‘Age gap, schmage gap - it's a bit cringe, but love is love'

Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall are co-writers, co-stars, and married. They tell Ellie Harrison what it’s like to work together on their hit comedy series Colin from Accounts’

- Ellie Harrison

When the Australian comedy Colin from Accounts landed on the BBC last spring, no one saw it coming. The title hardly inspired huge excitement – and it was kind of misleading; the show’s got nothing to do with a guy who works in a drab office, as you might suspect, but instead is an offbeat romcom about two people who fall in love after injuring a small dog. It had other things stacked against it, too – its leads were complete unknowns in the UK, and it was made and set more than 10,000 miles away, in Sydney.

But within weeks of its quiet arrival, it had become a mega wordof-mouth hit, earning gushing five-star reviews and millions of fans, including members of British romcom royalty Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Richard Curtis. And because it arrived with no publicity campaign, early adopters felt like it was their own special pearl to share with the world. “The show hits in the UK like nowhere else, honestly,” says Patrick Brammall, who cowrites and co-stars with his wife Harriet Dyer. “I think it’s a cultural thing, because the Australians and the Brits have a similar, minor-key sort of comedy.”

It all started with the flash of a boob. In the first episode of season one, trainee doctor Ashley (Dyer) spontaneously bares one of her breasts to microbrewery owner Gordon (Brammall) as she crosses the road. He is so distracted, and delighted, that he runs over a border terrier with his car. The scruffy pup – who survives, later becomes theirs and is christened Colin – brings them together, and the first season was all about their fledgling relationship.