Sometimes you wait months for a sex-positive, joyously queer show to come along, and then two arrive almost at once, both featuring awesome Darwin-born, Melbourne-based actor and First Nations woman Tahlee Fereday. She popped up in the final episode of SBS’s anthology series and also appears alongside Black Snow star Brooke Satchwell in racy new short-form drama Triple Oh!
“I’m blessed to be a part of these projects because it’s rewarding, as an actor, to be in shows that really make you think about them afterwards, and I think that’s true for viewers too,” Fereday says of the double-bill. “SBS has always done a great job of balancing emotional rawness and vulnerable black comedy that can challenge people, allowing them to be uncomfortable about the bigger themes because it’s funny.”
Written by Erica Harrison (Gold Diggers) and directed by Poppy Stockell (John Farnham: Finding the Voice), the very sexy Triple Oh! casts Fereday as Cate, a by-the-book new recruit ambo who’s sweet enough but also a bit of a know-it-all who’s biding her time to get into med school.
Tahlee Fereday and BrookE Satchwell on the set of 'Triple Oh!'. Credit: Sirius Pictures
Satchwell plays Tayls, her mentor who isn’t shy of blurring lines, including sleeping with Cate after her first shift, justifying this with her “life-affirming” policy of cancelling out the death of patients while on duty by hooking up. Beloved comedian Geraldine Hickey voices Dispatch Dale, who sends them on their merry way.
Trying to figure out one another across five dinky episodes of shifting expectations, they encounter everything from consensual sex injuries to cleaning utensils where they ought not to be, via disarmingly wholesome stuff about navigating an age-appropriate exit from this life without losing touch with your sexuality. Plus exploding cars.
An eye-opening set-up, it’s the truth that lends Triple Oh! its authenticity. Harrison’s screenplay is inspired by interviews with real paramedics. “I find that with my friends in the medical field, the way that they talk about the horrific things they see, they’re really chill about it and are like, ‘If you don’t laugh, you cry’,” Fereday says.
The episode addressing an older woman facing down her mortality touched a nerve for Fereday. “It’s really heartbreaking because you see that a lot with the older generation and loneliness, especially after COVID,” she says.
Tahlee Fereday in 'Triple Oh!'. Credit: Sirius Pictures
On top of their herculean efforts during lockdowns, Fereday has even more empathy for frontline paramedics after donning their heavy overalls during a hot summer shoot. It was eye-opening, too, seeing how much more respect she commanded in public spaces while wearing them. Getting the practical stuff right was the trickiest part.
“I only have my first aid certificate, so trying to use a defibrillator was a continuity nightmare,” she says. Luckily, they had an expert on hand. “There was a nurse on set and he was so helpful, speaking to him every time we had a break.”
Satchwell was the perfect on-set partner. “She’s a rock star who has such an openness about her that makes it so easy when you have friction in the scene,” Fereday says. “She’ll know everyone’s name on set and the neighbours next to where we’re filming, and that energy makes it comfortable to explore things and shift the dynamic.”
Brooke Satchwell as Tayls. Credit: Sirius Pictures
Fereday is all for how Triple Oh! and Erotic Stories embrace diverse casts and address boundary-budging topics, but she has one reservation. “It’s really important that we talk about things we don’t usually speak about as a society and normalise them, and there’s power in hearing underrepresented communities’ voices that can change people’s perceptions, but I’m also really nervous about the people close to me seeing the show,” she says.
In writing Triple Oh?, Harrison didn’t only rely on her conversations with the “real life superheroes” aka ambos. “I’ve had more brushes with mortality, hospital stays, and ambulance rides than I would care for, like a lot of people. Some of them my own, some of them with the people I love, so I was drawing on those experiences.”
Sure, this kernel of truth is heightened in the show, but the occasionally farcical situations Tayls and Cate are thrust headlong into aren’t always as fantastical as you might think, Harrison reveals. “When a kid dresses as the Grim Reaper and helps deliver CPR, that’s a true story,” she chuckles.
Much like Fereday’s mates, Harrison is fascinated by the collision of brevity and darkness, “And that really human tendency to use humour to deal with it,” she says. “Poppy and I started playing with the idea of a show set in the world of paramedics because they’re on that front line of life and death and are intimate with mortality, having to find funny in the face of loss and emotionally detach to survive in the job.”
Shabana Azeez as Brooklyn, one of the people the paramedic pair meet while working. Credit: Sirius Pictures / Georgia Blake
The speed with which paramedics respond, get folks to the hospital and move on lends itself to short-form storytelling, Harrison suggests. “From the interviews, there’s a lot of waiting around, then there’s these suddenly very pacey moments of intimacy, where you’re thrown into these moments where people are having either the best or the worst day of their life, often the worst, and then suddenly you’re moving on to the next story and you might never see that person again,” she says. “That allowed us to have these little vignettes and then come back to the main story with Tayls and Cate. It’s a good exercise in concise, compact, compressed storytelling.”
Harrison’s also a big fan of Erotic Stories and Fereday’s work on it. “It’s exciting that these stories that haven’t been seen on screen are finding a place and an audience,” she says. “The different ways that people experience love and lust are as varied as the people in the world. And I think queer stories, especially, are often exploring those lesser-seen ways of experiencing desire, love and family. And it’s fantastic.”
In its Australian television premiere, Triple Oh! is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Triple Oh!
series • comedy
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series • comedy
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Stream free On Demand
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