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Exclusive: Spray tan at the ready, here’s a first look at Sunny Nights, starring D’Arcy Carden and Will Forte. They play an American brother-sister team who set up a spray tan business in Sydney, Australia, in the upcoming comedy-drama.

Colin From Accounts director and executive producer Trent O’Donnell will helm and EP all eight instalments of Sunny Nights, which was written by Ty Freer and Nick Keetch. It is an original for Australian streamer Stan. Jungle Entertainment, which counts O’Donnell as a partner, is making the show with The Great producer Echo Lake Entertainment, in association with Cineflix Rights.

O’Donnell said this has been a dream project for him. “I loved the pilot for Sunny Nights and immediately thought of Will Forte and D’Arcy Carden to play the leads,” he said. “Miraculously, they both said yes, which inspired me to direct all eight episodes.”

In the series,...

Exclusive: Will Forte and D’Arcy Carden have been cast as leads in darkly comic drama series Sunny Nights for Australian streamer Stan. As we revealed in March, Trent O’Donnell is directing and exec producing, and Echo Lake Entertainment is among the producers.

Sunny Nights will follow siblings Martin (Forte) and Vicki (Carden) Marvin who venture to Sydney determined to start their spray tan business. When they get caught up in the city’s criminal underworld, they must figure out how to stay alive, out of prison and in the black. It’s billed as “a story of how a little bit of sun, a change of scenery, and a touch of violent crime can help a person find their true self.”

The series continues a recent trend for Nine Entertainment-owned streamer Stan to order plot-driven comedy-dramas with a mix...

Rudi Dharmalingam in ‘Wakefield’ (Photo credit: Lisa Tomasetti.)

Jungle Entertainment, BBC Studios and the ABC’s Wakefield will be among the first drama series to resume shooting after the shutdown after the producers obtained an exemption from Border Force travel restrictions for Rudi Dharmalingam.

The British actor will return to Australia on July 10 and after two weeks in quarantine will be ready to work when filming resumes on August 3.

In the eight-parter set in a Blue Mountains psychiatric hospital created by Kristen Dunphy, Dharmalingham plays Nik, a psych nurse blessed with a powerful combination of common sense and intuition.

Nik is easily the sanest person in what is a pretty crazy place but when a song gets stuck in his head, a dark secret from his past begins to intrude into his present, forming an intriguing puzzle.

Geraldine Hakewill plays a psychiatrist with Mandy McElhinney as the head nurse, Dan Wyllie...

‘Wakefield’.

British actor Rudi Dharmalingam, Mandy McElhinney and Geraldine Hakewill lead the cast of newly-announced ABC drama Wakefield, now shooting across Sydney, the Blue Mountains and the Southern Highlands.

Produced by Jungle Entertainment in partnership with BBC Studios, the eight-parter created by Kristen Dunphy is set in a Blue Mountains psychiatric hospital, and described as a psychological mystery exploring the fine line between sanity and madness.

At the show’s centre is Dharmalingham’s Nik, a gifted psych nurse, blessed with a powerful combination of common sense and intuition. Nik is easily the sanest person in what is a pretty crazy place. But when a song gets stuck in his head, a dark secret from his past begins to intrude into his present, forming an intriguing puzzle that comes together as the series builds to its heart wrenching conclusion.

Starring alongside is an impressive ensemble cast including Dan Wyllie, Harriet Dyer,...