Iggy & Ace

There’s been a wave of younger and under-represented voices in short-form storytelling of late, from All My Friends Are Racist, Homecoming Queens, The Tailings and Robbie Hood.

Sometimes they have sparks of creativity, sometimes they are glorious nuggets and others are dipping toes in the water as a promise of things to come. In all cases they are worth doing. Without risk, without experimentation and without floating new ideas we are all at risk of getting stale.

The issue of addiction is also an important one, including in the queer community, which is where we find Iggy & Ace in a new 6×10 part series for SBS on Demand.

It centres around gay best mates Iggy and Ace who live, work and party together. But when Ace decides to get sober and join AA, a rift develops as Iggy baulks at the idea of recovery.

Produced in Perth by Lazy Susan Pictures & Factor 30 Films the series is written by AB Morrison (Carnal Privlege, Tribunal) and directed by Monica Zanetti.

Best friends Iggy (Sara West) and Ace (Josh Virgona) are certainly excessive Gen Z party animals, whether collapsing in a heap or messily eating off the floor while intoxicated. As the series opens they are blotto most of the time, unable to hold down part-time work, and abusive in lifestyle, language and social choices. With friends like this….

But Ace takes baby steps towards joining a queer-run Alcoholics Anonymous, led by peer worker Gwen (Roz Hammond). He quickly becomes distracted by the handsome Konnor (Liam Graham) but hopefully some self-improvement will brush off on him.

Meanwhile the enraged, angry Izzy is coming to terms with the imminent death of their ageing drug dealer Otto (Dalip Sondhi), when she isn’t wandering in a stupor or facing the fury of her frustrated housemate Justine (Joanna Tu). There’s a fun running gag about missing Bondi Rescue, but it’s an otherwise selfish outlook.

The excess and abrasive characters all makes Iggy & Ace fairly challenging, but as it develops it does find more depth, and some much-needed humility, particularly with scenes between Roz Hammond & Sara West. Growth is the key and it comes with some pain from writer AB Morrison.

Performances by Sara West and Josh Virgona are unapologetic, which is as it should be given the premise.

Iggy & Ace is a bit of a wild ride, if you can hang on to the end.

Iggy & Ace screens from Thursday September 9 at SBS on Demand.