The Imposter on Channel 5: 'Magnificent' filming locations with link to Australian soap Neighbours
Start saving up - you're going to want to visit!
The Imposter on Channel 5 has everything you need from a glossy thriller – a sexy cast, beautiful filming locations, and a plot as twisty as the Great Ocean Road.
The new series introduces a dysfunctional family with Jackie Woodburne’s Helen at the heart of it. Although heart isn’t quite right… She’s cold fish in a warm climate!
Neighbours fans will know the actress as somewhat of a soap legend. And therein lies your clue to the amazing filming locations used as a backdrop in The Imposter. Here’s everything you need to know!
Where is The Imposter on Channel 5 set?
The Imposter introduces Helen O’Riley and her family who run the “splashy seaside hotel” O’Riley’s On The Pier in a coastal Victorian town. It’s a perfectly located guest house right on the water.
However, the hotel becomes the cause of a bitter family dispute as matriarch Helen refuses to sell, despite pressure from her three adult (greedy) children. The lucrative hotel is the “ultimate prize” and a twisted scheme soon spirals into betrayal and ultimately, murder.
So did cast and crew really film in Victoria, Australia? And where specifically did they use as filming locations for The Imposter?
Victoria is actually a state located in the southeastern corner of mainland Australia. It is bordered by New South Wales to the north, South Australia to the west, and shares a maritime border with Tasmania across the Bass Strait to the south. Its capital and largest city is Melbourne.
The four-part series was made in association with VicScreen, formerly known as Film Victoria. It’s the Victoria State Government’s “creative and economic screen development agency”. It supports screen industry professionals, infrastructure, projects and events, promoting the state of Victoria as a filmmaking hub.
Where was The Imposter actually filmed?
The Channel 5 thriller The Imposter was filmed in and around Melbourne, Victoria, in Australia, and produced by production company Fremantle Australia.
Fremantle are best known for producing the iconic Aussie soap Neighbours, which ran for four decades (1985-2025). So it might not come as too much of a surprise that some filming for the series took place in the former Neighbours studios at Nunawading, an eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria.
Melbourne is the capital city of Victoria, and the most densely populated. It’s located in the southeastern part of Australia, along the southeastern coast and at the head of Port Phillip Bay.
Talking about filming there, Merseyside-born actress Kym Marsh told us: “I loved Amanda’s apartment which was built in the old Neighbours studio building. They had done a fantastic job. It looked expensive.”
Meanwhile, Jackie Woodburne also loved her character Helen’s house. She said: “Once we were getting towards the pointy end of Neighbours wrapping up, they cleared out one of the two big studios and built a three-bedroom house in there. The detail is incredible. It matches so well with the exterior of the building that we used as our hotel. All the little choices that were made about ornaments and pictures and cushions. Bits of furniture that wouldn’t have been replaced for 20 years. Good quality but shabby.”
Producer and writer Jason Herbison created The Imposter, and is also most famous for working on Neighbours.
The Imposter filming locations: ‘St Kilda was gorgeous’
It was Kym’s first time in Australia, and she admits she was a”nervous” about being away from home. She said: “It was my first time over there and I was a little bit nervous. I am a 49-year-old woman, but it was the furthest I’d ever gone before alone. I was all by myself flying off for six weeks without any of my family, and I didn’t really know anyone.
“I’m the only English girl in Imposter but they very quickly put me at ease. It felt like I had known everybody forever. It was just the best experience.”
Asked about her favourite locations to film in, she added: “St Kilda was gorgeous. We had a couple of nice days there when it wasn’t quite so cold. We also had a couple of windy days when we almost got blown away. Then we went to another place called Yellow Gum in Victoria for a clifftop scene. That was much more rural. But I never saw one spider or snake. I did feel slightly cheated, although a friend sent me a video of a Huntsman that he had seen on his gate one morning out in the bush.”
St Kilda is an inner seaside suburb in Melbourne, and where some of the beach scenes were filmed. The pier and Luna Park is used in episode one, when Kate’s rather horrible husband Tony meets Ryder Frew.
Filming locations for The Imposter: Yellow Gum Park in Victoria used for clifftop scenes
There are some dramatic cliff top scenes in the series, in which Kym needed a stunt double. The filming took place at Yellow Gum Park in the Plenty Gorge Parklands known for its walking and cycling tracks.
Kym revealed: “I’m not too bad with heights and it’s a good job I am. We had a great stunt team. For the moments where I had to be right on the edge, I was harnessed up. I was completely safe but there is still that moment where you are like, ‘oof, this is a bit uncomfortable’. I’m not into things like abseiling. My feet can stay firmly on the floor, thank you.”
While filming Down Under, Kym was lucky enough to stay in Fitzroy, an inner-city suburb in Melbourne. Although no filming took place there, she described the area as “cool” and “like a Shoreditch/Camden vibe”. The former Corrie star also ventured out to the Yarra Valley by herself and did a little tour around there, with “wine tasting”, “kangaroos” and “koalas”. Sounds idyllic.
The Imposter filming locations: Half Moon Bay at Black Rock
Actress Jackie Woodburne, 69, plays Helen in the series, but is best known for portraying Susan Kennedy in Neighbours. She played the iconic character between 1994 and 2025. In real life, she was born in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, but emigrated with her family to Australia when she was three.
In the series The Imposter, her character is Northern Irish.
Jackie shared her favourite filming locations on The Imposter with us, including Half Moon Bay at Black Rock. The bay is on Port Phillip, south east of Melbourne. Located in the suburb of Black Rock, the cliffs were briefly featured in the movie Mad Max.
Jackie said: “The beach in Half Moon Bay at Black Rock has a secret cave and red rocks which is magnificent. It looks very cinematic and eerie in the opening sequence.”
‘I looked around on set and saw how beautiful the location was’
Dannii Minogue also appears in the cast, playing Amanda. Yes, it’s the same name as Kym Marsh’s character, which is somewhat of a clue… Well the show is called The Imposter!
The former Home and Away actress and singer, 54, was actually born in Melbourne, but had never filmed in any of the locations before.
She said: “No, I hadn’t filmed at these locations before. I had pinch-me moments when I looked around on set and saw how beautiful the location was. I knew how great it would look on camera. Having lived in London for 22 years I also was thinking how exciting it will be for my friends in the UK to be able to see this too – my hometown.”
Talking about her “childhood haunts”, she shared: “I grew up in Camberwell and have moved back to the borough, so I am always bumping into students from the schools I went to, and locals that I have grown up with. It is very friendly, and I feel so embraced by the community. My son plays basketball, and it was an incredible moment when one of his games was at my old high school. We took a photo on the front steps.”
Read more: Sally Lindsay confirms good news about future of cosy crime drama The Madame Blanc Mysteries
