australian television information archive

Rites of passage

Abe Forsythe was getting desperate when the script for Tripping Over landed in his hands. The young actor hadn't worked since the miniseries Mary Bryant, shot in 2004, and he'd just auditioned unsuccessfully for a tampon commercial. "I was trying to get my agent to bargain with them to see me again," he says. Such is an actor's life - the lows are low.

But the highs are high. He did much better with the Tripping Over audition and suddenly was on his way to Bangkok and London to work on an Australian-British co-production with excellent credentials.

Channel Ten's new six-part series follows the fortunes of five twentysomethings as they embark on their first big overseas trip. Tamsin, Lizzie and Callum are Brits travelling to Sydney, while Nic (Forsyth) and his mate Ned (Daniel MacPherson from The Bill and Neighbours) are Australians heading for London.

The adventure begins when they all meet up on a Bangkok stopover with the usual elements: Mekong whiskey shots, all-night clubbing and dodgy noodles. Then, out of the blue, an accident leaves the group shaken, bonding them in unexpected ways.

"It's about moments in your life that change you," writer Andrea Denholm says. "At the time, you don't realise it's significant but they are moments that trip you up, big and small."

Even from its inception, Tripping Over had international connections. The idea was concocted by Denholm and Andrew Knight, who worked together on SeaChange, with Englishman Mike Bullen, who wrote the series Cold Feet. "We definitely wanted to write a show that was designed for two territories, not just an Australian market," Denholm says.

Knight has spent 25 years writing and producing film and television, including After the Deluge, CrashBurn and My Brother Jack. Things have changed since his travelling days as a hippie, which, he says, "involved food poisoning and malaria and whatever was going at the time all across Asia. You left home with no sense of when you'd be back."

Now backpackers have itineraries, carry mobile phones and keep in touch with email. "We wanted to create the sense of a slightly compressed world, where the consequences of a conversation in England might be played out in Australia," Knight says.

When he and Denholm went to England seeking a co-producer, Britain's Channel Five was quick to jump on board, impressed by the script. It's more than a financial deal, however. "We've got a real combination of English and Australian talent," Denholm says. As well as the mix of actors and writers, the director's chair is shared by Englishman Sam Miller (This Life, Spooks) and Australian Ian Watson (SeaChange, Blackjack).

The series has also nabbed some impressive names to play the older generation, including Rebecca Gibney, Lisa McCune and Paul McGann (Dr Who, Hornblower, Withnail and I), whose characters are facing the results of decisions made when they were young and fancy-free.

McGann was last in Australia shooting Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned - not, one gathers, a career highlight. On the Tripping Over set in Melbourne, just after wrapping his last scene, he's more enthusiastic about this project. "TV is TV but every now and again something a bit grown up comes along," he says. "It's been uncommonly good and enjoyable, the mixture of the material and people."

Forsythe loved the script as soon as he read it.

"It's one of the few things I've encountered, especially in this country, where they're unpredictable and not TV-safe characters," he says. This is evident even from a rough-cut preview tape - the characters are rude and funny, grumpy and insecure, they let each other down and have sex with the wrong people. And that's just the older generation.

"We're too old to mess around writing characters who are likeable and sweet the whole time," Knight says. "Television usually demands when you write a character that they be consistent throughout. The one thing I know about most people is they're not consistent, they have good days and bad days. We have scenes where our characters behave appallingly."

One of the challenges for Denholm and Knight (who, his biography says, was "born in the Paleozoic era") was writing younger characters. They seem to have got it right. Knight says it was wonderful to see the five main young actors meet in a Bangkok hotel for a script reading. "The rain was belting down outside, there was a big storm coming over and it was the first time we'd seen them together reading through the stuff - it was as electric as the storm outside."

Forsythe returns the compliment. "It's fantastic to play someone grappling with the inconsistency of life," he says of a role surely not a million miles away from his own experiences. Not only has Tripping Over provided him a much-needed pay cheque, it has also provided a reality check. "I certainly didn't realise until recently it's a really important time of life, being in your mid-20s, because you kind of don't realise you have to make important decisions that could affect the rest of your life. That's what all this is about."

Tripping Over begins on Ten on Wednesday at 8.30pm.

By Jacqui Taffel
October 23, 2006
Sydney Morning Herald