“It’s not ‘The One Where They All Go To the Holiday House.'”

“We did pitch this as a comedy / drama, because the nature of anthology is you have to have meat on the bone,” Robyn Butler explains of ABC’s new anthology, Summer Love.

“It’s not ‘The One Where They All Go To the Holiday House.’ You have to set up beginning, middle and end of characters you’ve never met before and have something potentially life-changing, if not at the very least dramatic, so that it’s worth a story in its own right.”

Summer Love is the latest series from Gristmill Productions (Upper Middle Bogan, The Librarians, The InBESTigators, Little Lunch), Butler’s company with husband Wayne Hope.

Across 8 differing episodes, friends and partners will rent a picturesque holiday home on Victoria’s Surf Coast, along the Great Ocean Road.

“It means they have something to say”

Butler and Hope, who wrote and feature in one episode, invited other creatives to author episodes to give the series a truly anthologic tone.

“We’re asking these incredible creatives to share their point of view and their perspective. It means they have something to say. Nazeem Hussain (Legally Brown) has got something to say in his episode. Miranda Tapsell (Top End Wedding) & James Colley (The Weekly, Gruen) have got something to say. So it means there is going to be a dramatic point of view and we don’t shy away from that at all. This is the show that we set out to make and we’re super-proud of that remit.

‘The difference here was trying to share the microphone, with other people to write the episodes”

“We’ve always tried to have diversity in casting and we always have gender equity as well. But the difference here was trying to share the microphone, with other people to write the episodes. It’s very hard to have diversity in the platform itself of writing. If we’re writing Upper Middle Bogan, even if we invite Kodie Bedford to come in and write episode 4 -it’s still our voice that she’s writing. It’s our story. So to actually write stories from other peoples’ perspectives, (you discover) ‘Oh. That’s what it is to be in a gay relationship.’ Jayden Masciulli (The Inbestigators) and Nath Valvo (Just for Laughs) have written an episode, which is very specific to their world, and what is important to them and their point of view. But we couldn’t write that, so that’s true diversity in that respect.

“You’re really trying to just give other people a platform to talk about what they wanted to talk about.”

The series also features an ensemble cast including Alison Bell, Annie Maynard, Rick Davies, Johnny Carr, Morgana O’Reilly, Bjorn Stewart, Chenoa Deemal, Harry McNaughton, Tim Draxl, Shapoor Batliwalla, and in the opening episode Patrick Brammall, Sibylla Budd, Stephen Curry and Harriet Dyer as two couples in conflict over a baby who becomes the centre of attention.

“Their delivery is so great,” Hope says of one key scene involving Brammall and Curry.

“They remain connected as friends but it’s super awkward at the same time. They’re invested in trying, so rather than walk off at that point, they remain seated to attempt to keep this friendship together.

“A lot of people who have seen it so far end up being able to identify with both parties”

“A lot of people who have seen it so far end up being able to identify with both parties quite heavily, which I think is really clever in the writing of it. You can shift your allegiances.”

“People have got that use-by date with their friends. You don’t know how to stop seeing someone because you’ve seen them forever. But you have nothing in common anymore. And I think everybody has one of those versions,” adds Butler.

Filming took place around Fairhaven from January with production renting some 28 homes for cast and crew. The ‘hero house’ where the action unfolds is also the site where a shack once stood for Mad Max in 1979.

“Our production designer Penny Southgate cleverly went via architects that work down the surf coast to find interesting properties. This was one of the first we looked at and the owner was really open to it,” says Hope.

“Everybody in the community was wonderful down there”

“Everybody in the community was wonderful down there, and so helpful and supportive. We just all loved working down there. It was wonderful,” Butler recalls.

“We lived down the coast for the whole period. We’ve been visiting down there for 20 years, hiring houses along the surf coast. So it was just delightful. And against the backdrop of the last couple of years, it was so great to be shooting again,” Hope adds.

But alongside the pleasures of an anthology come the challenges, not just shooting amid Covid conditions, but how individual stories can impact on the scheduling and budget.

“We realised we were making short films, in effect”

“It has a pretty big impact, because you are building stories from scratch each time. Yes, we have the continuity of the house and the coastal location. But it’s an all-new cast and an all-new story each and every time and pretty quickly we realised we were making short films, in effect, because of that,” Hope explains.

“Now that we’ve come out the other side, it was an enormous amount of work in realising eight different stories. Each time we were filming you would start a new episode. But just like a series you’ve got to realise the tone and the way to tell this story from the ground up, which is a fantastic, creative challenge. But it did have a knock on effect in terms of the time it took to shoot and the cost of that, obviously.

“It was very hard to rehearse, because you’re shooting. So the cast arrive at the end of one week, and we directed 5 episodes, you can’t really step off set to go and do a rehearsal. So we worked weekends, basically.”

Now that the series is hitting screens, Butler & Hope look forward to audiences connecting with the stories and characters, beginning with “Jules & Tom & Jonah & Steph” and their Bluey-loving toddler whose needs result in one couple nabbing the best bedroom in the house. Awkwardness unfolds…

“Definitely the bedroom up top is the best bedroom!” laughs Butler.

Hope agrees: “If you were with friends, you’d close the door to the shit bedroom and go, “We got the shit bedroom.'”

Summer Love airs 9pm Wednesday on ABC