{"id":29847,"date":"2025-06-10T05:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T09:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/dawn-french-joins-tales-from-outer-suburbia\/"},"modified":"2025-06-10T05:35:01","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T09:35:01","slug":"dawn-french-joins-tales-from-outer-suburbia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/dawn-french-joins-tales-from-outer-suburbia\/","title":{"rendered":"Dawn French Joins Tales from Outer Suburbia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Tales from Outer Suburbia<\/em>, represented by the Australian Children\u2019s Television Foundation, has added British actor, comedian and writer Dawn French (<em>French and Saunders<\/em>, <em>The Vicar of Dibley<\/em>) to its voice cast.<\/p>\n<p>Based on Shaun Tan\u2019s best-selling anthology of the same name, the series follows 13-year-old Klara and her 6-year-old brother as they move to Outer Suburbia with their newly single mother. Their summer holiday turns into a series of surreal adventures. French will voice Klara and Pim\u2019s grandmother.<\/p>\n<p>Alongside French, other cast members include Geraldine Hakewell (<em>Miss Fisher\u2019s Modern Murder Mysteries<\/em>, <em>Wakefield<\/em>, <em>Wanted<\/em>), Brooklyn Davies and Felix Oliver Verg\u00e9s, as well as Michael Theo (<em>Austin<\/em>,<em> Love on the Spectrum<\/em>), Shabana Azeez (<em>The Pitt<\/em>, <em>Lesbian Space Princess<\/em>, <em>Birdeater<\/em>), Andrea Solonge (<em>Prosper<\/em>, <em>Class of \u201907<\/em>) and Tony Nikolakopoulos (<em>The Wog Boy<\/em>,<em> The Wannabes<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p><em>Tales from Outer Suburbia<\/em> is created and produced by an award-winning team, including the Oscar-winning duo behind<em> The Lost Thing<\/em>, Tan and producer Sophie Byrne (<em>Highly Spirited<\/em>). Series director is Noel Cleary, and Alexia Gates-Foale of Flying Bark Productions is producer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGrandma is amazing,\u201d French said of her character. \u201cShe\u2019s courageous and adventurous, she\u2019s quite chaotic, she\u2019s a bit bonkers. What drew me to the character, and the whole project, is it\u2019s quite possibly the strangest thing I\u2019ve ever read! It\u2019s very surreal\u2014you understand it on a visceral level but you also don\u2019t understand it, so you\u2019re drawn in to try and make sense of slightly surreal things.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a series about big, big themes: themes of rejection, forgiveness, absence, loss, grief, judgment, friendships. I think it\u2019s absolutely crucial that we make good quality shows for children and for families because it\u2019s a shared experience when you watch something together. That\u2019s when you bond as a family. That\u2019s when you work out who you are, and you start to process what you think about the world. My happiest memories as a child are of things that we all watch together. To make something as brilliant and beautiful as this is crucial.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are absolutely thrilled to welcome the incomparable Dawn French to <em>Tales from Outer Suburbia<\/em>,\u201d commented Byrne and Gates-Foale. \u201cHer impeccable comedic timing and natural warmth bring a genuine richness and charm to the character of Grandma. Dawn embodies the perfect blend of wit and wonder needed to portray such an enigmatic figure, and we know both children and their parents\u2014many of whom already adore her from her remarkable career\u2014will fall in love with her all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tan said, \u201cDawn brings a unique warmth, confidence and levity to a character that audiences really needed to trust during difficult moments, and I can\u2019t imagine a better performance. She is the anchor of reassurance in a sea of animated weirdness, the hand you want to hold tight as the tide fills the room.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mary-Ellen Mullane, acting head of children and family at ABC, commented, \u201cThis is a remarkable project from an extraordinary team, to which we have now added the wonderful, rich voice talent of Dawn French. What a brilliant piece of casting by the team. We can\u2019t wait to bring this unique series to Australian audiences on ABC.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Andra Duke, director of content at BYUtv, added, \u201cWe\u2019re absolutely thrilled to have such a legendary talent as Dawn French joining the <em>Tales from Outer Suburbia<\/em> voice cast. Her vocal performance as Klara and Pim\u2019s Grandma embodies her trademark wit and warmth that audiences around the world have embraced for generations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tales from Outer Suburbia, represented by the Australian Children\u2019s Television Foundation, has added British actor, comedian and writer Dawn French (French and Saunders, The Vicar of Dibley) to its voice cast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1412,"featured_media":29848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[11051,11052,411,11053,10560,11054,10919],"class_list":["post-29847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-top-stories","tag-alexia-gates-foale","tag-andra-duke","tag-australian-childrens-television-foundation","tag-dawn-french","tag-mary-ellen-mullane","tag-sophie-byrne","tag-tales-from-outer-suburbia","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Dawn French Joins Tales from Outer Suburbia - TVKIDS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/dawn-french-joins-tales-from-outer-suburbia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dawn French Joins Tales from Outer Suburbia - TVKIDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tales from Outer Suburbia, represented by the Australian Children\u2019s Television Foundation, has added British actor, comedian and writer Dawn French (French and Saunders, The Vicar of Dibley) to its voice cast.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/dawn-french-joins-tales-from-outer-suburbia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVKIDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-06-10T09:00:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-06-10T09:35:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/06\/ACTF-TalesfromOuterSuburbia-0625.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"394\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jamie Stalcup\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jamie Stalcup\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/dawn-french-joins-tales-from-outer-suburbia\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/dawn-french-joins-tales-from-outer-suburbia\/\",\"name\":\"Dawn French Joins Tales from Outer Suburbia - TVKIDS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-06-10T09:00:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-06-10T09:35:01+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#\/schema\/person\/0da12602224807cc7b179b8405018deb\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/dawn-french-joins-tales-from-outer-suburbia\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/dawn-french-joins-tales-from-outer-suburbia\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/dawn-french-joins-tales-from-outer-suburbia\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Dawn French Joins Tales from Outer Suburbia\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/\",\"name\":\"TVKIDS\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#\/schema\/person\/0da12602224807cc7b179b8405018deb\",\"name\":\"Jamie Stalcup\",\"description\":\"Jamie Stalcup is the executive editor of World Screen. 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