‘I’ve waited my whole career for this’: Denise Scott on why cancer hasn’t stopped her

Matt Okine is ready for the haters. “The fact of the matter is we didn’t tape over the originals,” he says. “They still exist. And they are still brilliant. And people can absolutely, and I suggest should, go and watch them.”

He’s talking about his highly anticipated reboot of the beloved Australian sitcom Mother and Son – a show that’s either a canny update or a waste of space, depending on who you believe online.

Denise Scott and Matt Okine as the new Maggie and Arthur in the reboot of Mother and Son.

“We’re not trying to be better than the original. We’re trying to make a different show from a seed that was grown from the same tree,” says Okine, the writer and comedian who is the driving creative force behind the reboot. “So bring it on [the criticism]. We’re not doing a disservice to the original and I think a lot of people can, and will, like both.”

The original, which ran from 1984 to 1994, starred Garry McDonald and Ruth Cracknell as Arthur and Maggie, who lived together after the collapse of Arthur’s marriage. She was constantly meddling in Arthur’s business, while his philandering brother Robbie (a superb Henri Szeps) was always side-stepping any responsibility for his elderly mother. Constant re-runs made it a viewer favourite and you can bet most people who watched it can clearly hear Cracknell’s voice in their head as Maggie says, “I say, Arthur.”

Ruth Cracknell and Garry McDonald as the original Maggie and Arthur in Mother and Son.

In the reboot, Okine plays Arthur, an aimless sad sack who is trying to launch a website, while stand-up comedian Denise Scott plays Maggie, who met her late husband Leo while protesting in Ghana in the 1960s and wafts about the house in kaftans. The biggest tweak is to the role of Robbie, who is now Arthur’s older sister (played by Angela Nica Sullen) and married to the disapproving Liz (Virginia Gay).

When the series premieres next week, it also comes with added poignancy – Scott was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple of weeks before shooting began in Padstow, in Sydney’s south-west.

The 68-year-old underwent chemotherapy while filming – and still has surgery, radiation and more chemotherapy to come but says the prognosis is good – but she was determined to see it through.

Denise Scott was diagnosed with breast cancer just before filming started.

“Of all the times – because I’ve waited, really, my whole career to be in a show where I’m the lead, the co-lead along with Matt, it’s a stand-up comic’s dream – my ego just went, ‘Finally, yes!’” says Scott.

“And then to be diagnosed with breast cancer and doing full-on chemo! It was really quite ironic – finally, I’m in a show where I’m in every scene, virtually 12-hour days, and I get to dance and sing and I get to be drunk, to be angry, and I get to be sad, I get to be everything and travelling alongside that, having cancer. It was full on.”

So why reboot a classic – why not make something new without the baggage? It’s a question that was also posed by Geoffrey Atherden, who created the original and who Okine had to seek approval from to get the reboot off the ground.

“Look, I just wanted people to have to change their way of thinking,” says Okine. “One of the first things that Geoffrey asked me when we met for the first time was, ‘Why don’t you just make a show that’s like this, but call it something different?’ And I really wanted to make sure that this was Mother and Son because I wanted to give a really good snapshot of how our life has changed from 1983 to 2023.

“And people think it’s just a cultural difference, that’s part of it – some households and families might look different now than they did in 1983, often they don’t – but so much has changed since Arthur and Maggie lived together in 1983.

“The Maggie that we have now grew up during a sexual revolution, she’s a different person. Her attitude to work is different. Her attitude to being a mother is different. Her attitude to ageing is different. Arthur’s attitude to living with his mother is different.

“There’s so much that has changed that I get frustrated when people think this is just a diversity grab. And what frustrates me the most is that I don’t think the haters realise I am behind it, that it was my idea.

“They think someone wanted to remake Mother and Son and just threw a brown guy in there to try and be diverse. So when they’re saying, ‘Oh, this is ridiculous, you know, it’s a diversity grab’, what you’re actually doing is just offending who I am and what my house looks like. It’s a really ignorant criticism.”

As for Scott, did she ever think twice about doing it?

“To be honest, when I look back, I think I was in such shock,” she says. “Because [the diagnosis] was two and a half weeks before I was due to move to Sydney and start on the show. And the sort of breast cancer I’ve got – it’s HER2-positive breast cancer – it means you have to start chemo within days, you can’t muck around.

“And I’m thinking, ‘But I’ve got to move to Sydney, I’ve got to do this.’ I really didn’t know what to do. And to not do it meant a whole production was going to be shut down for at least a while. And it occurred to me, I didn’t know when I would be able to do it. And a bit of me did think, ‘F--- it, I’ve waited my whole career for this, I’m going to try and do this.’”

Her oncologists in Sydney and Melbourne – while giving her a look that said, “You are crazy,” says Scott, laughing – gave her the go-ahead, so she sallied forth, using body doubles when she needed to and resting as much as possible between takes.

“It became an almost meditative exercise,” says Scott. “I don’t know how else to describe it, but I would do nothing if the camera wasn’t rolling. I would just sit and conserve everything I had so when the camera rolled I could do it and then resume sitting. Imagine how much fun it was for Matt! There was no fun banter.”

For Okine, who always had Scott in mind for Maggie, the experience only deepened their relationship, on and off-screen.

“My mum died of cancer as well,” says Okine. “So there was always that fear in the back of my mind. I’m fully aware that things can go bad quite quickly. There was never a day where I thought it’s all going to be OK. And I don’t mean in just the show sense, for her health. Shows come and go, but there’s only one Denise.”

Mother and Son premieres on the ABC on August 23 at 8.30pm. The original Mother and Son can be streamed on Stan and ABC iview.

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