This very entertaining and sassy new series starring Will Forte and The Good Place’s D’Arcy Carden joins a long line of productions about foreigners setting up shop in Australia. Things often don’t go well for outsiders attempting to make good down under – but unlike John Grant in Wake in Fright and, more recently, Nic Cage in The Surfer, American siblings Martin (Forte) and Vicki (Carden) don’t get psychologically pummelled by the sun. Their story is sun, for they are in Sydney to launch a spray tan business.
Created by Nick Keetch and Ty Freer and directed by comedy stalwart Trent O’Donnell (a reliable pair of hands, whose shows include Colin From Accounts, No Activity and Review with Myles Barlow), Sunny Nights initially presents itself as a frothy romp, buoyed by two funny imported leads and plenty of spritzy banter. It took me a little while to fully appreciate that, beneath the playful surface, this is fundamentally a crime story – one told with a disarmingly light comedic touch that nudges emphasis away from plausibility to sheer enjoyability.
The title refers to the name of a rinky-dink motel Martin and Vicki are holed up in. Their business pitch isn’t going well and nor are Martin’s attempts to rekindle things with his wife (Ra Chapman), who has moved to Australia and wants a divorce. The siblings have also run out of cash; it’s clear nothing in their personal and professional lives is tickety-boo. But Martin soon discovers that just when you think you’ve lost everything, there’s always a little more to lose. A one-night stand with the charming Susi (Jessica De Gouw) initially seems like a lucky break, but their fling was filmed and the video used to blackmail him to the tune of 10,000 big ones.
Naturally, in the great tradition of crime stories propelled by bad decisions, Martin and Vicki make things even worse for themselves by bringing in loan sharks and disreputables. It’s an evergreen formula: people putting their heads in a lion’s mouth then scrambling to find a way out. “If you see me again, you’ve fucked up,” one goon tells the siblings early in the runtime – and you just know they will indeed see this guy again.
All the criminal characters are from Central Casting, but they’re supposed to be: the actors playing these ne’er-do-wells lean into their vaguely cartoonish presence, with a particularly enjoyable turn from Rachel House (always a great way to inject extra fizz) as the crime boss Mony.
Forte and Carden have fun chemistry in the lead roles, bringing lots of snap and spark to this show. Perhaps surprisingly, they really do feel like brother and sister, which is not always the case with television siblings. Carden is the brassier of the pair, Vicki being a loud and irreverent presence, while Forte is a more deflated counter as Martin, a decent person who makes bad decisions and is slowly coming to terms with his many inadequacies. The pair make even unremarkable interactions pop, such as when Martin tells Vicki: “I love you”, and she responds: “Ew, I’m your sister.” It doesn’t read amazing on paper but it really works on screen.
The show has a well-paced arc, though it does feel a little stretched at times and it is, by design, incomplete; the door has been left open for another season (this review encompasses all eight episodes in the first).
Realising that Sunny Nights is a crime narrative first and foremost helped me make sense of what initially seemed like an odd structure; the show unfolds in hour-long episodes rather than the snappier 20 to 30 minutes typical of comedies. The light, humorous elements give the series leeway when it dabbles with incredulous moments or lifts well-worn tropes from the playbook. The characters are always fun to spend time with and the tone is deliciously skew-wiff: a comedy bent like a thriller, and a thriller tinged with comedy.
All eight episodes of Sunny Nights are on Stan now
