Celia Luke and their celebration of platonic love in Rosehaven

When Celia Pacquola and Luke McGregor first pitched Rosehaven to the ABC, it was a show about a haunted house. That didn’t work. So they switched to a story about a married couple who were also marriage counsellors. That didn’t fly either.

So they settled on a story about two best friends and in the process turned a low-key sitcom into a celebration of platonic friendship. They were a #singlesbubble before we even knew what a #singlesbubble was.

Celia Pacquola and Luke McGregor is season five of Rosehaven. 

“We just always thought that dynamic was more interesting to us because it’s something you don’t see very often,” says Pacquola. “Particularly in our age bracket, in your 30s, people often don’t think it’s possible to have a platonic male-female relationship, but that is our actual experience.

“Our characters can do so much stuff and just with love for each other that’s not affected by that kind of will-they-won’t-they stuff.”

Adds McGregor: “We’re living proof you can both be hotties and still have a platonic relationship.”

The pair are talking over Zoom as they prepare to farewell the comedy that scored an AACTA award for Pacquola and a Logie for McGregor, as well as various best comedy and writing awards. And while they are on separate Zoom screens, the friendship between them â€" they first met when they were doing stand-up comedy â€" very much mirrors what we see on the television screen: Pacquola enthusiastically chats away, with her dog, Jimmy, on her lap, while McGregor frets that I can see the duster hanging on the back of his bedroom door.

“When we were filming season two or three in Oatlands [just north of Hobart],” recalls Pacquola, “a member of the general public was walking through, and it was a gruff-looking older dude, and he stopped me and he goes, ‘Hey, you know what I love about your show?’ And I was like, ‘Oh no, what?’ And he goes, ‘It’s a real celebration of platonic love.’ I love thinking of the show that way.”

The comedy begins its fifth and final season on Wednesday, and in a sea of free-to-air reality-TV franchises, reboots and panel shows, Rosehaven stands out as the little show that could.

What started as two friends finding refuge in rural Tasmania (Pacquola’s character Emma running away from a failed marriage and McGregor’s character Daniel returning home to help his mum, Barbara, played by Kris McQuade, in the family real estate business) has become an affectionate portrait of small-town life. “The word that I would always rail against, which is fine, is ‘gentle’,” says Pacquola.

It’s also one of few local sitcoms to last more than two or three seasons and the fact it even made it to five â€" that’s 40 episodes and 1600 pages of script, according to McGregor â€" was a surprise to its creators.

McGregor and Pacquola on day one of filming Rosehaven.

“Season one, we just didn’t know what we were doing at all,” says Pacquola. “And just creating a world was nuts. We had to decide everything â€" what the buildings look like, what the shots look like, what costume you got, all of that. And it could have been a huge disaster. We had no idea if people would like one element of it, let alone everything.”

It was Pacquola and McGregor’s decision to end the show because for the first time, they felt as if they “didn’t have as many stories in the tank”.

“Normally, with every season, you sort of feel like OK, we haven’t done this and this and this, but it felt like all the things we wanted to do with the characters we’ve kind of gotten to do,” says Pacquola. “So it was nice to finish it while still having a couple of ideas to explore.”

McGregor: “Five seasons, that’s a nice little DVD boxset. It feels aesthetically pleasing.”

The pair now hope Rosehaven will be discovered internationally. Only two seasons have been screened in the US and it’s never been shown in England. Failing that, there’s always a Christmas special to fall back on.

“We haven’t ruled out a potential telemovie or something down the line, you know, a Kath & Kimderella movie or something,” says Pacquola. “That would be a bit fun in a few years â€" Emma and Daniel, when they’re in their mid-40s.”

Adds McGregor: “But after they’ve had plastic surgery and stuff. But I think we get along too well, not just as friends but as a working partnership, not to do something else. But it’ll definitely involve a lot more special effects than Rosehaven.”

Rosehaven screens on the ABC and iview from August 4.

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Louise Rugendyke is Editor of S and TV Liftout at The Sun-Herald.

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