“Strangers shake their head at me and go, ‘Big shoes to fill, Denise!'”

Denise Scott is more than aware there are high expectations of the reboot of classic sitcom Mother & Son.

“I walk down the street, and I have strangers shake their head at me and go, ‘Big shoes to fill, Denise! Big shoes!” she tells TV Tonight.

“I loved playing Maggie – fully aware of Ruth. I can barely dare to say I loved playing Maggie, because all I can hear is people going ‘Well, you know, Ruth Cracknell….’ which I well and truly realise.”

Cracknell of course played Maggie Beare opposite Garry McDonald for 6 seasons in the acclaimed ABC sitcom by writer Geoffrey Atherden from 1984 to 1994.

It is now reimagined, with Atherden’s blessing, by writer / performer Matt Okine who plays the new Arthur in the ambitious reboot.

“It was quite overwhelming, actually”

As if that pressure wasn’t enough, Scott’s world was turned upside down when she was given a breast cancer diagnosis just before filming began. Last week she revealed the news in a media interview which led to an outpouring of love and support.

“I definitely felt it. It was quite overwhelming, actually,” she admits.

“I’m feeling good. About to start radiation and more chemo.

“There’s good hours and bad hours in a day. The health care I get has been brilliant. It just takes up a lot of time with chemotherapy, and then all the related tests. But I have a good prognosis. It’s all relative. You only have to check out the person in the chemo chair next to you to know, you’re in a much better place.”

Scott chose to proceed with production of the ABC comedy despite her diagnosis and impending treatment. For such a principal role, it’s hard to fathom the strength it demanded of her personally and professionally.

“In hindsight, I really can’t fathom it either. It’s interesting, because when I said I would do that, of course, I had the blissful naivete of never having done chemotherapy, even though I was warned about the fatigue, the aches, the nausea, not to mention the likelihood you’re going to shit your pants. Literally.

“The naivete helped me launch into it”

“So the naivete helped me launch into it and then I thought ‘Well, you just have to get on and get it done.’ Truly, the crew and cast and production team were really supportive. It felt like a very caring group of people to be around.

“Because I was dealing with physical pain and fatigue, I had to really go to a part of my brain and call on my mental insurance, which I don’t think I’ve really done much of in the past. I felt like I skated into the world of Maggie and Arthur, where everything was fine. When the cameras were rolling, I actually really loved it.”

Scott is hoping this version of Mother & Son will appeal to new viewers as well as those who loved the original.

“It’s more, I suppose, a question for Matt,” she suggests. “It’s such a different version on so many levels, that hopefully it will appeal to both.

“There’s quite a bit of serious business in it. It seemed to me quite a lot of pathos and I really liked that about the show.”

A key change is in the heritage and backstory of the family, with Maggie Boye having married an African man several decades earlier and working a family restaurant, Leo’s Feel Good African in western Sydney.

“She’s a funkster! That makes sense because that is representative of a lot of women my age, because they were young adults in the ’70s, you know, protesting, sleeping around, a bit of a share house situation, smoking joints,” Scott remarks.

“The fact that Maggie married a chap from Ghana, because that’s Matt’s real story, with an Aussie mum and a black dad from Ghana. I found that aspect of the show really interesting and very comfortable.

“There is an episode where a Ghanaian relative arrives to stay. So there’s quite a bit about Ghana in that episode, but that’s probably the only time it’s really spoken about or referred to in any great shape or form.”

“My mum had dementia and she ended up in a locked dementia unit”

The cast also includes Angela Nica Sullen, Andrea Demetriades, Catherine Văn-Davies, Virginia Gay, Jean Kittson, Tiriel Mora, Jenna Owen, Veronica Milsom, Andrew McFarlane, Krew Boylan, Justin Amankwah and Zara Tate.

Central to the premise of the series is Maggie living with dementia, for which Scott has had personal experience.

“My mum had dementia and she ended up in a locked dementia unit. The first manager that we had was an incredible woman who really taught me a lot about how to care for a person with dementia,” she reflects.

“That whole thing of engaging with great enthusiasm and interest in the same conversation you have just had is absolutely the most caring thing to do. And to not ask questions that they’re not going to be able to answer. Never ask a question like ‘So what did you do today?’ because often especially when it’s really progressed, how do they know what they did today?”

“It has to be addressed in a way that the original didn’t”

Creator Atherden, a consultant on the new series, held strong views around how the dementia would be treated in the new version for modern audiences.

“In an updated version, where people talk about this stuff so much more, it has to be addressed in a way that the original didn’t. But it’s still a very fine balancing act. The magic of the original I think, the brilliance of it, is that (Maggie’s dementia) never really did progress. You just go along with that as an audience. Because it can’t progress because then you get to a point where it’s not funny,” Scott observes,

“I suppose Maggie’s more episodic (in her dementia), rather than it progressing or anything. She’s just a bit out of it at times.”

Mother & Son screens 8:30pm Wednesday August 23 on ABC.