News and Blog

Tim will be hopping into his acting shoes for the ABC TV mini-series The Secret River, adapted from Kate Grenville’s acclaimed novel.

The series, which will air on, Australian television channel, ABC1 in two 90 minute episodes, stars British actor Oliver Jackson-Cohen (Mr Selfridge, Raven, Dracula) as William Thornhill, a convict, and AACTA award winner Sarah Snook (Sisters of War, Not Suitable for Children) as Sal, his free settler wife, who are transported to the new colony of New South Wales in 1805.

Tim joins a stellar cast which also includes: Lachy Hulme (Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War, Power Games: The Packer-Murdoch Story, Offspring), Genevieve Lemon (Top of the Lake, Rake) and Trevor Jamieson (Rabbit-Proof Fence, Around the Block).

Through the story of the young couple’s adventures, The Secret River explores social and cultural issues and the escalating conflicts, sparked by the interactions between newly arrived white convicts and settlers and the original indigenous inhabitants, during the colonisation of Australia.

Carole Sklan, Head of ABC TV Fiction said: “Producer, Stephen Luby and director Daina Reid have assembled a fantastic cast and crew to realize this landmark drama. A love story and story of outcasts, the drama ultimately looks at how good people are capable of doing terrible things.”

The novel won the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2006 and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in the same year. It has been adapted for television by Oscar nominee screenwriter, Jan Sardi and Mac Gudgeon.

The Secret River will shoot for eight weeks in locations across Victoria and on The Hawkesbury River, north of Sydney so Tim might have to get his feet wet.

We’ll announce, on here, as soon as we get word of exactly when and where it will air on your telly boxes.