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In the new series The Librarians, Australian comedian Robyn Butler has written a lead role for herself that is among the most unflattering of recent times. She plays Frances O'Brien, head librarian of Middleton Interactive Centre and a middle-class "passive-aggressive control freak" extraordinaire.
Not only is Frances (pictured) intolerant of her Muslim, Asian and gay patrons but, as revealed in the first episode this Friday, she is also capable of causing extreme bodily harm to employees through her casual cruelty. Her life unravels when she is forced to employ her ex-best friend, Christine Grimwood (Roz Hammond) - now a drug dealer - as the children's librarian.
Frances must do all she can to contain Christine's menacing past and concentrate on the biggest event of the library calendar ... Book Week. Butler admits the events that unfold in this six-part series can make for "uncomfortable comedy" - comparing it to the first time anyone tuned into the groundbreaking, similarly laughtrack-free Ricky Gervais comedy The Office.
"I think comedy does have a role in putting a mirror up to society," she notes. "You want to comment on things that are not necessarily nice behaviour." Scarily enough, Frances' repressed rage proved a little too familiar for cast and crew.
"I don't think a day went past while shooting that someone didn't come up to me and say 'that's my sister-in-law' or 'that's my mother'." Since airing in Australia there's been a similar response from people who see the mother-of-two on the streets of her native Melbourne.
"Dare I say it, I think there's a little bit of Frances in everybody." The show, which was three years in development, has received such a positive response in its homeland that Butler and her husband, Wayne Hope, who also stars and directed, are now working on a second season.
Although she admits that she anticipated some kind of backlash from real-life librarians, Butler was even invited to present certificates at the Victorian Library Awards. "I got a warm reception and wasn't pelted by rotten fruit," she says with some relief.
* The Librarians debuts on TV3 this Friday at 10pm.
