Format

8 x 40 minute, drama-comedy

About

Natalie and Tilda used to be best friends, the chalk and cheese kind. When they turn up at a mutual friend’s party, now both 45, their immediate reaction is to ignore one another. They haven’t seen each other in years.

These days, Natalie isn’t the famous playwright she thought she’d be. Tilda has just been appointed as a magistrate but is now juggling being a single mum. As Natalie and Tilda reconnect over a bottle of wine, Tilda asks Natalie to step in and be her nanny for a day for her daughter Mabel. What is meant to be a favour becomes a permanent gig.

In this next chapter of their lives, life at 45 throws new curve-balls. Tilda is at a career-high: she has immense power in her hands each time she walks into court and sits up on the bench. But the responsibility comes with a demanding boss and political pressure to put more people into prison. Natalie’s hubris has mellowed, allowing her to chase a small but important mission. She takes back artistic power and starts a little theatre venue—funding this risky venture by telling a few white lies.

Well, the hubris of her youth hasn’t completely gone.

As they re-discover their friendship, Tilda supports Natalie when her mum dies suddenly, and Natalie becomes the lunch box packing aunty that Mabel never knew she needed. Things are returning to the way they used to be between these two friends, with a peri-menopausal edge.

Until Natalie loses Mabel for a day, and has to appear before Tilda in court, begging to be let off.

Development

Developed on spec.