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.
