Suburban family life collides with murder and mystery in Claudia Karvan's crime thriller Small Claims, writes Sacha Molitorisz.

In a singlet and jeans, Claudia Karvan looks less like Alex from The Secret Life Of Us and more like the secret cousin of Kath and Kim. Dressed equally inelegantly, a pregnant Rebecca Gibney is holding a garbage bag and scooping up toys. Meanwhile, kids bounce about like half-formed thoughts. Apparently, this is a film set.

It's December and we are in a child-care centre in the Sydney suburb of Mortlake. Along with a small army of ankle-biters, the camera crew is here to shoot Small Claims, a telemovie set deep in the 'burbs in which Karvan and Gibney play an odd couple of mums.

"No, it's not like a set, is it?" says Tony Iffland, chief executive of UKTV, which helped produce the drama with Channel Ten. "It's more like a family party. Or a creche."

The director, Cherie Nowlan (Marking Time, Thank God He Met Lizzie), is sitting behind a monitor. On her lap sits a young boy holding a plastic dinosaur. Her son, perhaps? "No," someone says. "Just a miscellaneous kid." You'd hardly guess that Small Claims is a murder mystery.

"Small Claims is an odd mixture," says veteran Keith Thompson, who wrote the script with his wife, Kaye Bendle. "It's a mix of a high-concept murder story and low-concept domestic detail, which means you get these lovely collisions."

"Like when they do the car chase," Bendle says. "They're in a Volvo station wagon."

It's a great idea, and makes you wonder why - given our affection for murder stories - we haven't previously seen two young mums juggling their commitments to family, career and crime-fighting. "I think this is something Australian audiences haven't seen before," Gibney says. "And I was completely engrossed by the story. It starts off in one direction, then it becomes a family drama, then a thriller, then a bit comical ... it has elements of everything."

It's an inventive, ambitious mix, and Ten has high hopes for it. Under the direction of Ten's drama chief, Sue Masters, Small Claims will be an occasional series, just like the Colin Friels cop drama Blackjack. "We expect Small Claims will be a long-running franchise on Ten," says David Mott, Ten's general manager of network programming." Apart from the premiere, two more instalments are in the works.

Though the premiere telemovie features an impressive supporting performance from White Collar Blue's Freya Stafford, the key characters are those of Karvan and Gibney. Karvan plays Jo Collins, a surly cop. Jo was destined for a glittering career in the force; instead, now 28, she is separated from her copper husband and is raising a young son.

"I get to wear thongs and short denim skirts," Karvan says. "I won't be taking home this wardrobe." She might be more willing to take home Jo's car, however: an orange V8 with mag wheels and tinted windows. "It's great to drive," she says. "I've had hoons pulling me over, which is good fun. [The producers] were talking about my character having a hatchback, and I was like, 'I think a muscle car is the go.' Cops drive those cars all the time, so they get used to having a car with a bit of guts."

The real draw for Karvan was her character. "Often I get asked to play the romantic characters," she says. "It was refreshing to get offered a character who can be quite unlikeable. She's quite angry and tough, and drinks Coke and eats salt and vinegar chips, all things the roles offered to me don't usually have.

"Also, I've been 20 years in the Australian film industry and I hadn't played a cop, so, Jesus, I had to take up that opportunity. I think I was the only person in Australia who hadn't."

Gibney's character is a former Legal Aid solicitor, which makes for an inbuilt antipathy. As Jo says: "We catch 'em; you get 'em off." Their personalities and lives are a contrast, too: happily married, Chrissy has abandoned her promising career to raise three kids.

"I think what's appealing is that these are very ordinary people," says Gibney, who is best known for her role as forensic psychologist Jane Halifax in the Halifax f.p. franchise. "I play a suburban housewife who used to be solicitor and has let herself go.

So this is me as you've never seen me. My character gets about in track pants and no make-up, and I was six months' pregnant during filming, so I look frumpy. It's a nice departure, having been in Armani for Halifax for seven years. It's lovely to change. And this character is delightful. She cannot help but see the best in everybody."

Appropriately for a telemovie about two mums, the Small Claims team is woman-heavy. As well as Bendle and Nowlan, there are producers Rosemary Blight and Kylie Du Fresne. "I always work with a lot of women heads of department," Nowlan says. "There's Anna Howard, the cinematographer. And three of the five producers are women."

As a result, the Small Claims set seems pleasantly free of macho posturing.

"Cherie commands a very inclusive, calm set," Blight says. "And the kids make a big difference. The kids just break you down. You've just got to go with them." As if on cue, Blight is interrupted by boisterous cheering and applauding. The reason is a young girl named Tegan, who has just been involved in her last scene. Whether it's because of the noisy attention or disappointment about being finished, Tegan begins to cry quietly. Apparently, these are Tegan's first tears of the shoot. If she really wants to make it as an actress, she'll have to throw tantrums more forcefully and frequently than this.

"The kids are the determining factor," Nowlan says. "Like in real life, they dictate everything - and in a very positive way. The thing about kids is they're unpredictable. Whatever they give you is gold, apart from the moments when they crane their neck 360 degrees to look at the camera or talk over a line. Apart from that, they're just fantastic."

Like her character, Karvan has a young child. Gibney, after being inconspicuously pregnant during the shoot, recently gave birth to her first child in Tassie, where she lives. "It's been method acting all along," Nowlan says.

"I don't think I could have played a mother so convincingly [before I had my daughter]," Karvan says. "The knots you tie yourself up in over your child, that's what drives this whole character. And that's informed by my being a mother. This one desire to make sure the father of her child is going to be around and that her child's safe. It's an interesting motivation for a thriller."

"I remember falling in love when my daughter was born," says Bendle, whose daughter is now 12. "I actually felt that: falling in love. Looking at her, the need to protect and nurture was so strong. And some of the dads we know are amazing. A lot of them are in business and have to travel, but the lengths they go to to get back in time for their kids' concerts, or to do dads' day in the tuckshop."

"That's where the title Small Claims came from," says Thompson, whose credits date back to Homicide and Matlock Police. "And Kaye researched crime shows for years and discovered just how many bad guys get into trouble by doing things on behalf of their kids.

"So, yes, Small Claims is an odd concept. It's like It's A Wonderful Life with murder."

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/11/1084041392310.html