Overview
This adaptation was performed at The Royal Court Theatre in 1988 and 1989 to critical acclaim. Set in Botany Bay in 1789 it tells of the rehearsals for the first play to be performed in Australia. Surrounded by forbidding conditions Lieutenant Clark attempts, under the authority of the first Governor General, to bring culture to the penal colony through a production of Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer, with a motley bunch of villains, murderers and prostitutes.