Claudia Karvan will star alongside British actor/comedian Matt King and Rodger Corser in the new drama series, Spirited, for FOXTEL’s W channel.
Shooting commences this week in Sydney on the eight episode series, which is a blackly funny exploration of love, death and life with King playing the ghost of a dead English rock star who appears in the new home of Karvan’s character.
Karvan is both a star and producer of Spirited, again working alongside John Edwards and Jacquelin Perske, her fellow co-creators and producers of the breakthrough subscription television drama Love My Way.
“I think Spirited is like The Ghost and Mrs Muir meets The Odd Couple, it’s playful, romantic and a little absurd,” she said. “We’ve got a wonderfully talented cast together and we’re happy to be the first cab off the rank in the W channel’s plans for original drama.”
The AFI, TV WEEK Logie and ASTRA Award winning Karvan plays Suzy Darling, a dentist who has moved so single-mindedly through life that she has not stopped to smell the roses. When she walks away from what has become a loveless marriage and moves into an old apartment block Suzy encounters the ghost of ‘80s rock star Henry Mallet, played by King.
King is known for his performance as Super Hans in the BAFTA-winning British sitcom Peep Show and also played many roles, including Elton John, in the sketch series Star Stories. His film credits include Inkheart, alongside Brendan Fraser, Paul Bettany and Helen Mirren, Guy Ritchie’s Rocknrolla, with Jeremy Piven and Gerard Butler and Bronson, which won Best Film at the Sydney Film Festival this year. He is also the writer and producer of a sitcom series, Whites, which will star Alan Davies when it goes into production next year for BBC2.
Corser (Underbelly, Rush, Home and Away, Last Man Standing) plays Steve Darling, Suzy’s husband of 15 years and the father of their two children.
Other core cast members include Belinda Bromilow (Packed To The Rafter’s Libby) as Suzy’s sister Jonquil, Louis Fowler as Suzy and Steve’s son Elvis, 13, and Charlie Hancock as their daughter Verity, 8.
Spirited is based on an original idea of Perske’s which she and Karvan have developed into the series they are producing with Edwards for Southern Star and with Kim Vecera as executive producer for FOXTEL.
The series has been written by Perske, Ian Meadows, Tony McNamara, Jessica Redenbach and Marieke Hardy and will be directed by Jessica Hobbs, Jonathan Teplitzky and Daniel Nettheim.
Spirited will premiere on FOXTEL’s W channel in March 2010.
