Queer sci-fi nerds come out

Queer sci-fi nerds come out

Comedians and creative partners Adam Richard and John Richards have stuffed their new ABC TV show Outland with more of the LGBTIQ alphabet soup than Australian TV viewers, fed on a diet of Packed to the Rafters and Winners and Losers, would be used to seeing.

“As we all know, commercial networks don’t do anything even vaguely risky,” Richard told the Star Observer.

“But the ABC — bless them, with their handful of peanuts — are very resourceful when it comes to things no one else would bother to put on or pay for.”

Centred around a ragtag bunch of queer sci-fi nerds and their weekly group meetings, Outland’s cast of characters include leather fetish daddy Andy (Paul Ireland), adorable dork Max (Toby Truslove), hyperactive twink Toby (Ben Gerrard), screaming queen Fab (played by Richard) and even a wheelchair-bound Indigenous lesbian, Rae (Christine Anu). Talk about covering all bases.

Through these lovably geeky characters, and amongst the frequent laughs, Richard and Richards have struck at the heart of an issue not often confronted within the wider gay community: the pressure to fit in, and the ostracism often felt by those who don’t easily find a place for themselves in gay life.

Richard acknowledged this aspect of the story was partly autobiographical.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not thin. All my friends are tiny little twinky things — even the 40-year-olds — so I’ve always stuck out like a sore thumb. When I was younger, that was a much more difficult thing for me to deal with,” he admitted.

Now, he’s on a mission to galvanise gay freaks and geeks the world over, with Outland’s pilot already having played to great acclaim in queer film festivals overseas.

“One guy in London came up to John after the screening and said, ‘I’m not a sci-fi fan, but I am a trainspotter, so I really identify with this’,” Richard cackled.

“I think everyone has that need to be accepted amongst like-minded people — whether they’re gay people, whether they’re science fiction fans, or both.”

At the Sydney preview screening of the show late last year, the pair appeared like nervous parents, fidgeting and giggling as they introduced their baby to a room filled with notoriously hard-to-please journos and TV critics (who, much to the duo’s relief, laughed in all the right places).

“It was really weird — it’s like doing five years’ worth of preparation for a gig, but then not doing the gig on the actual night. It’s there, you’re doing it, but you’re also sitting in the audience watching it. It was very odd,” Richard, who is more used to taking to the stage as a seasoned stand-up comedian, said.

He said casting the show was a difficult process, as the pair trawled through casting agents for actors with just the right mix of skills.

For Toby, they needed a young, attractive actor with impeccable comic timing and a musical theatre background, and lucked out with the NIDA-trained Gerrard.

Max, being the show’s own Carrie Bradshaw (unlucky in love and a relatively ‘normal’ window into the lives of the other, more broadly drawn characters), was a pivotal role to cast.

“Nobody believes me, but it’s true: there are only two types of actors. Actors who can play comedy, and actors who can play drama. There are maybe seven people in the whole country who can do both, and Toby Truslove is one of them. He’s amazing,” Richard gushed of his lead.

The funnyman admitted his own rendering of Max was a little less nuanced (“Yeah, I don’t have any range. Max is basically me but loud — me after 14 pints”), and said the uncensored manner of the show’s louder characters — such as Andy, always keen to share news of his latest debauched sexual escapade — were a conscious choice on his and Richards’ part.

“There is one episode where I lost count, but there were something like 1000 dildos on set.

“The one thing we wanted to do was make a gay show where being gay was the normality — they’re all in the closet about being nerds, they all have other problems and issues, whereas they’re all fine with being gay.”

INFO: Outland premieres Wednesday, February 8 at 9.30pm on ABC1.

Photo: John Tsiavis

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3 responses to “Queer sci-fi nerds come out”

  1. sounds fab, cant wait to watch it. have always enjoyed adam richard on spicks and specks, he is such a wonderfully proud sissy.

  2. It seems to have escaped the writer’s notice, in his comment re “Packed to the Rafters” and “Winners and Losers”, that both shows are created by an openly gay writer and have contained gay characters. “Winners and Losers” has a regular main cast gay character and deals with him as a fully functioning integrated happy individual. proud and open about his sexuality and totally embraced within the world of the show’s heterosexual characters. Certainly “Outland” would seem to focus on a full raft of gay characters, but it is a shame that the writer’s comments show he is clearly ignorant of the introduction of gay characters in to these mainstream commercial shows. Credit where it’s due please.