ABC’s new offering Gold Diggers is a laugh-out-loud comedy with bite and its two Aussie female leads, Claire Lovering and Danielle Walker, both in their first lead roles, steal the show.
The new series, which premieres on July 5 at 9.00 pm on ABC and ABC iView, follows the wildly optimistic Brewer Sisters in 1853 Australia, who set out to get lucky in the lice-infested town of Dead Horse Gap. Gert Brewer (Lovering), a headstrong party animal and her blissfully naïve sister, Marigold Brewer (Walker), are willing to do anything to secure their fortune and safety; but must first conquer the lads and lechery of the Australian Gold Rush, whilst also having a bloody good time!
While at first glance, you may think this was another period piece, the first two lines delivered by Lovering and Walker will prove you otherwise; and from the get-go, their on-screen chemistry is notable.
“I think sometimes you just meet somebody and sort of click,” Walker said in an interview on Mediaweek and Chattr’s The Entertainment Hotline Podcast. “It never felt like it was work for the chemistry, like all the other work we had to do. That was the work. But our dynamic was never the work.”
During the same interview, Lovering, whose official character bio depicts her as the “oldest daughter of an alcoholic ex-nun and a travelling salesman” (among many other epic attributes), admitted that she looked at her co-star like a “little sister”.
“I feel very affectionate towards her, which I did from our first chemistry read,” Lovering said. “I just had this kind of yearning to kind of protect her and be affectionate towards her…you just can’t help but want to look after her.”
Danielle Walker and Claire Lovering in ABC’s Gold Diggers. ABC
The supporting cast ties the whole show together
While Lovering, who recently appeared in Amazon Prime’s Class of ’07 and Walker, who is first and foremost a comedian, take a large portion of the spotlight, it’s hard to get passed the cast of colourful characters who join them.
Paramount+’ Last King of the Cross lead Lincoln Younes also stars alongside Michala Banas (McLeod’s Daughters), Eddie Perfect (Offspring), Heather Mitchell (Love Me), Luke Mullins (The Spanish Princess) and First Nations actress Megan Wilding (Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power); with the latter taking up hilarious space as Francesca and Percy L’estrange.
“They’re incredible,” Lovering said of Mullins and Wilding. “They’re so amazing together. I remember like when we first got to see them together. First of all, to stand together in costume and then do that first scene with them. They just bounce with each other so beautifully.”
The first scene Lovering is referring to is when we meet Percy and “Fran” at their manor. The couple kiss for an uncomfortable amount of time, given that Percy is so obviously flamboyant and fluid in his sexuality.
“It was the first time in a shoot that I actually was trying not to laugh and I was like, ‘Oh wow, okay, this is really funny’,” she said.
Walker added: “It’s nice to see that Fran and Percy, I think in my mind, Fran knows what’s going on. And everything’s very open, that relationship is very open. And I think that’s something that you haven’t seen with a gay man in a relationship before or whatever his sexuality is and it doesn’t have to be defined.”
Megan Wildling and Luke Mullins. ABC
Writer Jack Yabsley wanted to look at the “issues of today, through the lens of the past”
Sexuality is just one of the many themes running through the series that also covers prejudice. According to Lovering, writer Jack Yabsley wanted to “look at the issues of today, but through the lens of the past”.
“If you were to make a show and addressed all those themes in a modern setting, it would just feel too obvious and too on the nose,” she said. “But I think because it’s just a little bit at arm’s length, you’re actually able to connect with the issues easier. And that was what the contemporary language was about as well. It was just about peeling back the layers that may block an audience from relating to characters and just kind of making it really easy to connect.”
“Jack wanted to kind of create a town and create the world as you would like to see it,” she added. “So as much as we do address the racism and the prejudice, it’s not by showing our dark, dark history, it’s about kind of showing friendship and alliances and connection.”
Listen to the full interview with Danielle Walker and Claire Lovering on The Entertainment Hotline Podcast.
Gold Diggers premieres on July 5 at 9.10 pm on ABC and ABC iView.