According to screenwriter and actor Tasma Walton, writing a six-part crime drama feels like running a marathon, a grueling creative process that she balances by living near the ocean in Perth, Western Australia, where she is currently developing the upcoming ABC series Pilli Sisters PI.
Development of Pilli Sisters PI in Perth
Walton is writing the six-part crime drama Pilli Sisters PI for the ABC, setting the show entirely in Western Australia, with Fremantle occupying a central place in her imagination as the primary backdrop, according to her interview with Frances Andrijich for The Guardian. The series follows Marlee and May, two Indigenous sisters working as private investigators. Walton resists the label of “heroines” for the characters, telling The Guardian that “they’re just two women going about their everyday.” She also avoids framing the series as a political statement, though she is deliberate about placing two middle-aged Black women at the heart of the story. After three decades in the industry, Walton notes that while things have changed since she started acting in the 1990s, television roles for women still generally skew younger and favor men.
Family Dynamics and Creative Inspirations
The sibling relationship at the core of Pilli Sisters PI draws heavily from Walton’s own upbringing as one of four close sisters in Western Australia. According to Walton, her family was “very close, but also very, very different.” As the second youngest, she often experienced the physical roughhousing of her siblings, but she was an outlier who preferred reading books over the family’s preferred sports like netball, football, surf club, and little athletics. Her love of stories originated with her mother, who read to the four girls at bedtime and changed the characters’ names so her daughters became the protagonists, offering an escape from a childhood that featured a violent household partner and schoolyard bullying.
Did you know? Tasma Walton famously played Constable Deirdre “Dash” McKinley in the Australian police drama series Blue Heelers before shifting her focus toward writing and complex character-driven television projects like Pilli Sisters PI.
Researching Family History for Historical Fiction
While Walton maintains a strict rule against using her direct personal life in her writing, she draws deeply from family history, as seen in her 2025 historical novel I Am Nannertgarrook. According to The Guardian, the novel imagines the life of a Bunurong ancestor abducted by sealers, sold into captivity, and separated from her family. Growing up, Walton inherited a family version of the story suggesting Nannertgarrook had fallen in love with a merchant seaman and run away. However, her historical research into the violence inflicted on Indigenous women by sealers made that narrative implausible, leading her to write a story that puts Nannertgarrook back at the center of the colonial archive.
Relocation to Western Australia
Walton and her husband, comedian Rove McManus, permanently relocated to a coastal suburb of Perth in 2021 after spending nearly three decades living in Sydney. According to Walton, the move was prompted when Covid hit while she was already in Western Australia filming Mystery Road, McManus’s live stand-up work had temporarily disappeared, and both sides of their family were located in the west. Reflecting on the transition, Walton told The Guardian that Sydney had come to carry “this kind of constant low-level anxiety and stress,” whereas Perth offered a much calmer everyday life when the world felt out of control.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Pilli Sisters PI?
Pilli Sisters PI is a six-part ABC crime drama written by Tasma Walton that is set in Fremantle, Western Australia, and follows two Indigenous sisters, Marlee and May, working as private investigators.
When did Tasma Walton move back to Perth?
Walton and her family relocated to Perth in 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic after living in Sydney for nearly 30 years.
What is the subject of Tasma Walton’s 2025 novel?
Her 2025 historical novel, I Am Nannertgarrook, imagines the life of a Bunurong ancestor who was abducted by sealers and sold into captivity.
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