Two will-they-won’t-they potential lovers are united in unusual and humorous circumstances: ah yes, a good old-fashioned meet-cute! The plot contrivance that brings Ashley (Harriet Dyer) and Gordon (Patrick Brammall) together in the very enjoyable Colin from Accounts reminded me of an episode of Seinfeld, when George hits a squirrel with his car and is horrified to discover he must pay veterinarian surgery fees and take care of the animal.
Similarly, Ashley and Gordon need to cough up $12,000 to save a dog – including buying wheels for its back legs – that, Gordon insists, he barely even struck. “It was more of a nudge,” he says. Ashley is partly liable because she flashed Gordon one of her breasts seconds before the moment of impact, in an early scene that jokes around with this strange occurrence before making both lead characters pay for it. The pair spend considerable time squabbling, in amusingly testy dialogue exchanges that also have notes of genuine tension – imparting a feeling that, if any kind of friendship or romantic union does materialise (no spoilers), it will feel hard-earned rather than inevitable.
First comes the matter of the dog. This scenario essentially renders Ashley – a student doctor – homeless (her rental property doesn’t permit animals), so she temporarily stays with Gordon, who runs his own business: a bar and brewery. Spirited discussion between them spans many subjects, including a debate about whether they can even be friends given Gordon has seen her nipple. This leads to an agreement that he will expose his, in the hope of reaching a kind of relationship equilibrium by way of mutual mammary gland protuberance exposure (I am fairly certain that sequence of words is a first for human history).
A moment like this doesn’t sound very funny; it’s all in the delivery and the appeal of the characters. Here we’re in good hands, with Dyer creating the show and co-writing it with Brammall, the pair developing their roles from the inside out – creating personalities that slowly reveal layers, nuances and virtues in ways that feel genuine and germane to the narrative.
There are times that Colin from Accounts – which was co-directed by Australian comedy stalwart Trent O’Donnell (whose work includes No Activity, The Letdown, Review with Myles Barlow, Squinters and The Moodys) as well as Matt Moore and Madeleine Dyer – has an almost daggy kind of audacity. For instance, the reveal of Gordon’s surname: Crapp. In conjunction with Ashley’s first name, this appears to have been engineered entirely in service of a brief gag – when Ashley’s mother Lynelle (Helen Thomson) insists her daughter cannot marry Gordon, otherwise she’d be “A Crapp”.
One of the lovely things about this show is that Dyer et al seem neither above nor beneath any kind of material – from toilet humour (including the horror of doing number twos at another person’s house, before realising there’s no running water to flush) to deep-seated issues between child and parent. Initially the fractious dynamic between Ashley and her mother seems to have been developed purely for laughs, but across the arc of the show (this review encompasses six of its eight episodes) it evolves into a painfully affecting portrait of their relationship.
I was surprised by the show’s ability to craft this, and its knack for transforming modest, even unadventurous comedy into a dramatically layered and satisfying package. For the first couple of episodes I considered it probably not much more than an enjoyable three-star series, only to then discover myself deeply immersed in its characters’ lives and circumstances, hungry for the next episode. It almost felt as though the creators had lured audiences inside the door with unpresuming situational comedy, then shaped it into meaningful drama when nobody was looking.
The appealing chemistry between Dyer and Brammall is a big part of this. Both actors are funny but also have well-established dramatic chops: Dyer, for instance, delivering moving performances in Wakefield and Killing Ground, and Brammall providing a solid anchor in the paranormal drama Glitch. Colin from Accounts is a good showcase of their talents and likability, drama underpinning the comedy and vice versa, all of it entwined with the give-and-take tension of that central will-they-won’t-they question. Oh, and in case you’re curious about who Colin is: let’s just say the actor who plays him works like a dog and delivers a pawfect performance.
Colin from Accounts is streaming on Binge in Australia
