Cirrus@Austlit

Melodrama.

The action of the play takes place at the Pluckup Silver Mining Camp near Broken Hill in the New South Wales Barrier Ranges. The heroine of the story, Alice Power, is the newly arrived barmaid engaged by Baldy Davis and her adventures there lead to falling for Charlie Holt, the holder of the original Pluckup claim. Complications arise through Charlie's wicked cousin, Joseph, who not only wants the claim but also Alice and the share in Broken Hill. He devises a number of desperate plots in order to attain his ends but naturally fails in the end, and with the arrival of a two long lost relations Alice and Charlie's union is given familial blessing. The play is said to have also contained a number of 'thrilling scenes,' including the climax fist fight between the two cousins (Argus 25 September 1911, p9).

Bedford set most of the scenes in the bar of Baldy Davis' shanty hotel, the centre of social life at Pluckup. The Age theatre critic records that 'therein collects an extraordinary set of characters, the majority of whom possess the common feature of an unquenchable thirst.'

The scenes are : Act 1. Interior of Baldy Davis' Hotel ; Act 2. The same ; Act 3. Sc 1. The same ; Sc 2. The Plain ; Sc 3. The Pluckup Mine ; Sc 4. The Plain ; Sc 5. Interior of Baldy Davis' Hotel.