Nazeem Hussain’s new ABC comedy is sweet and zippy, but there’s one actor who steals the show

Separated at Birth isn’t Australia’s answer to Twins (nor is that a question anyone is asking), but Nazeem Hussain and Urzila Carlson – respectively, Australia’s most beloved Muslim and South African comics – make for a solid odd duo in this warm-hearted comedy about fatherhood.

Created by Hussain and marking his first non-sketch show (Legally Brown, Orange is the New Brown), Separated at Birth opens on Victorian paramedic Sameer (Hussain) clocking off and high-fiving lesbian work-wife Donna (Carlson) over a great Thursday.

Rattling through the day’s highlights – four-stabbings, a car crash and a snake bite among them – Sameer’s leaving one small thing off the list: Upstairs, his wife Aaleyah (San’a Shaik, Class of ’07) is three hours into labour. He’s pretending he doesn’t know, screening her calls.

And isn’t right now the perfect time to check out Donna’s latest project, a dilapidated house she’ll renovate single-handed? It’s all friendly ribbing (“Were you smoking this before the auction?” he asks, picking up a pipe from the floor) before the hospital calls him in via the ambulance radio.

We’re only five minutes into Separated at Birth when Aaleyah demands a divorce shortly after baby Omar is born, but it’s hard to not feel relief on her behalf. Sameer sucks. But he sucks less throughout Separated at Birth, which follows Sameer’s attempts to grow into fatherhood, feeling an innate love for Omar that he has no idea what to do with.

Loosely, the series follows Omar’s first months marked by major Muslim customs such as Ramadan and aqiqah, a head-shaving ceremony, each a chance for Sameer to step up and/or crash out. Hussain is charming enough to make the character more of a loveable mess than a deadbeat dad, though Donna regularly tempts Sameer to give up: “Kids don’t need two parents. It’s like kidneys or legs. You’ve got a spare.”

As the show’s only white main character, Carlson’s trademark obstinance is played for cultural cluelessness, such as when she thinks Ramadan is a woman (“Have you watched SBS ever?”). But it goes both ways: at the aqiqah, most of the family think she’s Sameer’s live-in maid, and she’s a source of permanent confusion for the uncles who end up helping with her renovations. It’s a great comedic role, one that lets Carlson’s acerbic wit shine much brighter than Urzila, her repetitive ABC sketch-show, did earlier this year.

But the show’s secret weapon is Nadie Kammallaweera as Sameer’s mother Husna, the actor that best nails Separated at Birth’s intended tone of heartfelt zaniness. Engaged in a bitter feud with Aaleyah’s stern mum (Leah Vandenberg), Husna is full of face-scrunched vitriol in one moment and tenderness the next, bonding with Aaleyah in some of the show’s sweetest scenes.

Inspired by Hussain’s experiences as a father and practising Muslim, Separated at Birth is a comedy with a lot of sincerity. That’s easy to appreciate in the show’s depiction of Muslim Australians, with a cultural specificity that goes beyond the cast, script or even that Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) lends his voice to the show’s call to prayer. It’s evident in the robust production, often overlooked in comedies, with lived-in home sets brimming with life and, significantly, the use of on-location shooting – including in local mosques and in Sri Lanka – grounding its wackiness in a real community.

Running under three hours over six episodes, Separated at Birth gets a little overambitious towards its end, swapping to a more dramatic tone as Sameer investigates his daddy issues. There’s just not enough emotional runway for Hussain to land it, and the sudden heavy score only widens the gap. But that doesn’t negate that it’s something special: A sweet-hearted, zippy comedy about Australian Muslims, hopefully one of many from Hussain.

Separated at Birth airs at 8.30pm on Wednesdays on ABC and ABC iview.

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