South Australia is in the international spotlight again, with the premiere of BBC One, HBO Max, Stan and ZDF series The Tourist, starring BAFTA nominee Jamie Dornan, scoring rave reviews and ratings across the globe.

The highly anticipated mystery thriller, filmed last year in the Flinders Ranges and around Adelaide city, including at the South Australian Film Corporation’s Adelaide Studios, was the most-watched show in the UK on New Year’s Day for its premiere with 4.59 million viewers and has attracted widespread critical acclaim.

The Guardian gave the “explosively entertaining” show five stars, while the Telegraph gave it four stars, declaring it a New Year’s hit. Radio Times described the thriller as an “unpredictable, edge-of-your-seat mystery that startles you with laugh-out-loud moments”, while The Independent called Dornan’s performance “his best yet”.

London’s Evening Standard named The Tourist as one of the best new shows for 2022, while The Observer particularly applauded the first episode of the series, created and written by BAFTA-nominated and Emmy-winning producers and screenwriters Harry and Jack Williams of Two Brothers Pictures, saying: “Already, The Tourist feels taut, jagged and distinctive, the best Williams offering since The Missing”.

In the six-episode series, Dornan (Belfast, The Fall) stars as a British man known only as “The Man” who finds himself in the glowing red heart of the South Australian outback, being pursued by a vast tank truck trying to drive him off the road. An epic cat and mouse chase unfold and The Man later wakes in the hospital, hurt, but somehow alive – except he has no idea who he is. With merciless figures from his past pursuing him, The Man’s search for answers propels him through the vast and unforgiving outback.

With much of the thrilling action unfolding against the stark desert backdrop of the South Australian Outback, The Tourist shines a spotlight on the state’s iconic Flinders Ranges region, including the quaint Outback towns of Quorn, Hawker and Orroroo, while parts of Adelaide stand in seamlessly for Bali, Hong Kong and India.

“The Outback is like a character in itself. You just set the camera up out there in that sort of nothingness, the big expanse of the sky, and it’s already dramatic before they put me in front of it,”

Dornan on ITV’s This Morning.

Produced by South Australian producer Lisa Scott of Highview Productions (Stan Original Film A Sunburnt Christmas, The Hunting), the six-part series also stars Danielle Macdonald (Unbelievable, Dumplin’, Patti Cake$), Shalom Brune-Franklin(Line of Duty, Roadkill), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Trapped, The Missing), Alex Dimitriades (The End, The Cry) and Damon Herriman (Mindhunter, Justified).

The Tourist is a Two Brothers Pictures (an All3Media company) production for the BBC, in association with Highview Productions, All3Media International, the South Australian Film Corporation, HBO Max, Stan and ZDF.

The Tourist is streaming now via BBC One in the UK and Stan in Australia and is set to air soon in the US on HBO Max.

The Tourist was supported through the Australian Government’s Location Incentive Program.