Outrageous Fortune all in the family

New Zealand television's most outrageous family are back by popular demand.

Dad gives 18-year-old Pascalle the once-over.

"Our beautiful daughter," he says to her mother, "is a bloody two-bit slut."

It's episode one of the second season of Outrageous Fortune and another great one-liner has spilled from the Wolf's mouth.

You'll have to wait until Tuesday to hear more - and find out why the show was named New Zealand's best drama programme and series at the Screen Awards last week.

"It's a family drama," says writer James Griffin, when asked to explain the show's success. "It's irreverent and it's un-PC and it has a joy for life."

For Griffin, who has drummed up an impressive CV in New Zealand TV, this is the one show that has captured people's imaginations, and caused people he barely knows to ring him out of the blue in admiration. Outrageous Fortune has also found audiences in Australia, Britain and Ireland.

It could be because the show has found a natural balance between suburban drama and situation comedy.

Aside from the odd reference to deep-fried parts of the male anatomy, there are few forced punchlines. But Griffin suspects it's because the Wests, a family of petty crims whose capers include burglary, piracy and infidelity, are "dreadfully amoral".

By the end of the first series, dad Wolf had gone to jail; Pascalle's modelling career had veered into stripping; younger daughter Loretta's film hobby had turned to a black-market business, son Van had slept and stumbled his way into all kinds of strife; his twin, lawyer Jethro had got into trouble for masquerading as a Maori; and matriarch Cheryl, the one family member desperate to go straight, had started an affair with the cop who was trying to bring the family down.

Even Grandpa Ted was up to no good, hamming up his Alzheimer's.

They should have been the world's worst neighbours, and as viewers, we should have judged them.

But it was hard not to like the Wests. They had their own code of honour that meant they didn't resort to violence, and if someone in the family was in trouble, Clan West would attempt to get them out. And as Cheryl discovered when she took a job at the local supermarket, the real world was often as corrupt as theirs.

Even the house, with its tacky wallpaper, 70s furniture and dated facade became a character, or as Griffin puts it, "their turangawaewae".

Outrageous Fortune was not only a breath of fresh air, it helped revive the screen career of Robyn Malcolm (Cheryl West), who had taken time out from acting after the birth of her son. Her emotional performance earned her a TV Award for best actress last year.

Antony Starr, who played both twins Van and Jethro, also emerged as a face to watch, winning best actor, although he later risked his newfound rep with a notoriously drunken speech at the Music Awards. It might have been Van at the podium.

And now they're back.

Much of series two explores the shift in family dynamics as Wolf exchanges one prison for another. He's out of jail on home detention, and blames Cheryl for the chaos that has ensued in his absence.

Van and Jethro are vying to be Dad's number one son, Pascalle's modelling career is in tatters and Loretta's illegal project finds her in hot water.

There are also two new kids on the block, played by familiar faces Shane Cortese (Dancing with the Stars, Shortland Street) and Claire Chitham (Shortland Street).

Cortese plays Hayden, a white-collar criminal who wants Wolf's help to pull off a dodgy job. Chitham plays Aurora, Van's troubled long-lost love.

"Shane and Claire were the lucky winners in our search for new characters to humiliate in different ways," says Griffin.

"It's a hoary old cliche but Shane brings something different to the family. He's a bit more of a designer criminal.

"And with Claire, she's kind of like a fairytale princess and she lights up the screen. The moment she opens her mouth you see why Van would fall in love with this woman."

Cortese, who insists Hayden isn't as psychotic as his Shortland Street character Evil Dom, recalls watching last year's TV Awards as a stream of Outrageous Fortune staff filed past to receive gongs, including Malcolm and Starr, Mark Beesley (best director), Rachel Lang (script) and Nicola Smith (editing).

He knew Griffin having starred in his play, Then Comes Love, so the possibility of ending up on the show was always at the back of his mind. Until then, he'd been wary of New Zealand comedy.

"I've always thought our radio people are funny but that it can't be transferred to telly," he says. "But suddenly we get these writers who know what works as far as comedy goes and they've infused it with drama as well."

Real Westies like it too, says Griffin, despite critics grumbling the Wests are stereotypes. "I think Westies know what's real and what's not."

What of the other complaints that Outrageous Fortune's brand of satire lacks subtlety, with characters stripping naked in public, pretending to be Maori and one having sex with his school deputy principal?

"They might not be real but they're caricatures of what we believe people to be like," says Cortese. "Because they're a bit naughty we can live with them.

"That's why it's doing so well overseas, because every society has their Wests, whether they're bogans or bloody doolies from Ireland. They rob and they steal but they never hurt anyone."

"Last year," says Antony Starr from the makeup chair as he is transformed from Jethro into Van, "everyone was finding their feet, from writers to actors and everyone in between. The structure wasn't as tight as it is this year."

Griffin hears the characters' voices now when he writes, and that's made it easier to let go. Which brings us to the sex. Episode one has at least three couples going for it, and a particularly funny scene where the parents of Van's runaway bride confront him about his attitude towards oral sex.

"If it's raunchy it's a celebration of being raunchy, rather than being gratuitous for the sake of a few ratings," says Griffin. "They're a family who are passionate, lusty and they live life to the full. It's really good to leave behind your nice middle-class restraint and just go for the doctor.

"They're funny, they're clever, they're rude. They can say and do the things that we all think and wish we could say and do and don't."

LOWDOWN

* What: Outrageous Fortune, featuring the bogan heroes of New Zealand dramedy.

* Returning: Tuesday, September 5, TV3, 9.30pm (replacing Boston Legal).

* Who's who: Outrageous Fortune was created by James Griffin and Rachel Lang.
It stars Robyn Malcolm as Cheryl West, Grant Bowler as Wolfgang West, Antony Starr as Jethro and Van West, Siobhan Marshall as Pascalle West, Antonia Prebble as Loretta West and Frank Whitten as Grandpa Ted West.