NEWS: Funding for convict sharehouse black comedy "Bruce"!

The producer and director team behind the hit web series How to Talk Australians, Jason Byrne and Tony Rogers, return to our screens with Bruce, a dark comedy set in a share house that just happens to be a prison tent in Sydney Cove in 1788. Written by Warwick Holt and Mat Blackwell, the series will be released for online platforms. - See more at: http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/news_and_events/2015/mr_150708_multiplatform.aspx#sthash.CHrjoncX.dpuf

The producer and director team behind the hit web series How to Talk Australians, Jason Byrne and Tony Rogers, return to our screens with Bruce, a dark comedy set in a share house that just happens to be a prison tent in Sydney Cove in 1788. Written by Warwick Holt and Mat Blackwell, the series will be released for online platforms. - See more at: http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/news_and_events/2015/mr_150708_multiplatform.aspx#sthash.CHrjoncX.dpuf

For many years now, me and my dear co-writer/friend Warwick Holt have been toiling away on creating a TV show with Wilfred's co-creator and director, Tony Rogers.  The idea is, it's a modern sharehouse comedy/drama, but it's set in 1788 convict Sydney - the British occupation/invasion of the land that became Australia.  The characters have no idea they're in some grand sweeping Period Of History: they're more concerned with their own petty human existences, whose turn it is to do the dishes, who's got the most room in the prison tent, that kind of thing.  Seems like a nice little concept for a show, we think: a much needed antidote to the constant stream of stuffy puffy period dramas mainstream media seems to constantly throw our way.

Anyway.  The three of us have been working on this for years (constantly aided and abetted by the immensely supportive producer Jason Byrne), and the road has been littered with drafts, redrafts, bibles, arcs, re-redrafts, and short-lists.  We've cosied up to the right people at the right funding bodies several times, only to have them all be sacked, retire, or leave for more commerical pastures.  The cycle of almost-funding has orbited us many many times now.  But finally, finally, we have triumphed!  Look!  Look!

"The producer and director team behind the hit web series How to Talk Australians, Jason Byrne and Tony Rogers, return to our screens with Bruce, a dark comedy set in a share house that just happens to be a prison tent in Sydney Cove in 1788. Written by Warwick Holt and Mat Blackwell, the series will be released for online platforms."

The producer and director team behind the hit web series How to Talk Australians, Jason Byrne and Tony Rogers, return to our screens with Bruce, a dark comedy set in a share house that just happens to be a prison tent in Sydney Cove in 1788. Written by Warwick Holt and Mat Blackwell, the series will be released for online platforms. - See more at: http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/news_and_events/2015/mr_150708_multiplatform.aspx#sthash.CHrjoncX.dpu

The producer and director team behind the hit web series How to Talk Australians, Jason Byrne and Tony Rogers, return to our screens with Bruce, a dark comedy set i - See more at: http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/news_and_events/2015/mr_150708_multiplatform.aspx#sthash.CHrjoncX.dpuf

So currently we're heads down, arses up, and occasionally doing some writing too.  We're aiming for a September/October filming date... more news later!

Until then, please, enjoy this trailer we made a couple of years ago.  It's not quite as good as what we're working on now, I think, but it definitely gives you a feel of how the final show might work:

"Bruce" - The 2013 Trailer

And here, for all the excitement of reading that quote up above in its orginal location, hop on over to Screen Australia's official press release:

Screen Australia's Official Press Release