THE AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING IN ASSOCIATION WITH CREATE NSW CORPORATIONAND SCREEN AUSTRALIA BBC STUDIOS DISTRIBUTION PRESENT A JUNGLE ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCTION There’s a fine line between sanity and madness 8-PART DRAMA SERIES CREATED BY KRISTEN DUNPHY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS CHLOE RICKARD, JASON BURROWS, SALLY RILEY, KRISTEN DUNPHY AND SAM MEIKLE STARRING RUDI DHARMALINGAM, WRITTEN BY KRISTEN DUNPHY, MANDY MCELHINNEY AND SAM MEIKLE, JOAN SAUERS GERALDINE HAKEWILL AND CATHY STRICKLAND DIRECTED BY JOCELYN MOORHOUSE PRODUCERS ALLY HENVILLE AND KIM MORDAUNT AND SHAY SPENCER 1 © 2020 Jungle Entertainment Pty Ltd, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Create NSW and Screen Australia 1 SERIES SYNOPSIS P3 2 INFORMATION P5 Production Information 5 CONTENTS Principal Cast 7 Creator’s Statement 10 Jungle Entertainment Bio 12 3 CHARACTER SUMMARIES P13 4 BIOGRAPHIES P19 Key Crew Biographies 19 Key Cast Biographies 23 Showrunners and Creative Partners 27 Select Cast Interviews 29 5 EPISODE SYNOPSES P33 SERIES SYNOPSIS 3 SERIES SYNOPSIS What happens when the go-to man – the sanest individual in a psych ward – begins to lose his grip? When the one person people rely on most, loses control? Nik Katira (Rudi Dharmalingham) is a psych nurse working at Wakefield, a facility perched on the edge of Australia’s spectacular Blue Mountains. He’s exceptionally good at his job, with a gift for soothing the afflicted and reaching the unreachable. In Episode 1, a series of small events conspire to trigger symptoms of a long-buried trauma from Nik’s past. It all starts with a song that gets stuck in his head. The song triggers visual and aural memories and as the series progresses, it accelerates his downward spiral. The psychological mystery behind Nik’s unravelling is the central intrigue of this series. What do these memories mean? What is the dark secret breaking free from his past and stalking his present? Surrounding Nik is a rich ensemble of characters - all with unique and compelling stories – in a world where it’s not always easy to distinguish between staff and patients. As Nik battles inner demons, he continues working to bring his patients back to reality and connection. His application for the job of Nursing Unit Manager intensifies conflict with his passive-aggressive boss, Linda. And the arrival of psychiatrist Kareena re-ignites his desire for the woman to whom we discover he was once engaged. Wakefield tackles the subject of mental illness in a compassionate and multifaceted way. The show’s unique structure allows for genuine intimacy in the storytelling, giving us a perspective on mental illness from multiple angles. Using a potent blend of non-linear narrative, fantasy, a unique soundscape, dance and music, Wakefield is designed to provoke, to move, and ultimately - to entertain. This is a powerful show that’s both authentic and universal. At risk are the lives, relationships, families and jobs of all the characters – their pride, their sense of self-worth and their capacity to connect with others. And in the end, what’s at stake is Nik’s sanity itself. PRODUCTION INFORMATION 5 PRODUCTION INFORMATION TITLE: Wakefield TAGLINE: There’s a fine line between sanity and madness. FORMAT: 8-Part Drama Series AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTER: Australian Broadcasting Corporation INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTER: BBCS Studios PRODUCTION COMPANY: Jungle Entertainment SERIES CREATOR: Kristen Dunphy EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Chloe Rickard Jason Burrows Sally Riley Kristen Dunphy Sam Meikle PRODUCERS: Ally Henville Shay Spencer DIRECTORS: Episodes 1, 2, 3, 7 and 8 Jocelyn Moorhouse Episodes 4, 5 and 6 Kim Mordaunt WRITERS: Episodes 1, 2, 7 and 8 Kristen Dunphy Episodes 3 and 5 Sam Meikle Episode 4 Joan Sauers Episode 6 Cathy Strickland CO-PRODUCER: Alexander Mitchell DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Martin McGrath PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Victoria Williams LINE PRODUCER Jonny Kennerley COSTUME DESIGNER: Xanthe Huebel MAKEUP AND HAIR DESIGNER: Wizzy Molineaux EDITORS: Episodes 1, 2, 3, 7 and 8 Gabriel Dowrick Episodes 4, 5 and 6 Nicholas Holmes COMPOSERS: Caitlin Yeo Maria Alfonsine FILMING LOCATIONS: Filmed on location in Sydney, NSW Blue Mountains and Southern Highlands, NSW. CREATOR’S STATEMENT 7 CREATOR’S STATEMENT Wakefield is a psychological mystery inspired by my experience as a patient in a psychiatric ward ten years ago. The world I found myself in was full of contrast – it was devastating, it was bizarre, sometimes scary and, with the perspective of distance, it was also quite funny. A psych ward is a hotbed of emotion. It is full of people who are so broken they can’t function… people with psychosis…people with manic delusions; and