The beautiful, strange works of celebrated Australian children’s author and illustrator Shaun Tan are never complete. At least, that’s how he feels about the fantastical worlds he creates on the page, in which readers young and old explore their imaginations.
From his first award-winning graphic novel, The Arrival, in 2006, through to The Lost Thing and The Red Tree, Tan has surprised and enriched with his unspoken stories of surreal adventure. But, as with Tales from Outer Suburbia, which is inspired by his Perth childhood and is the latest of his books to be adapted for the screen, he could always add another (un)finishing touch.
Shaun Tan’s award-winning book Tales from Outer Suburbia has been turned into an animated series for the ABC.
“There’s a saying that, a work of art is never finished, it’s merely abandoned,” says Tan. “It always feels like a work in progress … But there are many possible universes in which a thing can exist. And you end up with one and you learn to live in that world and understand it. And after a while, the creative work starts to speak back to you. And that’s always a nice feeling.”
The animated series, directed by Noel Cleary, ties 10 of the 15 illustrations from the book – such as a water buffalo grazing in a vacant lot and a deep-sea diver pounding the pavement – to a family newly arrived in the neighbourhood. Geraldine Hakewill voices the solo mum, Dawn French the grandmother, and Tony Nikolakopoulos is Grandpa. Brooklyn Davies and Felix Oliver Verges are Klara, a 12-year-old girl and Pim, her six-year-old brother.
As the younger of two siblings (Tan’s older brother, Paul, is a geologist to whom the book is dedicated, and is one of Tan’s most valued critics), the author resonates the most with Pim, the fearless young adventurer propelled by curiosity. “I was sort of semi-competent and somewhat annoying.”
Now the father of a girl and a boy the same ages as the characters, Tan observes the dynamics of that complex bond.
“It’s exasperating, but also very funny because the subjects of their fights are usually so inane,” says Tan. “But it’s driven by the wavering emotions of the evolving brain. And the anger and rage can be white-hot. I think we can forget, when we’re adults, how intense the feelings of childhood can be.”
The story centres around a family that includes 12-year-old Klara (voiced by Brooklyn Davies) and Grandpa ( Tony Nikolakopoulos).
As the story unfolds, other characters enter the fray. There is a punk rocker, Lorenzo (Michael Theo, Austin), and two other siblings – mysterious feline-like girls called Cat (Andrea Solonge) and Esme (Shabana Azeez). Modelled on the kind of “parasitic, dangerous kids” that, as a child, Tan sensed had, “a sense of a deep insecurity that was driving both the coolness and the danger”, Cat evolved dramatically throughout the scripting process.
