New Zealand’s ‘After The Party’ Is Tapping Into The Zeitgeist Around Middle-Aged Women On Screen Sparked By Kate Winslet’s ‘Mare Of Easttown’

Welcome to Global Breakouts, Deadline’s fortnightly strand in which we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films killing it in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it’s ever been, but breakout hits are appearing in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track. So we’re going to do the hard work for you.

To New Zealand we head for a gripping series that deals with themes of betrayal, redemption, ageing and sexism, which has been making waves locally. Starring Robyn Malcolm and Peter Mullan, After the Party showcases New Zealand production at its very best. With a number of big deals across the line, including to the UK’s Channel 4, this one could be coming to a small screen near you soon.

Name: After the Party
Country: New Zealand
Producer: Lingo Pictures & Luminous Beast
Distributor: ITV Studios
Network: TVNZ
For fans of: Mare of Easttown

When the team behind After the Party started hitting their stride, their desire was to do away with the stereotype that shows middle-aged women on TV “wearing lots of makeup, smiling a lot and engaging in ‘kitchen porn’,” co-creator and Kiwi star Robyn Malcolm tells Deadline.

The buzzy series, which has sparked societal conversations in both its home nation and Australia, was always planned to be so much more than a did-he-do-it thriller. It is one of a number of stereotype-smashing portrayals of female middle age that has been buttressed by Kate Winslet-starring HBO smash Mare of Easttown.

“The representation of middle-aged women on TV [a few years ago] was nothing like the women that we actually knew,” explains Malcolm, who has starred in the likes of Top of the Lake.

After the Party, which won Malcolm a Best Actress gong at the Series Mania awards, follows the no nonsense Penny, whose world implodes when she accuses her husband Phil, played by Peter Mullan, of a sex crime and nobody believes her. Phil leaves Wellington, New Zealand, but returns five years on, and Penny suddenly finds herself under pressure to move on and let him back in. As her old furies rise to the surface, Penny must decide what’s more important – the truth or rebuilding her relationships with everyone around her. Director is Peter Salmon. Cast also includes Tara Canton, Ian Blackburn, Elz Carrad, Dean O’Gorman, Ziggy O’Reilly, Mia Blake, Catherine Wilkin and Tanea Heke.

Malcolm started working on After the Party with co-creator and writer Dianne Taylor after a feature the latter was working on about a married couple in their 50s rejected Malcom and cast an actor 20 years her junior.

“We talked a lot about the presence of middle-aged women [on screen],” says Malcolm. “This was before Mare of Easttown and on American TV in particular there was this habit for these characters to wear lots of make-up, smile a lot and engage in ‘kitchen porn.’ But most women in their 50s have got to a place in their life where they don’t care what people think. They are menopausal, pissed off and have complicated histories that are still playing out.”

Malcolm embraced the challenge of co-writing and playing the lead, and the development period was lengthy while the show was honed. She teamed up with Australia’s ITV Studios-backed Lingo Pictures, with the indie’s boss Helen Bowden saying she was taken by the realism and comedy embedded within the scripts. Australia’s ABC subsequently came on board to pre-buy and the UK’s Channel 4 has acquired since in a deal brokered by the show’s distributor ITV Studios

“Robyn has worked a lot in Australia and knowing that she would play Penny I was sold straight away,” adds Bowden. “When we made it we just felt that we could hold on to that audience very strongly, and I feel incredibly proud of how it has worked out.”

The project gained steam when Mullan jumped aboard. His terrifying turn as Matt Mitcham opposite Malcolm in Top of the Lake was met with acclaim and he has worked on hits ranging from Paddy Considine’s indie darling Tyrannosaur to Ozark to Harry Potter to the latest Lord of the Rings series.

Malcolm says her and Taylor wanted someone “brave enough to see the world through the character’s eyes,” while bringing depth. Mullan certainly gave the show’s promotion some oomph in a Series Mania masterclass, during which the gruff Scot coupled discussion about After the Party with a Kevin Spacey takedown (“The man is an asshole”) and an admission that he “didn’t give a shit about Harry Potter.”

“Extraordinary” completion

After the Party ranks among the best performers on streamer TVNZ+ while it consolidated to capture almost a one-third share of total viewers across the season, according to Kiwi pubcaster TVNZ.

Not only was it watched by millions but it also had “extraordinary” completion rates on Australia’s ABC, according to Bowden. “No one will ever beat Bluey but Bluey is followed by six episodes of After the Party,” she adds. “The problem with so many shows at the moment is completion — how many people don’t finish a show even when they profess to love it? — and yet ABC said this was the fastest they’ve seen.”

Emma John, the TVNZ commissioner, says the show put her in mind of a previous Bowden-produced hit, The Slap, about a man who hits a child at a BBQ and the subsequent fallout, which was remade in the States by ABC. “So it was a straightforward decision to commission, but even so you always worry about a show with an older woman and whether it will find an audience,” she adds. “But the biggest consumers of TV are probably women of a certain age and we were thrilled to have that rare beast of a critical and popular success.”

Malcolm praises TVNZ’s decision to air the six episodes week by week rather than dropping them all at the same time, which she says created those all-important watercooler moments that have been lessened by the streaming revolution’s impact on viewing.

“The world was hooked,” she adds. “My bank manager rang me and said, ‘You have to tell me what happens. I’ll reduce your mortgage if you tell me.'”

Bowden says she was “blown away” by the audiences’ emotional investment. “They talked about Penny and others as if they were real,” she adds. “This was the first [Australasian] show since The Slap that felt like it had hit such a hot button topic.”

It may have achieved success on both sides of the Tasman Sea, but Bowden stresses that the TV industries in Australia and New Zealand are unique, each with their own complexities. With global market contraction bedded in and public broadcasters feeling the pinch, she says getting shows financed in both nations is tough, but a recent tweak to the model in New Zealand is slowly improving the landscape. Since cameras stopped rolling on After the Party, Bowden explains that shows in New Zealand can now access a tax credit alongside investment from government funding program NZ On Air, which she says is “much more functional and should really help mid-sized shows get made.”

Malcolm is just glad the team was able to get this one off the ground, and says it is contributing to a “small zeitgeist” in the world of TV driven by A-listers like Mare of Easttown lead Winslet, who continue to land meaty roles well beyond their 20s and 30s.

“I wonder whether our on-screen storytelling is maturing,” says Malcolm. “As people get older, I find that they become more interesting. Maybe TV makers are getting wise to that.”