Brooke Satchwell’s CV reads like a roll call of Australia’s best-loved TV shows. First she was Anne Wilkinson in Neighbours, the role that made her a teen hero in the late 1990s. The Melbourne-born actor went on to appear in Water Rats, complete a five-year stint as a presenter on Play School, and later popped up in Packed to the Rafters. She was also luminous as Ally in Mr Inbetween, one of Australian television’s most underrated productions.
Right now Satchwell is working on stage. She is making her Sydney Theatre Company debut in Oil, a play that unfolds over a 162-year timeline, starting in a Cornwall farmhouse at the end of the 19th century. Her dressing room is full of small but essential items like Band-Aids, rubber bands and safety pins.
