By ANNA USHER

If you grew up in the 1980s, you’ll remember A Country Practice, the long-running Australian drama that aired more than 1000 episodes between 1981 and 1993.

Set in the fictional town of Wandin Valley, the show was more than just a weeknight distraction … it was a national ritual. With storylines that mixed medical emergencies, small-town politics and neighbourly gossip, it gave us characters we felt like we knew: Dr Terrence, Simon and Vicky, Matron Sloane, Cookie, Esme Watson, Sgt Gilroy, and Fatso the wombat.

But everything changed the night Molly Jones died.

On March 5, 1985, more than two million of us tuned in to see the episode that stopped the nation, when Molly (played by Anne Tenney) succumbed to leukemia on a lounge in a paddock, while watching husband Brendan and daughter Chloe fly a kite.

Now, nearly 40 years later, the story behind that scene is being brought to life in a new play at the Ensemble Theatre in Kirribilli – and it’s already being hailed as a future classic.

How to Plot a Hit in Two Days, a gentle comedy written by Melanie Tait, zooms in on a legendary moment in Australian TV – the screen death of Molly Jones in 1985.

Set in a fictional writers’ room under pressure to deliver a big emotional storyline, the audience inside the A Country Practice writers’ room to re-imagine the moment an eccentric squad of scribes orchestrates the perfect death for the sweetheart of Wandin Valley.

Tait, a confessed A Country Practice obsessive, says the episode was more than just good TV — it was a national event.

“People cried in the streets,” she said, “You’d get stopped by strangers asking why you killed Molly.”

The cast includes Genevieve Lemon, Amy Ingram, Seán O’Shea, Julia Robertson, and Georgie Parker, who joined A Country Practice in 1989 as nurse Lucy Gardiner and quickly became one of its most recognisable faces.

For anyone who remembers ACP, How to Plot a Hit in Two Days is a nostalgic and fun look back to a time when Aussie television ruled the living room – and when a fictional death could genuinely break the nation’s heart.