The book had everyone talking – now “The Slap” is set to appear on our TV screens. Rachel Hills talks to Melissa George, Sophie Okonedo and Essie Davis about making the sure-to-be-controversial series.

It begins in the most quintessentially Australian of settings: the backyard barbecue. But while this one might look something like the barbecues you’ve attended recently, chances are it won’t look much like anything you’ve seen before on the small screen.

The first difference? Not everyone is white, straight or living in a 1950s-style nuclear family – although don’t be fooled, this is no multicultural love-in. There are no quirkily loveable bogans, either. Based on the internationally best-selling novel by Christos Tsiolkas, The Slap (screening on ABC1 from Thursday) may be set in the same middle-Melbourne suburbia as Neighbours and Kath & Kim, but it feels worlds away from Ramsay Street or Fountain Lakes. This is modern middle-class Australia as we live and breathe it: complicated, unpredictable and sometimes controversial.

The action kicks off on the 40th birthday of Hector (Jonathan LaPaglia), a second-generation Greek-Australian and public servant on the brink of a midlife crisis. He and his straight-laced veterinarian wife, Aisha (Sophie Okonedo), invite a select group of friends and family to their house to celebrate.

There is earth mother Rosie (Melissa George), who buries her troubled marriage to Gary (Anthony Hayes) in her devotion to her four-year-old son, Hugo. Chic television writer Anouk’s (Essie Davis) see-through blouse and 20-something soap-star boyfriend are more suited to an inner-city bar than a suburban backyard.

Hector’s cousin Harry (Alex Dimitriades) is a self-made mechanic with a waterfront mansion, while Hector’s parents, Manolis (Lex Marinos) and Koula (Toula Yianni), are trying to figure out where their traditional values fit in a changed world. Connie (Sophie Lowe), Aisha’s receptionist and Hector’s 17-year-old lust interest, and her best friend, Richie – a self-described “art fag” – round out the party.

The scene is ripe with unresolved conflict. Aisha feels undermined by Koula and frustrated by Hector, while Hector takes out his own frustrations on his son, Adam. Wealthy Harry and working-class Gary battle it out over the public- versus private-school debate, and Gary tells Anouk’s boyfriend his show is crap. Everyone exchanges disapproving glances whenever Rosie brings preschool-aged Hugo to her breast for feeding.

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