Hot properties and hot potatoes: Amazon Prime Video’s Australian originals

It’s not just Heartbreak High that’s flying the flag for Australian TV shows.

Class of '07 producer Mimi Butler, actor Megan Smart and creator Kacie Anning.

Heartbreak High has been an international hit for Netflix but what other Australian shows are the rest of the world lapping up?

According to Amazon Prime Video, they’re also quite into Luxe Listings and The Test. It turns out, global audiences are as enamoured of Sydney property porn and Australian cricket drama as we are.

“We’ve seen incredible success so far with [Australian] stories travelling outside to other markets,” Magda Grace, director of Prime Video Canada, Australia and New Zealand, told news.com.au.

“Luxe Listings is a great example. It’s a really well done, super high quality, unscripted series that has transcended borders, worked really well in countries such as Canada and in English-language markets and beyond.

“And stories like The Test. Sport is a universal theme and relevant to audiences outside of Australia, India, et cetera.”

Amazon Prime Video unveiled a slate of Australian originals to premiere in 2023 with three scripted series, five documentaries and five stand-up comedy specials. The three scripted offerings were announced last year but have now been given 2023 release dates.

The six new titles are led by a Wiggles documentary, Hot Potato: The Story of the Wiggles. The film, directed by Sally Aitken, will chart the journey of four uni friends who formed one of the world’s most successful musical acts.

With the Wiggles already an international sensation and beloved by various age groups, the commission is a no-brainer for Amazon’s strategy of start local and hope for global success.

It’s a strategy that’s been replicated across many markets in Amazon Prime Video’s 240 territories. Grace said audiences gravitate towards local productions and have found that in Australia, some of its most popular titles here have originated here.

The Wiggles will be the subject of a feature documentary. Picture: Amazon Prime Video

“We definitely start with the local customer and work backwards,” Grace explained. “The stories need to work well in Australia, that’s our primary priority.

[The 2023 slate of Australian originals] are unique stories. They’re representative and relevant to our audiences and speak to them. We recognise our audiences aren’t just one thing, so it is a diversity of content that’s important.”

The Toronto-based Grace said that she has seen that Australian storytellers have distinct cultural themes and comedic sensibilities that has travelled well around the world – “and deserves to travel”.

“It’ll be able to show the world the talent coming out of Australia.”

A highlight of the 2023 slate is documentary feature The Defenders, which tells the extraordinary story of Hakeem al-Araibi, a Bahraini footballer who was tortured by the authorities in his homeland for his political dissidence.

He was protected as a refugee in Australia when he travelled to Thailand for his honeymoon and was arrested by Thai authorities at the request of the Bahraini government despite his refugee status. An international advocacy campaign led by former Socceroos captain Craig Foster eventually secured his release.

The Defenders is purported to be a searing exploration of the incident and the intersection of monarchy, power, human rights abuses and international complicity, including from sporting bodies, in sustaining an unjust system. It is also said to be a story of the triumph of collective people power and advocacy.

Hakeem Al-Araibi arriving back in Australia in February 2019 after a successful campaign for his freedom led by former Socceroos captain Craig Foster. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

Foster, who is involved in the documentary, said in a statement, “Sport has a line that it won’t cross when money and politics become more important than principle or human life. Hakeem al-Araibi pushed football to be better and we made it respond.”

The Defenders is currently slated for release only in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Additionally, Amazon Prime Video has commissioned Dance Life, a documentary about ambition and heartbreak at premiere dance school Brent Street, Hugh van Cuylenburg G.E.M., a 90-minute special designed to give audiences the tools for positive mental health, and a second season of The Test.

The five stand-up specials hail from Joel Creasey, Lizzy Hoo, Tommy Little, Rhys Nicholson and Dave Hughes.

The three previously announced scripted series due for release next year have now wrapped production.

They are The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, a drama based on Holly Ringland’s best-selling novel and starring Sigourney Weaver, Deadloch, a murder-mystery comedy from Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, and Class of ’07, a riotous apocalypse comedy set centred on a school reunion.

Amazon Prime Video have other Australian scripted series in development which have not yet been announced.