of boob. A 29-year-old medical student, Ashley (Harriet Dyer), is on her way to a safety seminar at the hospital when fortysomething microbrewer Gordon (Patrick Brammall) stops his car to let her cross the road. To thank him – and cheer herself up – she pulls the side of her top down briefly and goes on her way. Until, just behind her, she hears the sound of a distracted Gordon (who we are soon to learn has been single for a unicycle-buying-and-abandoning amount of time) running over an unaccompanied dog.
Before you know it, they are on the hook for a A$12,000 (£6,400) vet’s bill and Ashley has moved into Gordon’s place to take care of the dog while she looks for a house-share that will allow pets. As meet-cutes go, it’s flawless. Though only two of the eight episodes were available for review, the rest of the series looks set fair to be so, too.
Australian sitcom Colin from Accounts is the brainchild of – and scripted by – Dyer and Brammall, experienced actors who are married in real life. This is not always an advantage, as anyone who has sat through Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut or Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in Mr and Mrs Smith will tell you, but here the couple’s chemistry and confidence are as unmistakable as they are joyous.
And this is a mere bonus atop writing that manages to work in everything from fart jokes (when Ashley’s safety lecturer is bending to show them how to pick things up in the approved manner) and a vet called Yvette (who is also Gordon’s ex) through to mother-daughter sniping that hints at real difficulties beneath the superficially ordinary resentments. In between, there is the kind of robust conversation between friends and colleagues that brings every one of them instantly to life, and makes you feel as if you are among your people. It is ordinary life with all the good lines jammed closer together.
It also features something that makes you feel such a profound sense of relief that you realise how strongly you have come to brace yourself against it: Ashley is neither hot mess nor manic pixie dream girl. She is a normal 29-year-old – without everything figured out, sure, but not chaotic, not flailing, just in the kind of debt and unsatisfactory living arrangements that everyone of her generation endures, and doing perfectly well beyond that. She is suffering after a recent breakup with a doctor at work and making a bit of a fool of herself there, but fully within – ahem – relatable parameters. It’s all clearly done out of sadness, instead of the kind of mental instability we’ve been trained to accept as Main Female Lead Kookiness despite it never having been sighted in real life.
Other characters include Ashley’s hard-partying best friend, Megan, played by Emma Harvie (“Was it your party tit?” she asks when Ashley recounts the morning’s adventures. “Not even,” replies her friend. “It was the small one”). We meet Ashley’s rapturously toxic mother – whom we first encounter when she comes round to tell her a forgotten friend from primary school has been raped, but who at least helps Ashley replace Gordon’s bedside table into which she sleep-peed the night before. And we’re also treated to Gordon’s two colleagues at the brewery, Brett (Michael Logo) and Chiara (Genevieve Hegney), the latter of whom is wearily protective of her friend – “You haven’t found yourself another homeless chick, have you?” – while Brett is simply happy for him. “It was a real boob, in real life,” he says to Chiara, “that he wouldn’t ordinarily have seen. It never happens!”
If you think any of this sounds crude, cliched or effortful – that is my failure and I apologise. It is none of those things. It is unfailingly funny, honest, acute and kind, with uniformly understated but pitch-perfect performances, whether from the core cast or the secondary roles such as the doctor who is snacking – “It’s just a bickie” – as he rings Gordon to tell him to come in for a second checkup post-cancer treatment. Or the receptionist at the vets who becomes a disaffected jobsworth the moment she is not trying to extract money from vulnerable clients. Colin from Accounts is charming, but Dyer and Brammall have such an understanding of – and quiet command over – their creation that it never skates anywhere close to sentimental or emetic. As the series continues, it also promises to build into something even more rewarding than the pure comedy of its first few episodes. It’s really rather wonderful.
• Colin from Accounts aired on BBC Two and is available on BBC iPlayer in the UK. It is available to stream on Binge in Australia.
