Creamerie: The New Zealand TV series that has become a big hit overseas
Creamerie’s Pip (Perlina Lau), left, confronts Lane (Tandi Wright). Photo / Supplied
If New Zealand can find a way to export dairy in all its forms, it will. And as breakthrough comedy Creamerie returns for season two in all its dairy-adjacent dystopian glory, it, too, is being sold to a wider world.
The series’ first season was much loved at home. But after streamer, Hulu introduced it to US audiences, with Australia’s SBS also picking it up, producer Bronwyn Bakker says the Disney-owned US platform instantly asked when it would be getting the next one.
The season-one cliffhanger-finish will no doubt have contributed. The first series ended in a room full of the last remaining men after a global virus supposedly eliminated everyone else. Graphically, they’re being forced to provide the only thing that will continue humankind, all masterminded by Lane, the evil governess of “Wellness”, played by Tandi Wright.
The ending shifted the series’ dark humour further into the black.
“There are some things that happen that are quite confronting, but then equally, someone will say a line that puts you back into that comedy world,” says Bakker. “That tonal balance – it’s a bit of an art form.”
It’s a balance well executed by lead trio Alex (Ally Xue), Jaime (JJ Fong) and Pip (Perlina Lau), who tried to harbour fugitive Bobby (Jay Ryan) throughout season one. He’s a bloke who experiences mistreatment that viewers aren’t used to seeing men endure on the small screen.
Says Bakker, “We wanted to honour [Bobby’s mistreatment], but it’s not Bobby’s story, so we didn’t want to delve too much into it. Ultimately, it’s about the mistreatment of human beings, how women deal with it versus how men deal with it. And that’s the underlying narrative that we’re dancing with while making a funny show.”
It’s a universal experience – one that those at the top were willing to bank on when selling the show overseas.
Bakker says the show’s executive producer, Tony Ayres, and fellow Aussie producer Matt Vitins had avidly followed director and Creamerie co-creator Roseanne Liang’s work (Shadow in the Cloud, My Wedding and Other Secrets), and the pair had helped open doors for the series abroad.
Creamerie has followed in the footsteps of Wellington Paranormal into overseas markets by being an original comedy and a show that could have been from nowhere else than here.