Lucy Coleman wanted to put a different kind of woman on Australian screens. She just didn’t expect it to be in a story inspired by the aftershocks that came from a violent sexual assault she experienced in her early 20s. “I wanted to write this story because it was part reflective plus still in a very tumultuous period in my life,” she says.
“And I was wanting to explore the maladaptive behaviours that had sprung from a traumatic event. I was wanting to look at the push and pull of the rage and desperation that I felt in relation to the relationships that I was having with men. So both this kind of burning rage at them and then also a desperation for their validation.
“It was just such an irreconcilable place to be in but something that, when I looked up and looked around, I wasn’t the only woman going through this. So it was me wanting to put pen to paper and explore that and put [the character of] Jacs on this journey to really be forced to look her demons in the face.” Coleman is the creator and writer of , a mystery thriller that follows Jacs (played by Alice Englert), a 27-year-old photographer grappling with the suicide of her best friend Kel (Mia Artemis) and the discovery of a mysterious number on Kel’s phone.
Saved as “Do Not Message”, Jacs becomes convinced the person behind the number is the reason Kel committed suicide, so she uses herself as bait to lure the men Kel had contact with to try and find the person behind Do Not Message. At the same.
