Hot Picks: Davey & Jonesie’s Locker

Created by Canadian comic Evany Rosen, Davey & Jonesie’s Locker is a female-led teen comedy set in a high school, with a multiverse twist.

The 10 x 30-minute series from Marblemedia is brought to market via streaming co-commissioners Prime Video in Canada, Australia and New Zealand and Hulu in the US.

Writer, actor and stand-up comic Rosen is best-known for Canadian mockumentary New Eden for local SVoD Crave, which she co-created and co-starred in with her own best friend, actress Kayla Lorette.

It is her friendship with Lorette that serves as inspiration for Davey & Jonesie’s Locker, for which she also serves as showrunner.

“This is a best friends story of kooky characters who let their freak flag fly,” says Diane Rankin, executive producer and executive vice-president of rights at Distribution360. “It mimics her life, to a degree.”

The action centres on eccentric best friends Davey and Jonesie, who stumble through a multidimensional portal built by their science teacher and hidden in one of their lockers. Having always felt out of kilter with their peers, the portal seems like an escape from the mediocrity of their lives.

However, their adventure into multiple dimensions leads them back to the same high school, albeit each time in a different bizarre, alternate reality, surrounded by offbeat versions of their classmates.

Veronika Slowikowska (What We Do In The Shadows) stars as Davey and Jaelynn Thora Brooks (Heartland) plays Jonesie, with the ensemble cast of fresh faces and seasoned actors including Dan Beirne (The Handmaid’s Tale), who plays quantum physicist-turned-physics teacher Mr Schneider.

“The multiverse set-up means there’s an infinite variety of storylines but they all tap into some element of Davey and Jonesie’s relationship that they need to work through or their relationship with their peers,” says Rankin.

“The comedy is a touch more sophisticated than teens would normally see”

Rankin and Marblemedia vice-president of kids AJ Trauth shaped the concept and brought it to Hulu and Amazon, with investment from Canada’s Shaw Rocket Fund and Distribution360.

“It’s a unique play in that these two platforms compete in certain territories and are now working together,” says Rankin. “It’s been a really nice process with notes and collaboration.

“We’re creating for a 12-17 age group. It’s a space that our target buyers said there was a need for on their platforms. It’s clean from a comedy and language perspective and young adults aged just out of this cohort would totally get it too.

The comedy is a touch more sophisticated than teens would normally see.”

Prime Video and Hulu plan to launch Davey & Jonesie’s Locker later this autumn and Distribution360 is in active conversations with the BBC and Disney+.

Rankin says the sales focus is not solely kids’ channels: “The comedy will travel wider than that so we’re looking at a broader universe.”