Go Girls: Shifting the goalposts and changing the game

Ladies on ladders tie fake pohutakawa flowers to the leaves - it's supposed to be December, and New Zealanders will notice if there are no crimson flowers to prove it. At their cue, little girls in fairy costumes leave their mothers' laps and gather around Alix Bushnell, who has just emerged from the dressing room as bohemian fairy Britta, and is standing in the trees that frame Rangitoto. But behind the cast on Takapuna beach, the guy with the metal detector and the teens with their guitars don't seem to notice the fake fairy party and the lights and cameras. Mr Whippy's theme-song will have to be cut out of the shot.

Go Girls, South Pacific Pictures' successful comedy-drama about a group of 20-somethings on Auckland's North Shore, has become as much a part of its setting as the shore's beaches and penchant for white pants have become part of the show. The characters are now household names both here and in Australia, and an American version is at pilot stage.

Last season, besties Amy (Anna Hutchison), Cody (Bronwyn Turei), Britta (Bushnell) and honorary Go Girl Kevin (Jay Ryan) gathered on the beach and set goals over a bottle of tequila. In 365 days, they toasted, Amy was to get rich, Cody married, Britta famous and Kevin ... well he would be happy with a sports steering wheel.

The actors - Hutchison, who was still riding the media wave of shedding her clothes on Underbelly, Ryan who was also part of Aussie naval drama Sea Patrol and new faces Bushnell and Turei - were introduced at the rehearsal and told they were to pretend they had been friends for 20 years. A pot luck dinner and a fair amount of social lubricant later, they felt like they had.

Turei says that as she sat on a Gisborne beach next to Ryan and Bushnell and watched dawn break on New Year's Day this year (after partying at the Rhythm and Vines festival) she felt like she was living a scene from the television show. Hutchison has since moved to Los Angeles.

But the real life-friendship does not transcend to the screen when the show returns for a second season. Turei warns of splinters in the Go Girls unit as bitchiness gets the better of them - Amy is single, broke, living with Kevin and sleeping around, Britta realises she has slept with half the North Shore out of sympathy, Cody's marriage to an "ex-homo" is being micro-managed by a PR guy and Kevin just seems to be dodging the nasty vibes the girls are giving off.

He thinks he has just the ticket to set things right - another tequila session on the beach. And after a false start, they end up in another round of goal-setting. Amy will be a nice person and help one person each month whether they like it or not, Britta will find her one true love, Cody will stay married for a year and Kevin will aim higher, whatever that means.

Executive producer and co-writer Rachel Lang describes the new season as "more of the same but better".

She and co-producer and writer Gavin Strawhan always had a second season in mind - the challenge was to keep the same format of four friends on four different quests: "When we were working on it we were always thinking how would we do it in a second season because to have them have the same quests would be quite boring in a way."

While the goal-setting lays out the format of the show, last season was also about love and success, and what constitutes success, she says.

"The ideas of the show are still the same, but in a way the characters are a bit older and wiser than they were in the first season.

There are also big changes in the group this year and new characters, so that's thrown us into some new story areas and new developments for the characters," Lang says.

One of the biggest changes is the introduction of Olivia (Esther Stephens), dubbed the fifth Go Girl, who was Amy's bestie at high school and is forced to return to the shore after being overseas. Britta and Cody don't like her at all: "to the point of using the word hate," Turei says.

"Cody makes it quite well known that she doesn't like people. Which isn't very nice, but I enjoy doing it," she says.

Anecdotal evidence shows New Zealand women identified with Cody the most last season - whether it is because of her boyish streak or unconscionable determination to get married. And even though she was initially the most reluctant to try to reach her goal, Cody ended up being the only one of the group to achieve it when she married a handsome, but secretly gay, rugby hero to please both her Alzheimer's mother and his Christian family.

Turei says nothing had prepared her for the popularity of her character and the time between seasons has been crazy.

" I went to Christchurch to do a play in the middle of last year and I got mobbed; I didn't know what to do. There were so many people who recognised me from the show, I rang Jay and said, 'I don't know what to do'."

"Yeah she was having a panic attack, she rang from a toilet cubicle," says Ryan, who is just as close to her as his character Kev is to Cody.

"They were all really lovely, it wasn't aggressive I just didn't know how to react. I thought, you really want to talk to me? Because I'm kind of a dick, you can ask my friends," Turei laughs.

The new season will see some big changes in Cody, partly because she has been forced to grow up, and partly due to the influence of the Wags she has to hang out with.

"They are these thin, blonde, beautiful ladies married to the rugby players, who don't eat anything and talk about pilates and high colonics. And all they do is shop and eat lunch but not actually eat it. And Cody gets bored shitless, so she has to do something about that."

We hold up an image of the new season Cody wearing high heels and a little black dress. "Yeah, I don't look like I stuck my wet finger in a light socket any more," she says.

Despite the heels, Cody will still spend time with the greasy boys of Easy Tune, the mechanics shop where a big chunk of last season's storyline was played out.

And Kevin, who emerges as a more driven and confident version of his "yeah-nah" self this season, will bring a new meaning to the place when he starts bringing girls back.

"Kev does it in the car, on top of the car, on the greasy floor court," Ryan says of his character's new found mojo.

This is Kev's moments to cut loose, he says, and viewers will also be treated to some funky dance moves when he has a few too many drinks.

Ryan tries to demonstrate them at the cafe table: "It depends on how drunk he is but it's kind of as if every limb has its own move. It's quite disjointed and then there's the head nod."

The moves are inspired by his dad, he says. In fact a lot of his character draws from his father, a mechanic from West Auckland who has always had cars lying around in the backyard.

As a Westie, Ryan says he was so proud when Outrageous Fortune gave him a voice, and now he's pleased to be doing the same for Shore-ites, especially as he and Turei mix up the stereotype by representing the less cultivated residents.

Speaking of that North Shore stereotype, epitomised by Britta's mother Fran McMann the single real estate agent, over-achieving Angelina and Amy's European-chic outfits ...

"I didn't get it, because it's not my style of clothing at all - not judging it - and then me and Jay went to Albany Westfield Mall. We walked through and were just like, there's a million Amys, it was insane," Turei laughs.

So with such an assimilated cast, it's no wonder the North Shore residents just carry on their business without blinking when passing a Go Girls shoot.

"We did a shoot at Browns Bay, it was a beautiful, beautiful early morning, about five or 5.30 and the sun rose over the beach, and as the day progressed more and more people emerged and ... on the beach there were icecreams; it was really nice to be part of that, we didn't feel like we were really intruding.

"The North Shore sort of suits having this random group filming, it's sort of like the Palm Springs of New Zealand in a way," adds Ryan. "And when you're there in the early morning with families running around, you really feel like you are doing something very New Zealand," Turei says.

LOWDOWN

What: Go Girls, round 2

Starring: Alix Bushnell, Anna Hutchison, Jay Ryan, Bronwyn Turei and newbie Esther Stephens.

When and where: Thursday March 18, 8.30pm, TV2.