Imposter syndrome
Imposter creator and writer Jason Herbison tells DQ about reuniting with Neighbours star Jackie Woodburne for this four-part family feud thriller set in Melbourne, the appeal of Brits abroad and tapping into the “romanticised” appeal of Australia.
A familiar figure on the cobbles of Coronation Street, Kym Marsh is now swapping Manchester for Melbourne as the star of upcoming Australian thriller Imposter.
In fact, she’s the latest British star to head down under for a role in a series created and written by Jason Herbison, jointly commissioned by 5 in the UK and Network 10 in Australia, and produced and distributed internationally by Fremantle.
Previous examples include Charlie Brooks (EastEnders) in 2021’s Lie With Me, Jo Joyner (Little Disasters) in 2022 series Riptide and Danny Dyer (Mr Bigstuff) in Heat, which debuted in 2023.
“What I have a great opportunity to do making these shows here in Australia for a British audience is [build upon] this wonderful idea of a Brit down under, getting into some kind of trouble,” Herbison tells DQ from Sydney, where post-production is underway on Imposter. “My other three shows – Lie With Me, Heat and Riptide – are all very different, but all followed that pattern.”
Imposter also sees longtime Neighbours executive producer and writer Herbison reunite with one of the soap’s biggest stars, Jackie Woodburne, for the story of a family feud that is full of conflict, secrets and big reveals.
Filmed and set in Melbourne, Imposter sees Woodburne play matriarch Helen, who is refusing to sell her sprawling seaside hotel despite pressure from her three adult children. What they don’t know is that Helen is also hiding a debilitating health issue – and the fact she gave up a daughter for adoption decades earlier.
When Amanda (Marsh) suddenly appears and declares herself to be Helen’s long-lost daughter, Helen welcomes her with open arms – but is Amanda really who she says? With the family’s lucrative hotel the ultimate prize, a twisted scheme soon spirals into betrayal and murder.
The cast also includes Don Hany, Jane Harber and Jackson Gallagher as Helen’s three children, alongside Charlie Clausen, Chi Nguyen, Kabir Singh and newcomer Adeline Williams.
Actor and singer Dannii Minogue also returns to the screen in her first locally produced television drama in more than three decades, though Herbison isn’t revealing her role in the story just yet. “Dannii plays a very key support role,” he notes. “I won’t say who she is, but she does turn up and she does play a really pivotal role in what unfolds later on in the series.”
Herbison admits he “loves” a family feud story, and after collaborating with 5 commissioning editor Greg Barnett on his previous series, it was the idea behind Imposter that they wanted to expand for their next project.
“So starting on the premise of what kind of trouble could a Brit get up to in Australia, from that, this idea was born,” Herbison says. “I really love the idea of families, and families who have money, where there’s inheritance involved and where there’s conflict involved. It’s very ripe for a thriller like this.”
He describes Helen as a “very tough woman,” who expects a lot from her grown-up children and has them “under her thumb.” But the kids are at a point in their lives where they have partners and lives of their own and want out of the hotel business.
“But Helen’s at the point where she’s got some health issues going on, and she does not want to let go of this hotel,” Herbison explains. “She doesn’t trust her children or their partners to do the right thing with the money. She’s in a little bit of a conundrum when, in the first episode, a skeleton in her closet begins to rattle, and that’s a daughter that she gave up for adoption before all of these kids were born.”
It emerges that Helen wrote a letter in search of her daughter but didn’t hear anything back. So she’s shocked to find Amanda standing on the beach in front of her claiming to be the daughter she gave up years ago.
“From that point on, everything turns on its head,” Herbison teases. “This newcomer arrives and presents herself as the answer to all of Helen’s problems, and even says, ‘I’ll be your eyes around the hotel. I’ll look after you.’ Then, at the end of the first episode, there’s a bit of a twist where we learn that Amanda is not who she seems, and perhaps not all is as it seems with the kids either. From then on, it’s a real ride. It’s a real tussle for power, for money and control, with a few other elements thrown in.”
With a series of twists and turns that seek to keep audiences hooked, Imposter is undoubtedly a heightened drama. But Herbison says he always wants to keep his thrillers in some kind of reality.
“You want your characters to be relatable and identifiable,” he adds. “So yes, my own little rule is as long as whatever it is can happen – that doesn’t mean it often happens or will happen, but if it can happen – and it is possible, then that’s my bar for storytelling. In this show, there’s some elements to it that that are quite topical too, so it’s a real mix of all of those things.”
While it is very heightened, that topicality emerges in the show’s generational secrets, and the shame Helen feels at having children given up for adoption. “It’s also a very recognisable thing when a parent gets older and they’re not in good health, and when you bring family money into the mix, then that’s a very familiar story to the audience,” Herbison says. “It can cause a lot of conflict.”
On screen, Woodburne is far removed from her Neighbours alter ego Susan Kennedy, not least because she adopts a hint of an Irish accent to play Helen.
“She’s an incredible actor. I’ve always thought that she would be terrific in a very different role, and also a role where she could use her natural Irish accent,” Herbison says. “Jackie was actually born in Northern Ireland, and in real life speaks with a bit of an Irish lilt. I’ve always thought, ‘Well, that would be quite interesting,’ to put her in a role where she can show that.
