Bed of Roses

Bed of Roses is an Australian comedy drama television series which was first shown on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) from 10 May 2008. It stars Kerry Armstrong (SeaChange and Lantana) and was created by Jutta Goetze and Elizabeth Coleman. It was produced by Mark Ruse (Kath & Kim, The Games) and Stephen Luby (Crackerjack). Plot Bed of Roses is about Louisa Atherton (Armstrong) handling her life after she discovers that her husband has died in the arms of another woman, leaving her broke. She returns to her home town of Rainbow's End to live with her feisty mother, Minna (Julia Blake). Rainbow's End is in a "growth corridor" with the neighbouring town of Indigo. Besides problems with Minna, Louisa encounters trouble with her teenage daughter Holly (Hanna Mangan-Lawrence) and local residents. Louisa has few financial assets except "Mary Kelly's Shack" which she inherited from her father. She decides to demolish the shack and build a new house to sell. Holly has taken the death of her father very hard and insists on carrying around his ashes. Louisa's irresponsible driving results in numerous traffic offences, which she can ill afford. Production The first season contained six 50-minute episodes, with the $5 million production being shot over nine weeks, mostly in the South Gippsland towns of Foster and Meeniyan, it took six years from its initial conception to final screening. It has distinct overtones of Armstrong's previous ABC-TV series SeaChange. Bed of Roses was commissioned for a six-episode season and aired on Saturday night on ABC at 7:30 pm, leading into The Bill at 8:30 pm. The ABC ordered 8 episodes for season two. Bud Tingwell and Philip Quast joined the cast for the second season. Season two of Bed of Roses was filmed over five months in regional Victoria (South Gippsland), Melbourne and in the ABC TV studios, Ripponlea. "We knew whilst making series one that we had something special on our hands and so went straight into developing a second series. The audience response was terrific both on ABC1 and Podcast."