TELEVISION SERIES (8 X 1 HOUR ) - IN DEVELOPMENT AUS/IRELAND CO-PRODUCTION

Tinderbox follows the lives of six women through the over-arching story of a young Irish girl Claire, a young girl typical of many migrants of the then and now fleeing impoverishment. Claire is a “Famine Girl”, one of the 4000 who were offered maid work in a good Melbourne home.

Claire begins her sea journey from Ireland to Australia hiding her pregnancy and arrives on the dock with a new baby in her arms. Shunned, she ends up in Little Lonsdale Street, a busy village unto itself in the middle of inner-city Melbourne, a mix of retail shops, dwellings, and “flash houses” (brothels, which were not illegal), an already multicultural world with the traders and restaurateurs of Chinatown.

Here live the famous flash house owner Madam Brussels, Vera (Nadine Garner) struggling in a troubled relationship with her brother (Steve Mouzakis), Madam Lee escaping her family's disapproval of her lover Liling, and social justice warrior Varley who is losing his son to crime. Claire’s romance with Tommy, a policeman and star footballer, takes us back to Ireland with the promise of a wedding.