Profile: Lowering the bar

For award-winning writer and director Peter Duncan, the murky world of the criminal barrister provided the perfect setting for a provocative, clever and debaucherous new television series. He speaks to Claire Chaffey

If there's one reaction writer and director Peter Duncan expects from his new series about a philandering, drug-taking, tax-evading, ethically-challenged criminal barrister named Cleaver Greene, it's outrage.

While perhaps not a reaction he wants to see from everyone (he's quietly optimistic that the vast majority of viewers will be thoroughly entertained by the cheeky and salacious tale of the goings-on in Cleaver Greene's complicated life) he does anticipate a furrowed brow or two from the legal fraternity.

"Hopefully they'll be outraged," laughs Duncan, referring to the show's legal audience.

"I want letters to the papers, I want letters to [Lawyers Weekly] saying it's a disgrace, bringing the bar into disrepute. I want them to make the fatal mistake of giving me as much publicity as they can."

And while Duncan makes such comments very much tongue-in-cheek, he is not expecting to entirely escape criticism from the legal profession.

"[What] will be annoying will be the thousands of criticisms we get for getting the procedures wrong in the courtroom: 'That question would never be allowed! That's ridiculous!'" he says.

"I know there will be senior counsel out there who will just sneer at the inaccuracy of it, but we can't let the law get in the way of a good story!"

Cleaver Greene, played by Richard Roxburgh, is the hero of Rake, a show about a wayward criminal barrister who represents life's lost causes, including cannibals, drug-dealers and bestialites. But rest assured, Rake is not about a do-gooder lawyer trying to save the souls of the wicked.

"It's not about whether someone is guilty or innocent; they're all guilty. Even the ones Cleaver suspects are innocent are guilty. In the first episode, Hugo Weaving plays a well-renowned economist who turns into a cannibal. There is no question that he's a cannibal; it's how they handle the fact he's a cannibal," says Duncan.

"It's not a Cleaver Greene, heart of gold, tries to get his client who is wrongly accused off murder charges every week. It's not at all like that. It's much more irreverent, much less safe; it's very different to any other legal show."

According to Duncan, who has worked on shows such as Children of the Revolution and Hell Has Harbour Views, Cleaver Greene is the culmination of a long searched for character for Roxburgh.

"Richard and I had, for many years, been talking about a character for him that was sort of brilliant but busted," says Duncan.

"We were both busy and doing different things and we couldn't find the right context. Then one day Charles Waterstreet, who is an old friend of Richard's, told him a story and Richard and I got to talking that maybe the character should be a criminal barrister. That opens up a whole raft of fascinating and somewhat bizarre worlds, so we sat down and wrote an outline of Cleaver and then the world started to expand into the other characters."

Duncan is adamant that Cleaver Greene is nothing more than a fictional character, although he says he does share several traits from real-life legal characters.

"We lifted a few aspects from Charlie [Waterstreet's] life, but it's not him," he says.

"He is an absolutely fictional character, but I would argue ... that many of his [traits] are quite common at the NSW Bar."

And as for coming up with a name for the series, Duncan says that was fairly straight forward.

"It did occur to me very late one night that 'rake' has two fabulous meanings," he says.

"It's the Hogarthian rake, who's a voluptuary and a woman chaser and loves a drink - the naughty guy in that sort of 18th century sense - and it's also a garden implement that cleans up our crap. So I think in both those senses it's pretty apposite."

Rake debuts today (4 November) at 8.30pm on ABC1 and features an impressive line-up of actors, including Matt Day, Rachael Griffiths, Hugo Weaving, Sam Neill, Noah Taylor and Lisa McCune.