Puberty Blues: Series 1

Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Careys Puberty Blues is an iconic novel, one that chronicles a special time in Australias history. Historically, sociologically and psychologically, its a story of a critical moment in our nations development.

Bringing this Australian classic to life, Puberty Blues tells the story of two girls, Debbie and Sue, of innocence lost and experience gained against the backdrop of Australia in the 1970s. The eight-part series moves beyond the original pages and explores the (mis) adventures of these young girls, their families and friends in a tumultuous if not romantic era of Australias history.

In the 1970s, the middle baby boomers were coming into their adolescence and early adulthood. The sexual revolution was in full flow. In America teenagerdom had come into its own in the 1960s. It happened here in the 1970s, with the arrival of drugs and the anti-Vietnam War-fed youth rebellion. And the wild mood finds its apotheosis in surf culture.

Lette and Carey created a picture of Australian suburban life in revolution as the wild kids get their rocks off, exploring the worlds of the parents in a context where money and loans are much cheaper, divorce is much easier, full employment and prosperity abound, conventional morality is shifting and everything is endlessly possible.

Shot in and around Sydneys Sutherland Shire, a brilliant senior cast and two fantastic young leads in Debbie and Sue, take us into Cronulla in the late 1970s from the title track of Are You Old Enough right through to the flares, martin jackets, Choc Tops and Cheezels.

Ultimately, Puberty Blues is a story about a nation growing up.