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Secrets, lies and scandals in Network Ten/Screentime’s ‘Playing for Keeps’

‘Playing for Keeps.’

Network Ten has released a trailer for Playing for Keeps, the eight-part Screentime drama which follows the wives and girlfriends of Australian Rules footballers.

Madeleine West, Cece Peters, Annie Maynard, Olympia Valance and Isabella Giovinazzo play the leads, five very different women.

Scripted by Claire Phillips, Christine Bartlett, Ian Meadows, Ainslie Clouston and Mithila Gupta, the plot follows the women from the grandstands and locker rooms to the red carpets and bedrooms, unearthing secrets, lies and scandals.

The concept was created by Ten’s head of drama Rick Maier, who brought it to Screentime. Paul Maloney and Kerrie Mainwaring produced the series directed by Sian Davies, Scott Major and Tori Garrett.

The series posits that in the male-dominated world of a football club the real power is with the women and asks if they are motivated by love, infatuation, authority or being relevant.

“This is lifestyles of the rich and famous writ large: bold, brassy, funny and dangerous,” Screentime executive chairman Bob Campbell tells IF. “It’s a female-skewed, heightened, telenovela-style drama which takes no prisoners.

West (The Wrong Girl, Satisfaction, Underbelly) plays Kath, the elegant and astute coach’s wife, mentor and den mother.

Peters (The Wrong Girl, Catching Milat) is Paige, a down-to-earth high school teacher who moves to the city to follow her high school sweetheart.

Maynard (Puberty Blues, Upper Middle Bogan) is Maddy, a self-assured lawyer and mother of two. Valance (Neighbours) is Tahlia, the glamorous, social-climber girlfriend of the club’s captain.

The male cast includes Jeremy Lindsay Taylor (Romper Stomper, Puberty Blues), Kevin Hofbauer (Sisters, Offspring), George Pullar (Fighting Season, A Place To Call Home), Jackson Gallagher (Home and Away), James Mason (Neighbours) and Ethan Panizza (The Doctor Blake Mysteries).

View the trailer