Spending a couple of hours in a TV writers’ room mightn’t sound like the most fun you’ll ever have, but this is something a bit special.

Playwright Melanie Tait (The Queen’s Nanny) zooms in on a legendary moment in Australian TV – the death of the beloved A Country Practice character Molly Jones in 1985, in a plot line necessitated by actor Anne Tenney’s decision to quit the show after five seasons.

Molly’s last breath was watched by an estimated 2.2 million viewers – roughly a sixth of the Australian population at the time.

Drawing on interviews with ACP creatives, Tait has her audience eavesdrop on the writers charged with dreaming up a suitable death for one of the show’s most popular figures – one that will have the fans in tears and leave a door open for Tenney to rethink her retirement.

How to Plot a Hit in Two Days. Photo © Brett Boardman

The hit squad is Bert (Sean O’Shea), a Mozart-lover hired for his comic chops; the droll Dell (Genevieve Lemon), who considers herself a theatre writer above all else; newcomer Sally (Julia Robertson), who moonlights on ACP between...