Miranda Tapsell’s Top End Bub Is A Love Letter to Kin, Culture and Healing

“You can laugh, cry, think of your loved ones, be with your loved ones when you watch this. I hope that it is something that brings people together.” That’s how Miranda Tapsell describes Top End Bub, the luminous new series premiering today, and she means every word. The star of the 2019 box office hit Top End Wedding, Larrakia and Tiwi woman Tapsell isn’t just taking the front seat in this production — she's driving the whole thing. As director, producer, and lead actor, she’s not only in the frame but firmly in control, shaping a story that reflects the richness, humour, and truth of First Nations family life as she knows it.

The series serves as a sequel to the film and will bring back Tapsell's endearing character Lauren, described as a "dynamic Indigenous lawyer ticking off life goals in Adelaide" as she faces an array of new challenges. It follows a young couple (Tapsell and co-star Gwilym Lee) reluctantly moving to the Top End after unexpectedly becoming adoptive parents to Lauren's eight-year-old niece. The eight-episode series explores the challenges of navigating marriage and adjusting to the innate cultural responsibilities that force her to abandon her career and individualist lifestyle. And at its heart, Top End Bub is about family. Real family, in all of its messy, complicated, tender, and unforgettable glory. But beneath the chaos, the series pulses with something deeper: an ode to Blak womanhood, kinship, and intergenerational healing.

“Making a series this time just felt right, because we just had a lot of time to delve into all of the characters," Tapsell tells Refinery29 Australia. “Being a creator meant I got a lot more autonomy and a lot more say on how things were being done… it was incredibly exhilarating and empowering to be part of that process." Top End Bub gives us politicised joy and innate softness, in the form of tea with aunties, quiet moments of doubt, and the kind of laughter that only exists when you’re held by people who’ve known your story since before you could tell it yourself. This series is a celebration of matriarchs, mob, and everyday resistance wrapped in warmth. But perhaps the most powerful thread running through the series is the relationship between mothers and daughters.

“I hope mothers and daughters come together and watch this and understand each other a bit better, even though they’re generations apart,” Tapsell says. If Top End Bub teaches us anything, it’s that motherhood isn’t one-size-fits-all. It is layered, lived, and deeply cultural — a line that stretches across time, through pain, and into love. And this series creates space for that lineage to be seen and honoured in all its complexity and beauty. The best part — it doesn’t lecture. It listens. “We kind of explore the idea that families appear in lots of different shapes and forms and sizes, and they can be wild and mad… not everyone is blessed with your classic, nuclear family, and sometimes you have to find your family elsewhere, in friends and extended family," Gwylym Lee tells us. “The thing about this show is it’s a big wild mix, and that’s what these characters are trying to figure out."

As the oldest living culture in the world, it’s no secret that First Nations stories have always existed, but they haven’t always been handed the mic. Top End Bub doesn’t just elevate Blak identity, it centres it on its own terms: no translation, no apology, and absolutely no filter. “When you see a lot of the background artists, they’re not background artists as we know them… they’re people that live in the territory, they’re family members and friends," Lee explains, referring specifically to the powerful funeral scene in the first episode. "Everyone had their own experience of loss, some had too much loss in a short time, such is the nature of sickness and life in parts of the community… and you felt the power of that." At a time when representation is still too often symbolic or surface-level, Tapsell has made something radically real. A story that has the potential to shift how First Nations families are seen, understood, and celebrated on the small screen. “This story is about something big, but also people are bringing so much to it, they’re so invested in it, and we see that on screen, that’s what makes it such a beautiful series,” Lee adds.

The series assembles a cast of standout Blak talent, reminding audiences what true representation looks like: featuring the likes of Elaine Crombie and Ursula Yovich, this series is not just inclusion, but leadership, nuance, and cultural truth. “I just want the broader Australian population to see how wonderful the community is, I grew up loving this community and loving who I am,” Tapsell says. And at a time when Indigenous faces are still rare in prime-time scripted television, the show serves as a bold step forward, shifting the narrative and proving that there is a nationwide appetite for stories that centre Blak talent. “Things have gotten quite pointy at the moment in the news with a lot of issues concerning the Aboriginal community, particularly in the Territory… I feel like this show has come at a right time, I’m pushing my community and my family back in a positive light."

“The Aboriginal families I know aren’t negligent, they’re hardworking, they’re resilient and they use humour to get through hard times,” she adds. Top End Bub isn’t just a series. It’s an invitation — to laugh, to reflect, and maybe, if you’re lucky, to call your mum for a yarn.