Benjamin Law Talks Healthy Discourse In Dysfunctional Families

"I think families, by default, are an amazing engine of drama, and drama is all storytelling, right?" The answer to Benjamin Law's question comes rapidly, from the man himself. "So the fact that you are born into a group of people that you don't necessarily have any links with except genetics and blood, and you are expected to get along, I think, is incredible. Whether you like them or not you are committed to them from birth for better or for worse, and that's just fantastic."

In summary: "Just use phrase 'dysfunctional family' in the blurb of a TV show and I'm there!

"Because I was born into a super-big family with very few boundaries in terms of what we discussed, that's kind of my default nature, and I guess part of me - because my parents split up when I was quite young; I was 12 - that when I see dysfunctional, or argumentative, or boisterous, or rude, or foul families on the street I feel kind of affirmed - I'm like, 'Yeah!'"

"Whether you like them or not you are committed to them from birth for better or for worse, and that's just fantastic."

While Law's memoir - a presentation of one such heart-warming and horrifying family, his own - spans much of his childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, the television adaptation takes some key moments, works a little magic with the timeline and presents the lot as if taking place over one, jam-packed summer in a six-episode series.

Where the teenage television Benjamin (played by Trystan Go) seems dead set on a career in acting, the real-life Law landed close by, penning instead of performing words while completing a PhD in screenwriting, which included an exegesis about Asian Australian representation on film.

"To condense it down: it hasn't been that great," Law jokes grimly, before citing the familiar stereotypes of victims of racial abuse, or eaters of dogs. "All of these representations and storylines are legitimate in some way," Law cautions, "but at the same time if that's the only way that we're being seen on Australian television it can be a pretty disorientating experience."

Now with a foot in the television door, Law can do his bit to reverse that representation to something more nuanced, more real. And it's a foot firmly planted: there's discussion of what a second season of The Family Law could look like; and Law is working as a researcher on a documentary for Blackfella Films and SBS to be screened next year about gay hate crimes in Sydney's past.

"I love TV writing, the collaborative nature of it; that it is like a group victory. It's funny because I love exercise but I hate team sports - the fact that people rely on you, the fact that you have to work as a team - because I'm so physically uncoordinated. So I think TV writing is where I get my team-sports kick. It's my version of team sports."

Another addition to his growing family.