A new rapid-fire eight-part comedy series filmed at Porcupine Village in Maldon will premiere on ABC TV and ABC iView next month.
Gold Diggers features a hilarious Australian cast and a long line of local extras so local viewers may spot some familiar faces on screen.
Set in the 1850s, Gold Diggers follows sisters Gert and Marigold Brewer who are on a mission to land themselves a couple of newly-rich husbands in Dead Horse Gap.
Lead actresses Claire Lovering and Danielle Walker were strangers coming into the show and Claire revealed to the Express that she wasn’t aware that Danielle was a revered, award-winning comedian.
“I’m not sure how I missed that! But it was so delightful that we got along so well,” Claire said.
“We were pretty obsessed with each other, which was fortunate because the show is so much about the love between the sisters. It made us look like we’re better actors than we are.
“The effortless chemistry we had was so rare. At first, I was a bit worried, she is very different to me and not like anyone I’ve met before, but as soon as we hung out one-on-one the conversation flowed and I knew we were going to be fine.
“It was weird adjusting to life without her after the show, but I see her at least once a week.”
Claire told the Express that as someone who lived above a bagel cafe in Sydney, she quickly learned it was pretty hard to find food and wine in the evenings when staying in a small country town like Maldon.
“I asked someone if we could just order Uber Eats,” Claire laughed.
“It was beautiful though. We loved going to the French cafe and the bakery and Porcupine Village was the perfect set for the show, just waiting to be brought to life.”
Claire said she enjoyed dressing up in corsets and big skirts while playing a character who had fun breaking the rules and subverting the system.
While the show is set during the gold rush era, the writers choose to have the characters use contemporary language.
“It made it easier to peel back layers and help the audience connect,” Claire said.
“There’s a lot of cheeky social commentary and the show talked to issues that are still relevant today, like renting and toxic masculinity, but by doing it through that time period it was not as overt.”
Gold Diggers producer Muffy Potter said the show was a crazy epic ride that got funnier and more ridiculous as you went along.
“The story is uniquely Australian,” Muffy said.
“Two wildly optimistic girls trying to change their fortune by marrying rich men, which is the only option women had back then, and along the way things happen and they realise they do have agency over their lives.
“It was really important to us to represent the diversity of that time in history and we’d often dive deep into social issues in the writer’s room and there were often tense moments.
“As producers we knew to lean into the tense things, that was when we had something important.
“I call it my TV baby and I’m incredibly excited to send her off into the world and hopefully people will fall in love with the Brewer sisters and Dead Horse Gap.”
The first episode of Gold Diggers airs on Wednesday, July 5 at 9.10pm.
