Driven to a storied solution

Mandy McElhinney stars.

Squinters,
ABC, Wednesday, 9pm

Five carloads of Aussies travelling to and from work every day is the premise for the brand new ABC comedy starting this week.
The six-part series is all about the daily commute as seen through the eyes of some of Australia’s best comedians.
During peak hour, inside the cars, workers from consumer goods dispatch centre “Kosciuszko” mix, mingle and plan for the future. It’s a time of flux at Kosciusko with rumours that it is about to be gobbled up by a multinational.
From the fertile mind of Adam Zwar (Wilfred) and starring Tim Minchin, Mandy McElhinney, Andrea Demetriades, Jackie Weaver and Sam Simmons, Squinters is a slow burn as both the commuters and audience get to know each other.
Minchin stars as delivery driver Paul who starts an eco-carpool to get to know Romi from marketing – and a gentle, teasing bond develops between the two as the series progresses. Meanwhile McElhinney is a time-poor single mum with a teenager and a toddler trying to raise kids and date in a remarkably funny but realistic vignette.
However the real star of the show is Simmons as middle management, gay dog owner Lucas – he is fun, slightly unhinged and shares a slightly antagonistic relationship with his mother Audrey (Weaver) and strained relationship with his barrister brother (Damon Herriman). The relationship between three trio harks back to the classic Mother And Son and it kind of cries out for a series all of its own.
Also in the cars are forklift driver Macca (Justin Rosniak) who loses his licence and ends up pooling with former schoolmate and IT worker Ned (Steen Raskopoulos) and Simoni (Susie Youssef) who arranges a job interview at Kosciusko for best mate Talia (Rose Matafeo) to raise funds for their yoga-bar venture ‘Cabernet Shavasana’.
There are a lot of characters to get to know in half an hour but this show succeeds by not trying to go too far over the top or into too much detail. While a lot of Australian comedies seem to think it’s fun to head to the ridiculous, Squinters stop short, managing to be slightly hyper-real with characters you still recognise.
– Tania Phillips