BBC One eyes South Australia for new outback noir thriller

BBC One and Stan have pegged South Australia as the key shooting location for the latest series from British screenwriting and production duo Harry and Jack Williams. The siblings are perhaps best known for their work on the gripping, if at times punishingly bleak, child abduction drama The Missing and its more recent spinoff Baptiste.

With a synopsis that reads like a sweaty blend of The Bourne Identity and Wake In Fright, The Tourist follows a British man who awakes in hospital after being run off the road, with no idea who he is. The six-episode series will follow his search for answers while also fending of various attempts on his life as he roams around regional South Australia. Filming will, however, apparently take a detour to the “luxury white sand beaches of Bali”, so how bad can it be?

The Williams’ company Two Brothers Pictures, which also helmed Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s breakout hit Fleabag, will produce the new show in conjunction with newly formed South Australian company Highview Productions, led by local producer Lisa Scott. Scott’s recent work includes Anzac Girls, Wolf Creek and last year’s impressive school sexting drama The Hunting, filmed on location around Adelaide.

International co-productions are familiar territory for the Williams brothers, with past series of The Missing and Baptiste set in France, Germany and The Netherlands respectively (although all three were largely filmed in Belgium).

Now all we have to do is speculate which British actor will be tasked with careening across the state in a confused state, not to mention making some local café feel like London in an inevitable flashback scene. We’ll be quietly hoping for Fleabag’s ‘hot priest’ Andrew Scott:

Filming of The Tourist is set to begin later this year.

Walter Marsh

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Walter is a writer and editor living on Kaurna Country.