On Location: Rake

Encore visited the set of the new Australian legal drama Rake. Producer Ian Collie and director Peter Duncan spoke to Aravind Balasubramaniam about the public fascination behind the legal profession and how their show aims to de-mystify the trade.

Lawyers are popular on television, and the court room has been so glamourised that audiences have a certain fascination for legal stories. According to Collie, of Essential Viewing Group, “Sometimes it is good to prick that fantasy.”

The story is the brainchild of Richard Roxburgh-who plays the lead character-co-writer and director Peter Duncan, and real life barrister Charles Waterstreet. Together they work shopped the idea of the protagonist Cleaver Greene; a brilliant, iconoclastic and self destructive criminal barrister with an affection for cases that are unwinnable and beyond bizarre.

“He is a rake, a classic Lothario who manages to professionally get his life together and is the compassionate defender of life’s losers”, said Collie. “He’s always in debt, he’s got a past of cocaine addiction and is bit of a womanizer. He’s a classic bachelor, but he’s still warm and likable. You can’t help but love him; if it was another actor who didn’t have Richard’s charisma, there would have been the risk of the character being self indulgent.”