Seven-time Logie-winning actor Asher Keddie is returning to series television in a new collaboration with some of the country’s most celebrated creative talents.
The Offspring star is joining forces with compatriot Bruna Papandrea’s Made Up Stories – the production powerhouse behind the Emmy-nominated The Undoing and Nine Perfect Strangers – for the comedy-drama, Strife.
The Aussie production, to be filmed in Sydney next year and commissioned by the Foxtel Group for streaming service Binge, is inspired by the memoir of MamaMia creator, journalist and internet entrepreneur Mia Freedman.
“I have been waiting for a good three-and-a-half to four years to make a return to series television and this was it, straight away as soon as the brilliant folks at Made Up stories brought it to me,” Keddie said.
The show will be set around a decade ago against the backdrop of new digital media, with Keddie playing Evelyn, the founder of Eve, a fast-growing website aimed at women, while also juggling the demands of parenting, a marriage breakdown and a world where public and private lives become blurred.
“It is the story of a modern, imperfect woman as we follow Eve from the early days as a living room blogger to becoming a woman’s media force that employs almost 100 people, mostly women, and reaches more than 5 million women each month through its website,” Papandrea said.
“It’s a wild ride.”
The production represents something of a homecoming for Keddie, who had her big break on Foxtel’s drama Love My Way nearly 20 years ago, and she said she was attracted to Strife’s authenticity and honesty, thanks to Freedman’s candid stories of her life and career.
“What’s drawn me to it is not being the perfect woman, not being the perfect partner or the perfect parent that we grew up thinking that we needed to be,” Keddie said. “I like this about this show the most, the authenticity of the storytelling and the truth of it, of how we feel and how we roll.”
Strife is just one of a suite of homegrown shows for Foxtel and Binge in the coming year.
The second season of Tim Minchin’s hit comedy Upright will air next month and will be followed by buzzy rom-com Colin From Accounts, created by and starring real-life couple Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer.
A second series of the acclaimed romantic drama Love Me is currently filming in Melbourne and is expected to air next year.
In the reality arena, perennial favourites Selling Houses Australia, The Great Australian Bake Off, and Grand Designs will return. They will be joined by a reboot of the much-loved music quiz show RocKwiz, and a local version of US hit FBoy Island, in which three modern women looking for love must uncover which suitor is there for love, and who is just a player.
Foxtel will also be home to some of the world’s most anticipated TV content in coming months beginning with the second season of the Emmy-winning The White Lotus next week. New seasons of HBO hits Succession and And Just Like That are also on the way. Binge will host one of the most eagerly anticipated shows around when The Last Of Us – based on the hugely successful video game of the same name and starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsay – arrives next year.
Originally published as Asher Keddie’s new Aussie comedy drama Strife inspired by MamaMia founder Mia Freedman