Sara Pascoe has written for a new co-parenting sitcom.
The stand-up is part of the team scripting Separated At Birth, which stars comedians Nazeem Hussain and Urzila Carlson as paramedics. It has just begun filming in Melbourne, and will air down under later this year.
The show follows Sameer (Hussain), whose world is thrown into a spiral when his wife asks for a divorce in the delivery room, moments after their first child is born.
With the help of his 'work wife', the outspoken and fiercely independent Donna (Carlson), Sameer has to try to navigate parenting with his ex, reinvent his sense of self and manage 'the chaos of a big, fat, complicated family'.
Pascoe, above, who has two children with Australian improviser Steen Raskopoulos, has written the show alongside its creator, Hussain, comic Matt Okine and screenwriter Sarah Lang.
Produced by Princess Pictures for the ABC channel, Separated At Birth reunites Hussain with South African-born Kiwi Carlson, who appeared in his 2018 sketch show Orange Is the New Brown.
'This is a story I’ve wanted to tell for a long time – about family, identity, and the chaos of loving people even when life doesn’t look the way you imagined,' said Hussain, who has three kids and appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2016 and 2017, adding that Carlson was 'one of my favourite people on the planet'.
Carlson, who has routinely toured the UK and has her own ABC hybrid sketch-stand-up show, Urzila, coming soon, echoed those sentiments, posting on Facebook: 'It's happening. We're teaming up to play paramedics. Because nothing says "stable life choices" like two comedians in charge of an ambulance.
'We have been friends for 10 years, it feels like we've tricked the ABC into funding a very elaborate hang.'
Extending Separated At Birth's family theme, one of the executive producers for the ABC is Okine's sister, Rachel.
She said that the channel was looking forward to welcoming the 'fresh, laugh out loud original comedy", following 'a man suddenly launched into the messy reality of becoming a parent and the collision of two big, complicated families. Add a delightfully chaotic colleague and housemate, and audiences are guaranteed to be in stitches.'
Laura Waters, founder of Princess Pictures, added: 'We’re proud to support a story so deeply contemporary that illuminates what it’s like to be Australian from so many different angles'.
Further casting for the series has yet to be revealed, and it is not known if a UK broadcaster will air it.
Currently touring her I Am A Strange Gloop stand-up show, Pascoe will next be seen on screen alongside Roisin Conaty in the travel series Zero Stars on Quest, in which the pair experience some of the worst hotels and attractions across the globe.
- by Jay Richardson
