australian television information archive

Devil's Playground

Produced by Matchbox Pictures

Executive Producers: Tony Ayres, Simon Burke, Penny Win
Producers: Penny Chapman, Helen Bowden, Blake Ayshford
Writers: Blake Ayshford, Cate Shortland, Alice Addison, Tommy Murphy
Directors: Rachel Ward, Tony Krawitz

Airing: September 09, 2014...

In 1976, Fred Schepisi's first feature film, The Devil's Playground, daringly dealt with the conflict between desire and spirituality in a Catholic seminary. It's now considered a classic of Australian cinema. At the film's centre was a 13-year-old boy, Tom Allen, torn between his calling and his sexuality. This series picks up the story 35 years later. It is 1988 and Tom is now in his forties. A practising Catholic and respected Sydney psychiatrist, Tom accepts an offer from the Bishop of Sydney to become a secular confessor to the Catholic clergy, and is soon embroiled in political and theological intrigue.