“So this character, Helen, is an Irish immigrant. Jackie has got a very strong Irish accent in this show and I just love the idea of her being someone completely different. She’s very tough, very exacting. She’s tough as nails, and that’s where a lot of the conflict with the kids come from.”
Developing Imposter for television has been “a process and an evolution” for Herbison, who always begins by mapping out all four episodes and knowing where the story will end. Then once he starts writing the scripts, “you just have to be open to things changing,” he says. “If the story is naturally taking you into a different direction than you first plan, then maybe you just go with it and see where you end up. But I love the process, and I do love being able to just lock myself away and immerse myself in a new world and in this case, write the whole thing. It was challenging, but a lot of fun.”
In the case of Imposter, the final series does start and end where he first imagined. But along the way, new subplots did present themselves – to the point where he had enough material for six episodes and had to cut material away.
The story also starts out quite linear, but viewers will go back in time to learn how the situation came to be. “The whole story really takes place over a couple of months with this Amanda character becoming so very involved and intertwined with the family, and how that goes a bit haywire as time passes,” Herbison says.
Through production, Herbison partnered with director Kate Kendall (Heat), producer Andrew Thompson, DOP Darrell Martin and other heads of department to bring the series together. Filming took place in July and August this year as the production team sought to turn wintry Melbourne into a summer idyll. The hotel location was found in the beachside suburb of St Kilda.
“It’s all fun,” he says. “The script process and then casting and finding the locations inform so much. Once you’ve actually got the places and the houses and all those playing areas, that impacts the storytelling too, and you find yourself making little changes because you want to show something off.”
In production, “the shoot is always stressful, of course, because you’re trying to get through it – and you’re conscious of the weather,” he continues. “We did actually shoot it in winter in Melbourne, but I think we’ve made it look like summer. I think we’ve done a pretty good job of making a cold Melbourne winter actually look slightly like summertime and even slightly tropical.
“Melbourne is a beautiful city. I’m a Melburnian, so of course I’m going to say that, but it’s just such a great city for filming in. The CBD [central business district] is incredible. We’ve got city beaches, which are amazing. Then, not far away, we’ve got the bush. So, of course, there’s a bit of stuff that happens in the bush too. We deliver all of that great production value.”
Herbison believes the “Australianness” of the show, which is coming soon to 5 in the UK and Network 10 in Australia, is a real selling point. “I don’t think anywhere else in the world quite looks like Australia,” he says, “and we’re fortunate that a lot of people have perhaps romanticised ideas of what Australia is like. We aim to deliver on those. It’s a great little story. It’s not a huge commitment, four episodes. It’s hooky and twisty, and it’s got all those appealing elements, along with a great cast.”
The writer is now developing new projects and would love to do a returning series. In fact, he says: “Imposter could return. The way it ends, it could definitely have another series. I’d very much love to do that. I’m just looking forward to making more great shows and hopefully getting them seen around the world.”
Another show that is ending is Neighbours, the soap that debuted in 1985 and transported viewers around the world to the fictional Melbourne suburb of Erinsborough. Notably, the show was cancelled in 2022 and enjoyed a star-studded feature-length finale with returning stars including Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Margot Robbie, Guy Pearce and Natalie Imbruglia, who all started their careers on the show.
Just months after the show ended, however, a rescue deal was struck with Amazon Freevee (now part of Prime Video), only for the series to be cancelled again in February this year. The final episode is due to air in December.
Herbison admits he has “very mixed feelings” about the soap’s second conclusion. “We all thought the show had ended three years ago, and we’d all gone through those emotions. Amazon came along and gave us this new chapter of the show. It really was a bonus, and whilst we’re very disappointed that it came to an end again, we did make 460 more episodes, which is quite a lot.”
Having written the original ending, Herbison then had to consider how to close the show again. “But I think I’ve ended again in a very hopeful way, and in a way where it could come back in some different forms,” he says.
“I wasn’t calling Kylie again. She was lovely, but I wouldn’t want to. We had so many of those amazing stars from the past come back before, we couldn’t really go, ‘Hey, guess what? It’s ending again. Let’s do the same thing again.’ No, we couldn’t do that to the audience. So it’s a different kind of ending, but I do think it’s equally hopeful.
“I would love the audience to remember the 40 incredible years that we’ve had, which is due to them. We wouldn’t have had it without them but also have a little bit of hope for the future, because you never know.”
Like that? Watch this! Suggested by AI, selected by DQ
The Inheritance: A fractious family is thrown into turmoil after the unexpected death of their patriarch, triggering a series of revelations and betrayals as siblings view for the family fortune.
The Feud: Long-standing animosities erupt when two neighbouring families in a rural village are thrown together by a mysterious crime that reveals generations of secrets, lies and resentment.
Sneaky Pete: After leaving prison, a clever conman assumes his cellmate’s identity and infiltrates the man’s unsuspecting family but must keep up the façade while evading dangerous enemies from his past.
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tagged in: Australia, Dannii Minogue, Don Hany, Jackie Woodburne, Jackson Gallagher, Jane Harber, Jason Herbison, Kym Marsh