Keeping The Spark Alive

Why Toni Collette and Steven Mackintosh are hoping their new drama will get people talking…

- Sean Marland

Australian movie star Toni Collette stands in a spacious kitchen with a glass of wine in her hand, sharing a joke with actor Steven Mackintosh while the director resets the scene.

TV Times is in Manchester on the set of Wanderlust, an original and steamy BBC1 drama that’s set to start conversations in living rooms – and bedrooms – all over Britain.

It was going to take a special project to tempt Oscar-nominated Toni, whose big-screen hits include Muriel’s Wedding, The Sixth Sense and Little Miss Sunshine, to make her first appearance on British TV, and Wanderlust is certainly that…

The funny and honest six-parter, co-produced by Netflix, deals with mid-life attitudes to sex, intimacy and desire, as it follows therapist Joy and her husband Alan taking a bold new approach to try to bring the spark back to their relationship.

During a break in filming, Toni, 45, and Steven, 51, tell us more…