From next week, Victoria will serve as host for the cast and crew of ABC TV's forthcoming mini-series The Secret River, co-starring Tim Minchin.

The two-part series is an adaptation of Kate Grenville's lauded novel of the same name, and follows convict William Thornhill (British actor Oliver Jackson-Cohen of Mr Selfridge and Dracula) and his free wife, Sal (AACTA award-winning Aussie Sarah Snook) as they are transported to the fledgling colony of New South Wales at the dawn of the 19th century.

Rounding out the ensemble alongside Minchin, Jackson-Cohen and Snook are Lachy Hulme (Howzat! Kerry Packer's War, Power Games: The Packer-Murdoch Story), Rake and Top Of The Lake's Genevieve Lemon, and Trevor Jamieson, of Rabbit Proof Fence and Around The Block.

Minchin, along with Lemon, play residents on the Hawkesbury River, while Hulme will step into the shoes of an ex-convict running a freight service across the water. Screen veteran Jamieson will inhabit the role of an Aboriginal elder whose clan resides in the region in which the Thornhills settle.'

The $8.7 million series, produced by Stephen Luby of Ruby Entertainment (Crackerjack, Murray Whelan franchise) and directed by Paper Giants: The Birth Of Cleo and Never Tear Us Apart auteur Daina Reid, will shoot for eight weeks, and goes beyond the personal dramas of its central couple to canvass the social and cultural issues and tensions of the day as conflict arises between the new settlers and the country's indigenous peoples.

“It's thrilling and exciting that we will begin filming next week with such a stunning cast and a brilliant and committed team behind the cameras,” Luby said in a statement. “It has been a long journey to bring this project to the screen and I am very grateful to the ABC for supporting this powerful and moving Australian story”.

The novel on which the series is based won the 2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize, and was consequently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The adaptation comes courtesy of screenwriters Mac Gudgeon (Killing Time, Waterfront) and the Oscar-nominated Jan Sardi (Shine, Mao's Last Dancer).