Cirrus@Austlit

Largely adapted from Ethel Turner's Seven Little Australians, with some incidents from Miss Bobbie also incorporated into the narrative.

The critical reception to the play was almost unanimously positive, with most critics agreeing that writer/director/producer Beaumont Smith had captured the spirit of the original stories and had succeeded in staging it for the benefit of the children present. Well before the 1914 Palace Theatre premiere Smith indicated his intention, saying that Seven Little Australians had been on his mind as a theatrical production for several years and that he 'always felt that children should have plays written for them for daytime performances.' He went on to further note that he believed that they should also be written in a childish spirit, with the point of view always being from that of a child' (Adelaide Mail 2 May 1914, p. 13).