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Outlandish humour may shock some

Princess Pictures' Laura Waters says a new gay sci-fi comedy may shock some viewers, but at its heart is a likeable group of friends.

If anyone knows about producing fearless content it is Laura Waters.

Her company Princess Pictures has been responsible for Summer Heights High, We Can Be Heroes, John Safran’s Race Relations, The Ball and the Peter Helliar film I Love You, Too.

This year she has at least two high profile projects to air on the ABC: Chris Lilley’s Angry Boys and Outland, a 6 part series about a misfit group of gay sci-fi devotees who gather for weekly meetings.

Outland has already begun attracting controversy, with concerns from the gay community about re-enforcing gay stereotypes. And it hasn’t even finished production yet.

Waters, who is no stranger to controversy, says there will be more to come but probably from more conservative viewers.

“There are things that happen in it that have not happened on television,” she hints.

“It’s mostly politically incorrect stuff. There’s a lot of frank, gay-life stuff. But I think because it’s truthful it’s fine. It will probably be quite confronting for a lot of people, but hopefully a bit confusing, because you’ll think ‘Oh no, I get but I don’t normally hear that being talked about on television.'”

The series is created by John Richards and Adam Richard (pictured), both of whom have a long affiliation with Melbourne’s gay scene.

Richard features in the cast alongside Christine Anu, Ben Gerrard, Paul Ireland, and Toby Truslove.

Waters says despite the comedy’s upfront nature at its heart are a group of likeable friends. The project was pitched to her, several times, by the two Richard/s.

“I was making Summer Heights High and proposals kept coming in constantly and I just went ‘I’m too busy I can’t do it,’ and they just kept coming back and back. During the edit of Summer Heights High I thought, ‘Alright I’ll look at it,’ because they had made a Pilot,” she says.

“I looked at it thinking, ‘I want to hate it so I don’t have to work on it.’ And I watched it and it just stuck with me the whole weekend. I just wanted to hang out with that group.

“So if after the whole weekend I just really wanted to hang out with those people then probably a television audience was going to want hang out with those people and there is a real opportunity to do something.”

She likens the group dynamic to “an edgy gay science-fiction version of Friends.”

“It’s about the way a group is formed and how you form relationships with people almost against your will sometimes, because of things you have in common or the places that you find yourself.”

Princess Pictures now has a formidable pedigree in independent comedy. Waters (who declines to discuss Angry Boys) acknowledges she has a reputation for nurturing creative people, whether in comedy or documentary, and leans heavily to work that has both a good sense of humour and truth.

“I think with any writing probably the most important thing is to have a kind of meter on when things are ringing true and when they are not. That’s probably more about the skill of the writers and necessarily the world they come from. It’s not a given that because they come from a certain walk of life that they write well.

“But these guys have done that incredibly well and it’s really quite biting, funny and I think truthful.

“I’m in a really lucky position because I never cared that much about having a successful production company. I just wanted to be able to have control and responsibility for great projects that I thought would be worth doing. So I’ve never worried so much about Princess Pictures as a company, but always been excited by whatever it is that we make. If there was not something exciting to make then I would just stop making stuff and do something else,” she explains.

“Now we have relationships with people who we’ve made things with before. And we want to keep making things with them and hopefully vice versa. So as long as that’s exciting then we’ll keep going.”

When TV Tonight recently visited an Outland shoot, Adam Richard was donning a Dalek costume. Nothing too outrageous there. So what exactly should we prepare to be shocked by, and will it warrant an MA timeslot?

Waters is more coy than some of her cheeky cast members…

“There is a bit of kissing, there is a bit bondage and there’s some ….stuff that goes on, but it’s all tastefully done!” she laughs.

“It could be at 9:00. There is not very much swearing… but there are dildos. So it’s swings and roundabouts!”

Outland will air later this year on ABC1.

14 Responses

  1. bogun males are stereoptyped. dumb blondes. nerds…all lesbians are butch except the good ones who wear high heels, have long hair, wear makeup to bed and have tickle and pillow fights every evening (groan) why can’t we have tongue in cheek gay sci fi nerd stereotype on the box? I look forward to it.

  2. I’ve read these scripts. It’s basically just gay male sex jokes…so good luck appealing to the majority of Australia!They should’ve made it just set in a science fiction fan club with a variety of people in it – gay guys, straight guys, gay girls, straight girls…it’s so narrowed there’s no scope in the humour.

  3. Princess Pictures has had a perfect run so far, so I look foward to this series (despite the crazy plot summary). Waters definitely does a good job of promoting the show to be something that is fresh to Aus TV, which is what we are in dire need of.

    Also, “who declines to discuss Angry Boys”, brok emy heart, I want more info! Do you know when it airs, David? I read from one source that it starts in March, but I don’t fully believe that yet.

  4. I’ll be watching, even after the terrible comparison to “Friends”.

    As long as they aren’t making fun of the characters solely based on their sexuality, then surely it can’t be that “shocking”.

  5. The thing about stereotypes is that they’re based on fact. I’m not gay myself but have had a lot of gay friends over the years, some camp and effeminate, some not, and they were all science fiction and fantasy fans too.

    I think I’ll recognise a lot of what happens in Outland as familiar.

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