Freo Today. 1 August 2026. Well, everyone within cooee of a lovely old home in Allen Street, East Fremantle yesterday was agog to learn from a bloke who said he’d heard about it from a fella who said he’d got it from a sheila who said she had it straight from the horses mouth, or from a little birdie – we aren’t totally sure now – that all the vans and cars and cool looking film types and the signs around Fletcher Street indicating things like ‘Location’, ‘Essentials’, ‘Unit Base’, ‘Crew Parking’ and so on, were all to do with the filming of the first production – titled Two Birds – to come out of the flash new Perth Film Studios in Malaga. And lo and behold, apparently this is all so, with Screenwest providing much of the funding to help make it all happen.

Here’s what appears on the Screenwest website right now –

“Screenwest is pleased to announce Australia’s newest world class studios, Perth Film Studios has welcomed six-part Stan Original Two Birds, from BAFTA and Peabody Award winning producer Patrick Spence (Mr Bates vs The Post Office, A Spy Among Friends, Stan Original The Hack) through AC Chapter One and Western Australian producer Martha Coleman (Stan Original Scrublands: Silver, Diary of an Uber Driver) through Third Act Stories, with pre-production kicking off this week.

“Filming in studio and on location in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, the series is led by BAFTA award winning Sheridan Smith (I Fought The Law, No Return, The Teacher, Mrs Biggs) and will be supported by an incredible Australian cast including Judy Davis (Stan Original Nitram, Mystery Road) and Stephen Peacocke (Five Bedrooms, The Newsreader).

“The Stan Original Two Birds will be the first production to film in the brand-new Perth Film Studios and is supported by the WA Production Attraction Incentive. The incentive is designed to attract high profile, market driven footloose screen productions to Western Australia and is managed by Screenwest. The production is also accessing the Australian Government’s Location Offset.

“The series is estimated to inject more than $17 million into the WA economy and directly employ more than 100 Western Australians cast and crew.”