I didn’t watch The Secret Life of Us during it’s original airing. At the time, the similarly-themed, Pinky Beecroft-helmed series Love Is A Four Letter Word was ending its (apparently only) broadcast, and seemed to me at the time to have tackled the same niche better than the soap operatic Secret Life could.
With the full series now available in its original home at Network 10, I’ve finally watched the series, and, while I was correct to take it as a soap opera, it is one that deliberately tried to push boundaries, and tried to carve out its own distinctive voice – both figuratively and literally in the dual narration of Samuel Johnson’s cynical writer Evan and Deborah Mailman’s Kelly, a job-hopping romantic. Set in St Kilda, the drama focuses on the lives of flatmates in an Acland Street apartment building, and undoubtedly boosted tourism to the area. Perhaps my modern eyes are as cynical as Evan’s were at the time of broadcast, but I found myself needing to suspend disbelief at how a bills could be fairly split between the sharehouse comprising a struggling writer, an MLM scheme drop out, and a celebrated surgeon (Claudia Karvan as Alex.)
Nevertheless, it is a fascinating series to look back on as a time capsule of an era, to look at what has changed, and what remains the same – the issues that arise within social groups, and the urban landscape and nightlife. Further, each episode could easily produce a soundtrack album of quality Australian music.
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