by Gill Pringle
Australian husband-and-wife team Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall couldn’t even find an Aussie comparison when they first began writing their hit romcom Colin from Accounts. “There’s workplace comedies and family comedies, plenty of those,” says Brammall who was a series regular on TV shows Glitch and Evil.
“And there’s buddy comedies and Josh Thomas’ lovely show, Please Like Me and he has romantic escapades in that show, but we still didn’t really have a comp,” adds Dyer, the pair of them chatting to us from their home in Los Angeles.
“So, we never went, ‘Okay, how can we approach this, how are we going to make it different’, because it was already original in our minds right from the way they met, which was an idea that we just cooked up between the two of us,” adds Brammall.
“We were walking up the streets of Beachwood [in Hollywood], and thinking: ‘What would be an idea for two people meeting like a shared problem, but they’ve got chemistry?” chimes in Dyer, something the couple do adorably almost every other sentence.
“And something that starts frivolous and sexy, but then is very quickly sobering. I love that. And we threw the actual meet-cute around, and then a few scenes, and then I wrote that pilot, and then we just forgot about it for a while, and then I’d given it to someone as a writing sample, and he was like, ‘I think we should make this’. And that’s our producer, Rob Gibson. So, it wasn’t a conscious choice to make a rom com or a relationship comedy. It’s just how it came out,” she adds.
“But we never approached it actually as a rom com, but we pitched it as a rom com, because Australia has never made a rom com before,” argues Brammall.
“I remember we were in a cab on the way to our first pitch, and we’re practicing our notes. And then we realised there was no reference for it in Australia. And then we did a quick kind of imDB scroll and we googled something like: ‘Where are the Australian rom coms?’” recalls Dyer.
Now in its second season, the show – Colin from Accounts – became a huge hit, not just in Australia but internationally too.
Set in Sydney, the series centres on Dyer’s Ashley and Brammall’s Gordon – two singles brought together by a car accident and an injured dog whom they name Colin from Accounts.
Ashley works long hours at a hospital while Gordon struggles to keep his microbrewery afloat. Bonded together by their dog, they are both flawed, funny people.
In real life, they would describe themselves the same.
After co-starring on comedy No Activity in 2017, they began dating and later married in 2021, shortly afterwards adopting a newborn baby girl.
And while they both enjoyed success with various shows – Dyer previously starring in TV shows Kiki and Kitty and The InBetween – they never dreamed that a series starring themselves as a couple would take off in such a major way.
Not to mention – it was a lot of time to spend together.
“Because we’re married and we’re parents as well, the balance is way off. We spend too much time together!” laughs Brammall, 48.
“It feels like 26 hours a day!” adds Dyer.
“But it does force you to make it work, and in forcing those doors open, you do find more space and the way in which we balance it is kind of, I think we look back on this time and go: ‘How the F did we do that?’ But it’s such a joyful time as well,” adds Brammall. “Like, really, it’s been a lot and stressful. Like, living your dream is stressful!”
“But I think the pressure of it is that we parent and we are very present parents, as everybody tries to be, and when we’re not shooting, we want to give her everything, but that’s when it’s tricky, because it’s like we’ll be in here plotting season three now. No one’s asked for it – but we’re plotting season three, and then we pick her up, and then we watch TV together, and it’s like remembering to make space for each other to like, go on dates with each other, not romantic dates but with friend dates,” says Dyer, 36.
“But I think it has strengthened the relationship. I mean, it’s so galvanizing. I feel very lucky,” she adds.
The couple weren’t originally sure what kind of dog they wanted to play Colin when they were preparing to shoot Season 1.
“We were looking for something kind of scrappy and scruffy, not a big dog, something that we thought could kind of been a runaway guy…” says Dyer.
“We didn’t realise that Colin was a Border Terrier. We were like, ‘oh, okay, scrappy, every dog’. We were given a book of dogs and there were Boston terriers, French bulldogs and all kinds of dogs. And we were like, ‘too fancy’,” she recalls.
But then they found a picture of Zak.
“And we were like: What a little scrapper. And it was only after the fact that we realised that he was a pure breed. But I think Border terriers are very smart. He’s almost not very dog-like. He trots on set, like, ‘Yeah, I’m here!’” she laughs.
If Colin is played by two dogs – Zak and Buster – the couple tease about how success has gone to Zak’s head.
“You know they say, never meet your heroes. You don’t want to meet Zak. He’s not kind, he chain smokes,” says Brammall trying to keep a straight face.
“He loves a whiskey. Big problem,” giggles Dyer. “The flip of this is, the worst part is we can’t take our own dog to Australia to make the show.”
“We leave for six months of the year to go and make a show in Australia about how much we love our dog – and we leave our dog behind. Pretty weird,” says Brammall as he turns their zoom camera onto their real dog – a small sweet hand-bag sized pup whom they call “Poochie-Wooch”.
With this real-life couple being co-creators, co-writers, co-stars and producers on Colin from Accounts, it’s clear that aspects of their own life make it into the show.
“There’s a lot of amalgam,” says Brammall. “And there are certain events that happened that we stole for the show from our lives. Well, episode one – there’s a sequence where she goes to the toilet, does her business, and there’s no water so it doesn’t flush,” he says pointedly looking his wife.
“Oh, thanks, mate,” she sighs in return.
“We were writing at a non-profit office in West Hollywood. And, there was one other writer using the space. So, he would have known it was me. Just one toilet, boys, girls, everything in between. So, I’m in there and nothing – it didn’t go anywhere. And I had to, like, whistle on past him, and then smuggle it out in a tupperware. And I get it out of there, and I walked past him with it and take it to the trash cans outside. Oh, my God. I went back upstairs, washed my hands in the kitchen where the water was working, and then I literally sat back down at the table, and I went, well, that’s going in!”
If Season 1 introduced Ashley’s mum (Helen Thomson) and her creepy boyfriend (Darren Gilshenan), then Season 2 takes a darker turn when we meet Gordon’s family – in particular his terrifying dad.
“Brian – Gordon’s dad, is like a Silverback who just sits there and he’s not funny at all. He’s very real,” Brammall says of the character played by actor John Howard [below, centre, with Brammall and Justin Rosniak as the other son/brother].
“We were so lucky that get John, because it’s exactly who we saw. And when someone that big and that scary can just suddenly have their candle blown out, it’s unnerving,” adds Dyer.
Ask the couple if they have any thoughts on why the show has become such a resounding hit, Brammall offers, “I think one of the strengths of the show is the fact that Harry and I are both actors by trade, and so when we’re in the writing, we’re both advocating for our own character. That makes for the funniest tension and clash between them, because they both get to say the thing that matters to them, and they resolve it. I think a lot of people who watch it will agree with one or the other.
“But we want them to be relatable too – but relatable doesn’t necessarily mean likeable. As long as we make it funny, I hope people will be engaged by it; that you would go: ‘Oh, actually, I know someone who would do this, or has done this’,” he says.
“And we don’t mind the cringe. I think if these people were truly embraceable, it would just be a very different show. And there’s plenty of those shows out there,” adds Dyer.
Colin from Accounts Seasons 1 and 2 are currently streaming on Binge.
