Streaming on Binge, Foxtel Now - Rod Bishop highly recommends the Australian rom-com COLIN FROM ACCOUNTS (Patrick Brammall, Harriet Dyer, Australia, 2022)

This is a surprise - a genuinely original Australian rom-com series that isn’t afraid to be edgy. It’s also keenly observed and effortlessly alternates between being very funny and painfully poignant.

Like many rom-coms, it has a “meet-cute” set-up and this is all over in the first five minutes. Gordon (Patrick Brammall) is a hipster micro-brewer in his 40s and is driving to work in his vintage Toyota Cressida through inner city Sydney. He encounters a pedestrian, the 29-year-old medical student Ashley (Harriet Dyer). 

Distracted, he hits a dog. It’s badly injured and, guilt-struck, Ashley and Gordon take it to a vet where they bond and decide to share responsibility for the now “high-needs” dog, which they name Colin (from Accounts).

From here, the real-life husband and wife team of Dyer and Brammall take on a plethora of issues, seemingly unafraid of much at all. They include intergenerational love; unbearable parents; woke-jokes; sleepwalking that ends in embarrassing urination; inappropriate trans jokes; ‘husband stitches’ added during female perineum-repair; obnoxious Millennials; feral animal shelters; gender-fluidity; cancer survivor collectives; ‘dexy’ snorting; ketamine consumption; and mistakes in texting dick pics.

Patrick Brammall (l), Colin from Accounts (c), Harriet Dyer

Despite the edgy material, Dyer and Brammall successfully maintain the rom-com format and the chemistry between them stays palpable throughout the eight 30-minute episodes. There’s also a lot of laugh-out-loud humour.

And, much like the hilarious Millennial party that takes over Gordon’s micro-brewery for Ashley’s 30^th birthday in episode seven, Colin from Accounts is definitely binge-worthy viewing.