Ace detectives: On the long and winding road with Darby and Joan
Brisbane writer Stephen Vagg recalls his experience of writing an episode of the hit ABC-TV cosy crime series Darby and Joan.
A writers’ life is typically full of rejection – I’m writing this article at 2pm and I’ve already received two rejections today while expecting a third, and am currently being ghosted by several people about pitches, scripts and emails I sent them months ago. Think dating in 2025 is hard? Try being a writer.
Look, I get it, it wasn’t as though I wasn’t warned years ago when I gave up law and ran away to the circus ( film school). And over time you do get used to it, you have to, although the pain doesn’t lessen, it can’t, because you can never not care about your work – ever.
But every now and then the sun comes out and a job falls in your lap while you’re picking up toilet paper at Coles, which is what happened when Sarah Smith, story producer of season two for the ABC-TV series Darby and Joan, sent me a text: “Would you like to write a script for Darby and Joan?”
I never asked her why I got the gig because you generally don’t in show business, you just say “yes” before they change their mind, which has happened.
For those unaware, Darby and Joan is a light-hearted detective series (cosy crime, the kids call it) about ex-cop Jack Darby (Bryan Brown) and ex-nurse Joan Kirkhope (Greta Scacchi) who travel the Queensland countryside in a campervan solving mysteries.
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There’s a lot of comedy, friendship, family, colourful characters and sexual tension, plus the odd corpse. The series is an unabashed star vehicle for both Brown and Scacchi, two of the most charismatic actors this country has produced (I don’t care if Greta Scacchi was born in Italy, we’re claiming her). Cosy crime tends to be an unfashionable genre, but the show has sold around the world and earned a devoted fanbase.
Like most easy-to-watch drama, Darby and Joan is trickier to write than it looks. You’ve got to juggle a self-contained mystery of the week, along with a season-long arc and various interpersonal relationships – Darby and Joan and their various exes, friends, family members and strangers they meet on the road. All of this has to be fresh and unique for each particular episode, but also narratively and tonally consistent with all that’s gone before.
Nailing the tone involves a delicate balancing act – episodes need a mystery with stakes that’s not too heavy but not too light, while still having humour, heart and the plain old “get the audience to care whodunnit but they’re no-one’s fool” factor.
I decided to research possible story ideas by recruiting my parents and taking them on a road trip …
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As part of my preparation, I decided to research possible story ideas by recruiting my own grey nomads – my parents – and taking them on a road trip to Pomona on the Sunshine Coast (not very far, admittedly, but they have a dog to feed).
Pomona has a heritage cinema, which I’ve written about previously. It sparked an idea for a Darby and Joan episode that hadn’t been done before. I pitched it to Sarah who liked it and added a story she’d always wanted to do – and we were off to the races or, rather, the scenic Queensland countryside.
The story and script evolved over various drafts, as they always do. I was writing episode five of season two, so plot strands had to be picked up and groundwork laid for episode six, the season finale. The show’s always had this incredible support cast – everyone wants to do scenes with Bryan and Greta – so I’d get requests like, “we might have a chance of using [iconic Aussie actor] in this part, can we beef up their role a little”, to which my response was “oh, my god, yes”.
But beefing something up generally means something else has to be beefed down, so it was a juggle. A worthwhile juggle, mind, especially when, seriously, Darby and Joan hired St Peter’s Lutheran College old girl Sigrid Thornton to play Bryan Brown’s wife. My episode also stars Marcus Graham, Chris Haywood, Rachel Blakely, Lisa Hensley, Steve Bastoni, Jolene Anderson and Anna McGahan and was directed by Rachel Ward.
I’ve been blessed with talented actors in the past but this was next-level stuff. I’d like my writing to take credit but, no, every episode of Darby and Joan has a cast like that, thanks to the main stars. No doubt the fact it’s shot in spectacular locations doesn’t hurt.
My episode was the penultimate one for the season, so it could be more self-contained than the finale, which had to wrap up several serial arcs. (I can’t give spoilers but will tease that Chris Haywood plays a small-town David Stratton-type.) Sarah Smith provided plenty of ideas for me to steal, and I was lucky to have a very script-savvy executive producer, Claire Tonkin, who is the chief keeper of the Darby and Joan flame.
Being a local I was able to visit the set and timed the day so I could get the big trifecta – Bryan, Rachel, and Greta. They couldn’t have been more nice or charming. It was kind of like meeting the royal family, which in a way they are.
I was able to tell Bryan we’d both been in Pulling No Punches, a documentary about Aussie actor Rod Taylor in which Bryan and I were talking heads (so technically it was true). We chatted about Taylor, another westie from Sydney who made good – Taylor was from Lidcombe; Bryan from Panania. The two men never met, incidentally but talked on the phone (I wrote Taylor’s biography).
My episode turned out a treat, with excellent work from the cast and crew – a shout out especially to the art department for reasons that will become clear when you watch it. I can’t wait to get back in the camper van for season three.
Season two of Darby and Joan is streaming on au.acorn.tv and will screen on ABC-TV later this year.