Iggy & Ace, an outrageous but heartfelt comedy exploring friendship, addiction and recovery through a queer lens arrives at SBS On Demand this week.
The story charts the changing friendship between two alcoholics when one of them decides to get sober. The 6 x 10 minute Digital Originals series will premiere on SBS On Demand on Thursday 9 September.
Iggy & Ace are two young, gay best friends who live, work and play together, inseparable in every way. But when Ace starts to suffer debilitating panic attacks when hungover, he winds up at a gay chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous determined to get sober.
Iggy is horrified, convinced that her friend has been indoctrinated into a religious cult, and views his rejection of their shared lifestyle as a rejection of her. Stung, Iggy does everything she can to disrupt his recovery and keep her best friend close, begging the question: Can Ace’s sobriety and his friendship with Iggy co-exist?
Actor Sara West, who plays Iggy in the show, chatted about making the show, which was filmed in Perth.
“She is a great friend.” West said of her character Iggy. “She tries her hardest, albeit misguided most of the time, but this show’s about two friends discovering how toxic their friendship really is for each other.”
West said she certainly could relate to the two outrageous characters and had a lot of fun shooting the series.
“I had a great time shooting the show, and most of that had to do with all the cool stuff that we got up to. I definitely have known a few Iggys, maybe been a bit of Iggy back in the day. They’re the kind of people who you love to be friends with, but you can’t be around all the time. For sure – she’s a lot.”
For West, the series is one of her first forays into comedy on screen, and she said she realised the secret to being funny was not to attempt being funny.
“As soon as I tried to be funny, it didn’t work.” West said of the experience, but shared they knew when they were hitting the mark, because the crew began to laugh during takes.
While the show is being praised for it’s inclusion of queer characters on screen, West notes that for true diversity to been occurring on shows it has to begin with diversity being within the creative team creating the products.
“What needs to happen first and foremost is diversity in the creative team. I think that is absolutely important. You don’t want the same people making content that just has weird characters thrown in, when they don’t have that authentic experience. They can’t bring anything to it. You know, we’re not here to tick a box.
“So you have to have it in the creative team first and foremost. it comes in the writing of the scripts and who’s producing the show, who you’re going to have directing the characters. It’s also vitally important. On this, it was so cool to see all the different people working not only on screen, but behind the camera as well.”
Hear more about Iggy & Ace.
Listen to our full chat with Sara West.
OIP Staff, an excerpt of this recording previously aired on RTRFM’s program All Things Queer.Â
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