Theme Logo

Barry Crocker stars as lead in ‘The Strange Calls’

June 2011

Barry has a lead role in “The Strange Calls”. The new comedy series is on ABC2, The Strange Calls, which began as a short film by Daley Pearson and Luke Tierney. It features none other than Barry Crocker (Housos, Swift and Shift Couriers, The Adventures of Barry McKenzie) as a night security man for a beachside town where weird things happen after dark. He is joined by Toby Truslove as a local cop. Viewers can also interact live on twitter with Crocker’s character ‘Gregor’ during the broadcast as he responds to the strange calls @thestrangecalls.

The show is about an ordinary Australian town … until the sun goes down. Meet Gregor (Barry Crocker), the town’s wild-eyed gatekeeper who has an encyclopedic knowledge of Coolum and its residents, and a love of vintage board games and 90s TV. His unwitting partner is Constable Toby Banks (Toby Truslove), a recently disgraced city cop, who arrives in town to begin his new role on the night duty desk situated in a derelict old caravan, on the outskirts of Coolum. Banks is a rational sceptic while Gregor is a ‘Believer’. Weird things happen in this slice of paradise and the locals keep calling late into the night. This odd couple set out to investigate ‘the strange calls’, moments of midnight madness that reveal the bizarre truth of the town – a place where mermaids date policemen and a mysterious radio jingle will possess your soul.

In episode one, there’s a break-in at Frequent Fryers Chicken Shop. No money has been taken, only chicken. Banks meets Gregor who has his own theory: it was the work of a Chicken Man. A trail of clues lead them to Nick, who has been eating so much fried chicken that he believes he may be transforming into a chicken. Gregor suggests he’s seen this before. Banks thinks they’re crazy and takes Nick to Sergeant Lloyd (Patrick Brammall) to be arrested for the break-in. While Banks is distracted, Nick mysteriously escapes from his handcuffs, and the only thing left is the feather of a chicken.