The Drop Off: Mike McLeish and Fiona Harris on their hit web series

IT’S a mundane part of parenting, but St Kilda East couple Mike McLeish and Fiona Harris have managed to turn the school drop-off into comedy gold — and it’s catching on with a growing online audience.

Mike McLeish and Fiona Harris at home in St Kilda East. Picture: Sarah Matray

IF YOU’VE ever gossiped with Mike McLeish and Fiona Harris while dropping your kids off at Ripponlea Primary, your story just might feature in their new web series.

The St Kilda East showbiz couple have teamed their finely honed comedy skills with one of parenting’s most mundane tasks to create The Drop Off.

While names have been changed “to protect the innocent” and anecdotes “slightly exaggerated”, schoolyard banter among parents has provided plenty of fodder for the pair to whip into comedy gold.

The series was filmed at Ripponlea and Bentleigh West primary schools and released this month.

Although the often fickle world of entertainment is notorious for its breakups, McLeish and Harris have got their relationship down to a fine art.

THE DROP OFF (Warning: Contains mild swearing)

Their differences, including childhoods on different sides of the bridge — Harris in Altona North and McLeish on “the mean streets of South Yarra” — have made their creative partnership stronger, Harris said.

“We have our own separate skills in particular areas that seem to work well together.”

“There’s a great shorthand between us when we work together and neither of us pulls any punches when it comes to telling the other what we think of an idea,” McLeish added.

“If one of us likes something and the other doesn’t, you better really be prepared to fight for that idea,” he said.

“He’s basically the opposite of me; I’m from the school of deadlines and time management,” Harris said.

“And I’m from the school of ‘when the muse takes me, I will sit and create genius’,” McLeish said.

The pair got together after they kept getting cast as a couple. Picture: Sarah Matray

McLeish and Fiona with their 11 month old puppy, Bonnie. Picture: Sarah Matray

“So if I hadn’t met her I never would have made a thing in my life — including the bed.”

Despite their natural banter and shared quick wit, McLeish said they didn’t take the leap into writing together until about 12 years into their relationship.

“We’d always flirted with the idea of trying to write together but I think we deliberately avoided it because we were scared it would just break us,” he said.

“We were already a showbiz couple so we thought adding collaborators to that might be a bridge too far.”

Eventually, penning a script together seemed like a natural progression, much like their personal relationship had been since 1998 when they met playing a couple in a production of Six Degrees of Separation at Chapel Off Chapel.

“We kept getting cast as couples at different stages in their relationship,” McLeish said.

“We played a couple just falling in love, a couple who had broken up but were still sleeping together — we pretty much ran the gamut of how a relationship is going to work and thought okay, let’s just give it a crack in real life.”

“We got to explore all those things on stage first and then we finally hooked up in 2000,” Harris said.

The pair now have two daughters, Finn, 13, and Abbie, 9.

In true show business style, Abbie was born during McLeish’s stint playing ex-prime minister Paul Keating in Keating! The Musical.

“He was on stage when I went into labour with Abbie,” Harris said.

“I rang the stage manager and said ‘it’s okay but just let him know at the end of the show, don’t tell him now’.”

“They told me,” McLeish interjected.

Currently performing eight shows a week as music producer Don Kirshner in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical in Sydney, McLeish is no stranger to treading the boards across Australia, often playing real people.

He spent almost two years touring in Keating! and, despite wearing a tie every day for 13 years while a student at Melbourne Grammar, it took meeting the nation’s former leader for him to learn how to don one properly.

“The first time (Paul Keating) came to see Keating! the first thing he said to me was ‘who taught you how to tie a tie? Because your knot is hopeless’,” McLeish said.

Paul Keating taught McLeish the proper way to wear his tie.

“So he taught me to do a good half Windsor; he said just a half would do.”

Also on the list of well-known identities played by McLeish are cricketers Daryll Cullinan, Michael Slater and Mark Waugh (in Shane Warne: The Musical) and founding member of The Seekers, Bruce Woodley, in Georgy Girl — The Seekers Musical.

While McLeish has been performing in Sydney, Harris has been touring the country with a project of her own: a series of children’s books, The Super Moopers, illustrated by fellow The Drop Off cast member (and one third of comedy band Tripod) Scott Edgar.

The first four books were released in August by Bonnier Publishing, with more due to be released next April.

“I have always written since I was little — it’s a love that is equal with acting for me — particularly children’s books,” Harris said.

