When the offer for the new television series Madam came in, actress Rachel Griffiths was handed a copy of the book it was based on: the at-the-time unpublished memoir of Antonia Murphy, about her experience running an “ethical” brothel in New Zealand.
In the series, Murphy becomes McKenzie “Mack” Leigh, played by Griffiths, whose idea for the unusual business venture springs out of a perfect storm of mounting debt, the ongoing cost of caring for her disabled son and the discovery that her husband, Rob (Martin Henderson), has cheated on her with a sex worker.
For Griffiths, the Melbourne-born star of Muriel’s Wedding and, more recently, Total Control and Bali 2002, the series posed a compelling question: what can happen in the commercial sex industry when criminality and power imbalance are taken out of the equation.
Rima Te Wiata, who plays the brothel’s co-owner Jules, …