Holidays are over, and the nastiness of work, traffic and negotiating life in a big city are creeping back in. But sitting down to watch three episodes of Rosehaven in a row, all the troubles of urban life seem to fall away.
Premiering on 30 January, season three of the Australian comedy takes viewers back to the bucolic Tasmanian town where people say hello on the main street; where the hills are green and life unfolds at a slower pace.
Speaking with Guardian Australia from Melbourne, the creators and stars Luke McGregor and Celia Pacquola say they didn’t anticipate how successful the show would be.
“I remember when we first started doing the show, I thought two [seasons], if we were lucky,” McGregor says. “Three is a something I hadn’t even planned on.”
“He’s generally not excited enough,” says Pacquola.
The pair finish each other’s sentences and have an easygoing camaraderie that carries over to their on-screen characters: the bubbly Emma, which sparks off McGregor’s more nervy and anxious Daniel.
The premise of the show is simple enough: Daniel moves back to his hometown in Tasmania to help his mother with her real-estate business.
He is joined by his best friend from the mainland, Emma, who was abandoned by her husband in Bali on their honeymoon.
It’s a gentle comedy that focuses on the oddballs in the town, and the relatable, warm and refreshing dynamics of Emma and Daniel’s friendship.
Plus, there’s an air of authenticity: not only do McGregor’s parents run a real-estate agency in Tasmania, but Pacquola and McGregor are best friends in real life.
Since its debut in 2016, the show has become hugely popular and a critical success, and has been sold into US markets via SundanceTV. (The New York Times called it “Charming, gentle” – “brace yourself to fall completely in love”.)
So what is it about Rosehaven that audiences love?
“People need stuff to watch when they hungover,” says Pacquola. “The next time you are hungover, you should watch it and see if you feel better.”
“It’s the best thing to watch when you’re hungover,” McGregor concurs. “No one is really mean, the world doesn’t get in – there’s no Brexit or Donald Trump.”
This isolation from the big bad world has been part of its appeal with American critics. “It makes you feel like you’re a million miles away in a very special place,” said one review in the Washington Post.
That special place is Geeveston: a tiny town, population 616 in the Huon Valley, where many of the exterior scenes are shot. “Geeveston has really embraced the show … the visitors’ centre has asked for life-sized cutouts of us,” says McGregor.
Pacquola adds: “Part of the point of it being a small town is that it’s enclosed. It’s an escape for our characters as well.”
McGregor says the town’s insularity is entirely intentional. “We don’t think about current events when we’re writing. There’s an episode when they go on a road trip, they go in a car together and get lost – and that’s enough of a set-up,” says McGregor. “We did have a storyline that had reference to a president in it. We removed that – we did not want our audience to think about that.”
Pacquola concurs: “What we’re good at, and what we’re interested in, is the mundane and the humour in small, silly things.”
The pair, who are also gigging standup comics, first worked together on the ABC satire Utopia. Their on-set banter was so good they wondered if they could make a show out of it.
“The original idea was me and Luke talking shit in between scenes in Utopia. But we would have to build a storyline around it. The banter is the easiest part. What is time intensive is getting the structure and story right,” says Pacquola.
Initially their characters were a married couple. “Then we realised it didn’t work and it wasn’t funny,” says McGregor, before Pacquola continues: “And then we thought, ‘Why are we trying to do this?’ It was forced.”
One of the refreshing things about Rosehaven is how it depicts male/female friendships. Most television shows – Moonlighting, Friends, Cheers – would ultimately have the characters eventually end up in bed together.
“I think it’s settled that men and women can be friends, but it’s weird you don’t see it depicted much. I have found, though, that platonic friendships when you are in your 30s are increasingly rare. When people are coupling up, these friendships can fall by the wayside.
So is there any temptation to get the two characters to fall in love?
“If you see Daniel and Emma in a wedding then it’s season 10 and we’ve definitely jumped the shark,” says McGregor.
• Rosehaven’s third season premieres on the ABC on 30 January. Seasons one and two are streaming on iView
