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EXCLUSIVE: When we featured New Zealand’s After the Party in our Global Breakouts slot, we were hanging out hat on a low-budget psychological family drama making waves around the world. In this case, we were right.
Though the series first launched on TVNZ over a year ago and then in Australia on the ABC, it has been dominating headlines in the TV sections of British newspapers after launching on Channel 4.
The first episode consolidated to 1.5 million viewers and 7.1% share on linear, growing further to 1.6 million viewers with online viewing included for the first seven days. It is the most popular show on Channel 4’s online platform, and Robyn Malcolm‘s starring role lauded by several publications. The Guardian‘s review claimed it was “no overstatement to say that this great performance ranks among the best television portrayals in years, from anywhere in the world.”
The series, from Australian indie Lingo Pictures, stars Malcolm, who co-created the morally-grey show with Dianne Taylor, as the no-nonsense Penny who accuses her ex-husband, Phil (Peter Mullan), of a sex crime with a minor. Her recollections are questioned and the audience is challenged to consider what they think. When Phil returns five years later, Penny is pressured to let him back in her life, refuelling her fury but leaving her with a morally dubious choice of leaving the past in the past and moving or letting it go.
ITV Studios, which acquired Lingo in 2022, has been shopping the series internationally. A U.S. deal could be next on the list. Here, we speak with producer Helen Bowden about the show’s reaction and what might be next.
DEADLINE: Why has the story cut through?
Helen Bowden: With After the Party we went for an almost extreme naturalism in the scripts, the performances, camera, design and editing. We chose a style that we hoped would make these characters and this world feel completely real to the audience. Robyn Malcolm’s fearless performance anchors the story a real place, but every element is as naturalistic as we could make it. This was partly driven by budget, partly by subject matter — this is not the first time this story has been told — and partly by a philosophy about how best to engage the audience.
We knew quite quickly that this had worked because as soon as the first episode went out people started furiously arguing with each other online about our characters’ actions. I have a niece in New Zealand who would text me after each episode went to air and one Sunday night the text simply read “Penny! Penny! Penny! No! No! No!.” The intensity of the audience engagement has been the same in New Zealand, Australia and now in the UK.
Peter Salmon, the director, and I joke that After the Party’s other secret weapon is the little boy who plays Walt. He is Peter’s son Ziggy. With the help of his mother, who is also a wonderful actor, they were able to get him to do a far more on screen than a normal four-year-old. Because he’s four, he’s not acting, he’s just being, but he worked on 19 days of the shoot, so he is very present in the story being a very real child. We think it helps draw the audience into this version of Wellington life.
DEADLINE: What has Robyn told you about how she approached her performance?
HB: During the first set up on the first day of photography Robyn turned to me and said, “That’s it. I can’t do any executive producing from now until the end of the shoot.” She’d been very involved in the script development, the casting and everything up to that point. This was an opportunity a long time in the making, an opportunity that she and Dianne Taylor, the writer, had worked towards for years and she wasn’t going to give anything less than 100% to Penny. I am blown away with what she delivered. She is riveting.
DEADLINE: There is often talk about there not being enough roles for older women, but Robyn’s performance is turning into one of the most lauded of recent years. Does that criticism ring true for the industry and how did you circumvent it with After the Party?
HB: I think Robyn would agree things have got better — they’ve even got better over the four years since we first started developing After the Party — but there is still a desire for older women to be acceptable, as Robyn puts it, “to wear white and laugh a lot.” Robyn was determined to be the authentic fifty-something woman who is complicated and contrary and not at all driven by being liked. It’s a performance and a story built on the shoulders of other TV performances that we love, but the incredible audience response shows there’s a strong appetite for stories about authentic, complex older women.
DEADLINE: Could the show live on? What format would it take?
HB: There have been a lot of calls on the socials for a sequel, I think because Penny is such a great character and the world of Wellington looks so stunning, but no, After the Party is a one-off story. We don’t want to outstay our welcome.
DEADLINE: Are you working with Dianne and Robyn on any other new projects?
HB: Dianne and Robyn are working together, but I don’t know that they are ready to show anyone just yet. Hopefully when they are, they will show us. Lingo is developing a show with a lead role that we’d love Robyn to play and Peter Salmon, who directed all six episodes, has set up our new thriller Watching You, which is currently shooting in Sydney. And Emily Anderton, the script editor, has come across to work on another Lingo show. We love the talent we found in Aotearoa.
DEADLINE: What else is Lingo working on?
HB: We’re in production on Watching You a thriller for Stan and ITV Studios, and we are in financing with a comedy thriller that we hope to shoot in Sydney mid-next year. We’re also developing a mini-series for the ABC about Robodebt, a scandal that resulted in the biggest class action in Australian history and which has shocking parallels with the story of Mr Bates vs the Post Office. Then we have a couple of other shows in network development and others in earlier development. We’re busy enough!
DEADLINE: How has being part of ITV Studios changed the business and are there any initiatives you’re working on with them?
HB: In the seven years before we sold the stake in Lingo Pictures to ITV Studios, we made ten shows with eight different distributors. Now we just work with Robert ‘Sammy’ Samuelson and his team at ITVS and we could not love it more. They have a very sophisticated understanding of how best to sell Australian shows, they give us early intel on the market, and they do a fantastic job of selling.
Being part of the ITV Studios ‘family’ has also been wonderful — they have excellent labels that we can talk to — and we are planning shows with a couple of them. We get great support of all kinds from the central team in London. As well as simplifying distribution, the sale has streamlined our cashflowing of productions, our IT and our HR. It gives Jason Stephens and me so much more time to think about our shows. We love it and our staff love it. Two years in and it is feeling like the best move we could have made.
