Produced for ABC TV by Anna Grieve and Peter Butt from Blackwattle Films, I, Spry uncovers ASIO's intriguing history during the Cold War under enigmatic spymaster, Charles Spry.

ASIO's first fumbling counter-espionage operations against Russian intelligence and a local spy ring leads Spry on a quest to reshape ASIO in his own image. The controversial, election-influencing Petrov defections of 1954 gives him unprecedented power. But Spry soon finds himself in a "wilderness of mirrors", where nobody is who or what they seem.

Tony Llewellyn-Jones (Curtin, GP), as Charles Spry, heads a cast of over 50 players, including 20 enthusiastic actors, cabaret performers and extras from the Russian community.

The dramatisations will be shot in Sydney and, where possible, at locations where real operations were carried out, including the apartment block where Vladimir Petrov defected over a meal of oysters.