“I was an Enid Blyton tragic growing up, I even had an Enid Blyton-themed 21st.

“So getting these books published has been a lifelong dream,” she said.

Harris has also scored book deals to write three Trolls books for Dreamworks and four books based on the children’s animation series Miraculous, also for Bonnier Publishing.

“They’ve realised they’ve secured a rather talented writer who also meets her deadlines so they’re throwing a lot of work her way,” a proud McLeish said.

Harris is equally proud of her husband’s latest role and can’t wait for Melbourne audiences to see Beautiful.

“It’s brilliant; the girls and I frocked up and went along on opening night (in Sydney) and it is absolutely brilliant,” she said.

“It’s coming here in February and then I’ll have my husband back.”

McLeish said at a time when many musicals were flying performers in from overseas, the all-Australian cast of Beautiful was something to be celebrated.

Scott Edgar and Fiona Harris at the launch of the Super Moopers books in August.

Especially its leading lady, Esther Hannaford.

“It’s honestly some of the best acting I’ve done to not allow myself to show the actual effect she’s having on me when she sings; I get proper goose bumps, it’s incredible.”

Buoyed by support from one another, the successful duo is equally chuffed by the backing they have from parents, students and staff at Ripponlea and Bentleigh West primarys which helped them take The Drop Off from script to screen.

“The school community was phenomenal when we were filming. The families from both those schools gave up their time during the school holidays to come down with their kids in school uniform and stand around for hours and be there for us,” Harris said.

“We couldn’t be more grateful.”

Ripponlea principal Andrew Cock said McLeish and Harris were “incredibly active” parents at the school, often lending their time and talents to writing, directing and composing songs for the school concerts.

August’s production of the The Great Chiko Roll Mystery of 1983, written and directed by Harris, and been a popular production among the school’s 280 students.

“Fiona and Mike are a valued part of our community,” he said.

Their love of all things creative has also meant great sacrifices for the pair, who often spend time apart.

McLeish’s performing schedule this year meant he was away for Harris’ birthday last month, the first time they’ve been apart on such an occasion since they got together.

“He’s going to miss all the Christmas-y stuff too, there’s a lot of concerts and school things coming up,” Harris said.

“You will never understand the sacrifices involved until you’re making them and my extended absence is definitely a decent bloody sacrifice but I balance it with really loving what I do and I get to go out and do it every night,” McLeish said.

The importance of loving performer life is something they’ve tried to instil in their older daughter, Finn, who declared she wanted to follow in their footsteps.

“Finn has said out loud, right to our faces that she wants to be an actor and I feel like we can’t be blatant hypocrites and tell her not to do it,” McLeish said.

“But I did remind her of the times at the supermarket when she’d ask for a chocolate bar at the checkout and I’d say no because we couldn’t afford it that week.

“I told her to remember that being an actor often means you don’t have an extra $1.20 for a Kinder Surprise.”

“If you want to do this, you have to love it because if you don’t you’re not going to be happy because it’s a hard life,” Harris added.

And perhaps their greatest love comes from creating their own work.

“It’s an incredibly joyous process to just write, create, shoot, produce act and make something exactly the way you want to make it — it’s really freeing,” McLeish said.

For Harris and McLeish, The Drop Off has scratched that itch to create something new, reaching more than 60,000 people through its Facebook page in its first week.

The short-form series stars Harris and McLeish, alongside Scott Edgar and Christie Whelan Browne (The Wrong Girl, Britney Spears: The Cabaret).

Co stars Scott Edgar and Christie Whelan Browne with Harris star in The Drop Off.

And with six new episodes written, they just need to find time when all four can get together to film.

“The overwhelming response from people is they want more, and that’s the best thing you can hope for,” Harris said.

“People of all ages are telling us how much they love it, which is great, it has endless relatability,” McLeish said.

“They don’t have to understand the environment to enjoy the show — you don’t have to have worked in an office to enjoy The Office.”

But don’t be fooled, The Drop Off might be set in the playground, but it is definitely adults-only viewing.

They wouldn’t divulge too much about the new series, but said there would a school trivia night made for a fun setting.

“They always end up a bit loose those nights, when the parents get together,” McLeish said.

And when Beautiful opens at Her Majesty’s Theatre next year, McLeish said he was most looking forward to waking up with his girls, cooking them dinner and even doing the school drop-off.

To view the entire first seasons, visit facebook.com/thedropoffshow