AUSTRALIA
Perth Now
SHERYL-LEE KERR
PERTHNOW SEPTEMBER 08, 2014
A job in Chile was beckoning the day actor John Noble got the script for Devil’s Playground, a miniseries which delves into the murky world of Catholic Church politics and intrigue. The former Adelaide Catholic schoolboy took only moments to decide.
“I looked at this script and I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing, this is my childhood here’,” Noble says. “So I threw some things around so I could do it, simply based on the script.”
Noble plays progressive Bishop McNally who sees secrets, abuse and cover-ups within the church in the late ’80s. The story is based on the 1976 Fred Schepisi movie of the same name. It begins with the death of a Catholic schoolboy — and another child’s claim it was murder.
“He’s one of the good ones,” Noble says of his character.
“He knows a lot — there’s a veil of secrecy and protection in the Catholic Church. They’re like a family so if someone did err, then they would try to help them in different ways.
“The edict (to keep secrets such as abuse) came down from the top, the very top, that this needs to be covered up. It would have been the most agonising thing and it was, for the character I play, the most agonising thing to sit with, knowing this was happening and having to cover it up.”
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