these people are being cared for by staff who often have mental health issues of their own. So many stories and characters – and all of them trapped together in the one space. That makes it a rich and dynamic world in which to set a series. Yet it’s a world vastly underexplored on our television screens. The few contemporary shows I’ve seen that touch on the subject fall short of portraying people with psychiatric illnesses as people. They often came across as walking, talking illnesses; as the ‘other’. That’s why I created Wakefield. I wanted audiences to see that many of the states and conditions we call mental illness are simply exaggerations of feelings most of us can recognise in ourselves. I wanted people to understand that, although it’s confronting, the line between sanity and insanity is nowhere near as clear as we like to think. My challenge was to do this in a way that was entertaining and didn’t scare them off. And the answer was simple: humour. Any amount of confronting material can be carried on the back of humour. There’s a political correctness around mental health these days that is well meaning and absolutely necessary. It also gets in the way. Because as anyone who’s been in a psych hospital will know: mental illness can be very tragic and it can also be very funny. It absolutely can be both. And when it is funny, we need to be given permission to laugh about it because laughter can be a bridge to shared human experience and understanding. Mental illness is complex. But in order to talk about it and treat it, we have to simplify this complexity and use shorthand. Labels like ‘schizophrenic’ and ‘bipolar’ are really only a way of categorising clusters of symptoms and patterns of behaviour. I wanted to avoid using these labels and reducing things to cause and effect in Wakefield. I wanted to tell stories about people rather than illnesses. The irony of going to an asylum is that the very place you’re going to try and get better is full of people whose behaviour can make you feel worse. And the people designated to help you – the staff – all have issues of their own, which is often why they’re attracted to the profession in the first place. Just because someone’s not one hundred per cent mentally stable, doesn’t mean they aren’t good at what they do or able to help other people. That’s the point. Many people can continue to function while they are mentally unwell. 8 I was keen to explore in Wakefield what I call the ripple effect: how patients affect one another, how patients affect staff and how staff affect patients. I wanted to give audiences the opportunity to get inside a character’s head and see how differently things can look through their eyes. I think the central message of the series is that we are all crazy. Crazy is normal. There’s not a single person I know who doesn’t have their own form of crazy. Extreme religion, extreme scepticism, denial, belief in luck, illogical fear, compulsive lying, sexual obsessions, premonitions, road rage, jealousy… these are just some of the more acceptable forms of mental instability. Wakefield is about emotion. There’s a lot of shame around strong emotion and I find that very interesting. Why is that? We spend a lot of time trying to hide emotion. Trying to hide the fact that we are human. Because big emotion can be scary. So any show that really goes there is going to need to give audiences some kind of relief from it. Humour is one way of doing this. Music and dance are another. Music is incredibly important to me. When I’m writing – even from the very early stages of creating characters – I find a song, often a number of songs – for each one of them that expresses how they feel. I play those songs over and over when I go walking. The songs put me into the emotional headspace of the characters and bring them to life. I think that’s why it was so natural for me to have characters break into song and dance on the screen. Because they do this in my mind anyway – they sing to me – and always have. Music is a salve. While mental illness disconnects and isolates us – music points to the communal. Anyone who has ever experienced singing four-part harmonies in a choir knows how joyful and connected to others it can make you feel. Dance is similar. Where mental illness renders people immobile, dancing is the embodiment of resilience, connectivity and survival. When we sing in harmony or dance to a common rhythm, we are connected with one another. The musical numbers across the series lift the audience out of the isolation and despair some of the characters are experiencing and remind us that joy is never too far away. Wakefield is a show that asks big questions - like ‘What is the point?’ and ‘Do soulmates exist?’ and ‘Is religion a form of sanity or insanity?’ The answers to these questions are personal and sometimes contradictory because life itself is not simple – it’s messy and full of big emotions.