How a virtual bar became a 30-something Cheers for the COVID-19 era

In early March, as the coronavirus inexorably spread to Australia and countries such as Italy and Spain were running out of beds in their intensive care units, television writer and producer Meg O’Connell and her friends in Brisbane started to self-isolate. For consolation and mutual support they put together an online video meeting space, which they imagined as a BYO bar.

More than a dozen people passed through on the Friday night the digital space opened, and it became a nightly – and sometimes daily, with coffee – habit for participants. On the Sunday evening O’Connell’s friend and fellow creative Mark O’Toole checked in, and by the next morning the pair were swapping story notes on a show inspired by the meeting place. They even had a one-sentence pitch: “A 30something Cheers for the internet.”

No one yells “Norm!”, but for the most part the series that emerged from the duo’s drinks and rapid development stays true to the outline. With six episodes both about and produced during the social isolation era, Retrograde is an ABC comic-drama about Maddie (Pallavi Sharda), an unfulfilled 32-year-old in lockdown with her boyfriend, Rob (Max Brown). Her uncertainties are exacerbated when Maddie discovers her ex, Dylan (Nick Boshier), has suddenly returned to their social circle via the show’s sole setting of an online hangout.

“For many people this time has thrown up questions over whether they’re happy with their life choices,” O’Connell says. “You got to ask yourself questions you haven’t had the time or space to previously consider, let alone answer.”

Retrograde is literally a new axis for O’Connell. Last year she created Content for the ABC, a winning comedy series designed to be watched on vertical mobile phone screens. Now she’s working on the horizontal, creating a fictional version of our emblematic and often endless Zoom meetings. Turns out lockdown is the perfect accelerant for existential crises.

“The show is definitely more serious than when we set out,” O’Connell says. “We knew that we wanted to take this seriously, especially because when we started we didn’t know the impact on Australia in terms of deaths, but even in moments of darkness we’re still making light of some things. We’ve also tried to deal with the grief of lost time and loss, so it’s more of a dramedy than a comedy, especially in the back half.”

The concept was quickly commissioned by the ABC, with rapid pledges from the funding bodies involved. That was in part because of the relevance of the idea, and the fear that it might fade before the show aired, and also the knowledge that for the unemployed cast and crew in Brisbane it was the only job available as conventional productions shut down.