‘How To Plot A Hit In Two Days’: What’s It Like To Kill A TV Icon?
Image: Photo credit: Brett Boardman
Whether you were there to experience the death of Molly Jones in A Country Practice or not, actress Julia Robertson promises that Melanie Tait’s How To Plot A Hit In Two Days – now in season at the Ensemble theatre – is a new Australian work that everybody can enjoy.
“It’s been really nice to see how many people were there in the 80s watching this episode and reliving it with us, and also how many people weren’t and have still fallen in love with the characters in the play. I think that’s a great success, which is lovely!”
How To Plot A Hit In Two Days portrays a fictitious version of A Country Practice’s writer’s room in 1985 as they deliberate the death of Molly Jones, a character beloved both in and out of the show as a member of Wandin Valley.
Julia portrays Sally in the play, a composite character that reflects how the iconic soap opera would always consult with professionals on the topics they handled. It was a play she got involved in without seeing a script because she was eager to work with director Lee Lewis. But she admits, her knowledge of A Country Practice was scarce before starting work on How To Plot A Hit In Two Days.
“I knew the name and that it existed, and I remembered the way people spoke in that almost British style of Australian accent, but I had not seen it at all. And my parents are immigrants, so neither had they,” Julia explains. “So I had to go back and look at what it was, and look at what the show meant to Australians at the time.”
“The show was so pivotal in negotiating social issues of the time, and so much of that is explored in the play as well as around Molly’s death. They were really on the forefront of making sure people all around Australia were taking care of each other, no matter what their background, and that’s pretty special.”
A new Australian work that’s specfic, yet accessible
Besides its huge influence on Australian soap operas, it helps that A Country Practice superfan Melanie Tait and the lived experience of one of the show’s actresses Georgie Parker has been available to Julia to help her connect with the show’s material.
“Working with someone like Georgie Parker has been really, really great because she obviously brings so much experience,” Julia says. “She has stories from every single show she’s done throughout the decades in Australian TV, and we’ve been able to ask her what it was like being on set at the time.”
In fact, having some unfamiliarity with A Country Practice was actually quite helpful during the rehearsal process. “It was kind of great to have myself and a few others in the cast as a litmus test for whether this play works with an audience who doesn’t know what A Country Practice is, and what needed to shift and change and develop,” says Julia.
“We wanted to make sure that it was still something approachable, understandable and lovable without that prior knowledge, because it is such a glimpse into a time period that is very specific. And I think we manage that.”
The impact of How To Plot A Hit In Two Days
As a new Australian work, it’s also been deeply rewarding for Julia to create the character of Sally: “It’s one of my favourite things, as an actor, to be able to originate a role and find all the things between the lines that make it unique to yourself and develop the character, because everyone’s version is so different.
“To not have a pre-existing role to lean on is pretty exciting, and it means that you have to be quite dexterous and playful to enjoy the challenge. And I think we’re a cast who are very excited by that challenge!”
It seems as though that excitement has been met by audiences of A Country Practice: How To Plot A Hit In Two Days has received several rave reviews since debuting, and audiences are resonating with this tale about a hallmark of Australian television.
“The thing I’ve found most wonderful is how many people have said ‘I laughed and I cried, and I don’t know A Country Practice,’” Julia comments. “I think that’s the true success of it, because of course people who know and love the show are going to have some level of attachment to it.
“But so many people have stopped us coming out of the stage door and said they know nothing about A Country Practice but it’s the best play they’ve seen at the Ensemble all year. That’s the mark of a good theatre work: it’s representing a very specific time in history, but still inviting a whole range of audiences in and generating that empathy that theatre does so well.”
How To Plot A Hit In Two Days is playing now at the Ensemble Theatre.
