Tent doofs and alcoholic hornbags: Gold Diggers, the comedy reimagining Australia’s gold rush

Danielle Walker as Marigold and Claire Lovering as Gert in Gold Diggers. Photograph: ABC

When Claire Lovering read the script for Gold Diggers, she thought she’d been miscast. Gert Brewer was described as “a sociopathic, alcoholic hornbag, liberated and robust and brash”.

“I thought, I don’t really think that’s me. I usually play quite neurotic characters, or low-status characters, because that’s where my comedy leans,” Lovering says. “And Gert was described as having ‘man hands’ – I’ve got little dainty hands.”