Entertainment 3 min read 55m ago

Airport Chaplain Review: Hugo Weaving

Hugo Weaving stars as airport chaplain Tobias Wallace in the eight-part Australian drama series, which launches globally on Netflix.
Shabana Azeez co-stars as a sceptical terminal manager whose friction with Tobias provides the show's central narrative tension.
Only four of the eight episodes were made available ahead of broadcast, leaving key plot developments unconfirmed.

Hugo Weaving anchors a pacy, moreish Australian drama series in The Airport Chaplain, an eight-part show in which he plays Tobias Wallace — a pastoral care worker who functions, in the reviewer's phrase, as a kind of "Batman in a hi-vis vest". The series is co-created by Elise McCredie and Jude Troy, directed by Bonnie Moir and Tig Terera, and is set to launch globally on Netflix, with Australian audiences receiving it via SBS and SBS on Demand.

A busybody with gravitas

Tobias Wallace is, as the show wastes little time establishing, an inveterate problem-solver. From retrieving a lost toy rabbit for a distressed child to transporting deceased passengers, intervening in domestic disputes, and playing matchmaker for couples who met online, his remit appears to stretch well beyond conventional spiritual counsel. Whether this reflects the realities of airport chaplaincy — a profession that does, it is noted, genuinely exist — is left as an open question. The show itself makes no great claim to documentary accuracy.

The central dramatic tension is provided by the arrival of terminal manager Mira Ansari-Cole, played by Shabana Azeez, who is unimpressed by Tobias's expansive self-definition and his breezy refusal to file a daily work report. Her escalating desire to remove him from his post gives the series a structural backbone, even as viewers may find merit in both positions.

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Scattered but compelling

The narrative structure is described as somewhat scattered across the first four episodes — the only ones made available ahead of broadcast — though the writers, who include McCredie alongside Mithila Gupta, Sarah Bassiuoni and Vidya Rajan, do establish a multi-episode throughline in the story of Asha Chawla (Kavitha Anandasivam), a young woman discovered in a prayer room without a passport or phone, refusing to speak. A second recurring figure, airline service manager Cath Barnes (Claudia Karvan), is characterised as sassy and pragmatic, providing a counterweight to Tobias's frenetic energy.

Weaving himself is credited with lending the role genuine oomph: his is described as a performance that combines gravitas with an everyday relatability, avoiding the heightened quality that might render the character implausible. The comparison drawn is with HBO's The Pitt — in which Azeez also appears — another series that exploits a confined institutional setting to funnel a broad cross-section of humanity through a single dramatic space. The airport, like the hospital, is framed here as a site where almost anyone might appear, and where small human dramas flare without warning. Whether the remaining four episodes build on that foundation remains, for now, unconfirmed.

##TheAirportChaplain ##HugoWeaving ##Netflix

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