AustLit

Author, producer, and television script-writer.

Growing up in West Ryde, Sydney, Webber (whose father was head of light entertainment for ABC Radio and whose mother was a journalist) attended Presbyterian Ladies College (PLC), where her schoolmates included fellow script-writer Johanna Pigott. After high school, she studied architecture.

In 1981, Webber joined ABC Radio's Triple J as part of comedy team 'The J-Team' (which included, among others, Lance Curtis): through this program, Webber developed a comedy alter-ego ('Lillian Pascoe') who appeared in numerous guest appearances on radio and television.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she wrote material for television comedy programs, including The Gerry Connolly Show (1988), Cappuccino (1989), and Tonight Live with Steve Vizard (1990).

In the 1990s, she segued into serial television, via the animated children's program Petals (1998), about a group of not-quite-fairies who live among the flowers of a deserted garden. She followed this with scripts for Driven Crazy (1998) and Bad Cop, Bad Cop (2002), and material for children's entertainment program Hi-5 (2003). She also wrote the screenplay for telemovie The Adventures of Charlotte and Henry, an animated film co-written with Tammy Brunstock, Lisa Kitching, and Jan Stradling, which was produced in 2008, after Webber's death.

Webber's most successful program was her final one: Mortified (2006-2007), which explored the embarrassment children feel at their parents' antics, by focusing on young protagonist Taylor Fry. The program won or was nominated for a number of awards, including an AFI Award nomination for Best Screenplay in Television for Webber's script for episode 1.