' 'Ned's is a bitch legend - wrong from the start - but Australia's in it - yes; something of a country where only eagles are fit to travel the skies, and men like eagles to ride it.' According to historian Manning Clark, these lines, spoken by the actor playing Joe Byrne in a production of Donald Stewart's Ned Kelly at the University of Melbourne in 1944, 'started me off on a great journey'. Forty years later, his compliment to the theatre was returned by Tim Robertson and Don Watson in their project to adapt Clark's massive, six-volume A History of Australia ('History') for the stage.' (Publication abstract)