The Devil Makes Sunday

The Devil Makes Sunday is a TV play about a convict break out on Norfolk Island by Bruce Stewart, who had just written Shadow of a Pale Horse. It was based on the real life Norfolk Island convict mutinies.

It was filmed for British, US and Australian TV.

It was also adapted for radio.

In 1840 on Norfolk Island, convicts rise up against their guards.

The play was filmed in Britain as part of ITV Sunday Night Drama.

The episode was filmed in the US as part of the US Steel Hour.

On the penal colony of Norfolk Island one Sunday afternoon, a convict, Prendergast, rests during working hours. He is flogged to unconsciousness.

The play was filmed for Australian TV in 1962.

It was shot in Melbourne.

The TV critic from the Sydney Morning Herald thought the production was "chiefly remarkable for the briskness of its violence" listing the "five deaths by shooting, one by strangulation and one by public flogging. Even a hardworking Elizabethan playwright of the most bloodthirsty kind would have thought this a respectable tally." He added "Stewart's principal characters were merely mouthpieces for a set of ethical attitudes. Because they were so obviously pieces on a moralistic chessboard and because their dialogue dealt in words like good and evil without once making these seem more than black and white abstractions, their predicament was almost totally unmoving." He also felt producer (director) William Sterling "was busy enough with his properties and cameras...but he seemed actually to have encouraged the actors playing the prison commandant and the chaplain to emphasise the intrinsic hollowness of their dialogue." However the performance of Sydney Conabere was praised.