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y separately published work icon Ned Kelly : A Play single work   drama   - Four acts
  • Author:agent Douglas Stewart http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/stewart-douglas
Issue Details: First known date: 1942... 1942 Ned Kelly : A Play
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Adaptations

form y separately published work icon Ned Kelly Douglas Stewart , ( dir. William Sterling ) Melbourne : Australian Broadcasting Commission , 1959 15971875 1959 single work film/TV

Notes

  • Dedication: To Cecil Mann
  • Author's note: ...In its broad outline, and in many details, the play is historically accurate. But it does not pretend to be accurate in every detail; and, in fact, some deliberate elimination and compression of history, as well as some invention, was necessary to fit the story into dramatic form. Charles White's The Kelly Gang was the chief source of information. The two Kellys, Hart and Byrne are portrayed as I imagine they were in real life. All the other characters, though they bear the names of people who once lived, should be regarded as fictional. D.A.S.

Production Details

  • First produced as a radio play on the ABC, 21 June 1942 and then as a stage play by the Sydney University Dramatic Society, 14 October 1942, in Melbourne and at the Metropolitan Theatre, Sydney in March 1947. The Canberra Repertory Society produced it at the Albert Hall in July 1952. Also produced professionally in a revised version by the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust, Sydney, 3 October 1956. Also produced in Auckland and Wellington, NZ, in 1953 and on BBC radio in 1955.

    Click this link for a list of productions of this work in the AusStage database.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

First known date: 1942
    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Angus and Robertson , 1956 .
      Extent: 80p.
      Note/s:
      • Author's Preface: ...This is the first time an acting version of Ned Kelly has been published, but by no means the first time such a version has been made. The original being far too long for the normal two and a half hours one can have on the stage -and of course still further beyond the reach of the hour and a half which is the most one can steal from the radio-it has had to be cut for every production.

        In making this present version for the first professional stage production in Australia, by the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust, I have had the advantage of many practical suggestions from Mr Hugh Hunt and Mr John Sumner. There is some re-writing in it; and the cuts, while substantially the same as those in earlier adaptations, give, I think much the clearest track yet through the long and sometimes tortuous course of the original.

        While I should like this version to be used in any future production, I should still prefer the full text to be used if the play is reprinted at any time for what literary interest it may have; retaining, however, the present ending, which I trust is the ending to end all endings....D.A.S.

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Three Australian Plays Hal Porter , Alan Seymour , Douglas Stewart , Harmondsworth : Penguin , 1963 Z893289 1963 selected work drama Harmondsworth : Penguin , 1963 pg. 97-236
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Three Australian Plays Hal Porter , Alan Seymour , Douglas Stewart , Harmondsworth : Penguin , 1963 Z893289 1963 selected work drama Ringwood : Penguin , 1994 pg. 97-236

Other Formats

  • Sound recording.
  • Braille.

Works about this Work

Ambiguity and Amorality : Is Douglas Stewart’s Ned Kelly One of Australia’s Great Forgotten Plays? Julian Meyrick , 2022 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 17 March 2022;

'In 1943, Dolia Ribush, a Russian-speaking Latvian theatre director of medium height and considerable charm, made an illegal trip to Sydney from Melbourne — interstate travel at that time, as during Covid-19, being restricted.'  (Introduction)

Your History : Manning Clark's History of Australia and the End of the New Wave Alison Richards , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 64 2014; (p. 177-198)
' '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)
Dramatic Punt on Old Tote John McCallum , 2013 single work column
— Appears in: The Australian , 8 March 2013; (p. 13)
Peter Carey's Ned Kelly Peter Coleman , 2000 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Adelaide Review , November no. 206 2000; (p. 10)
Going Home to Love and Loss Helen Thomson , 1997 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 10 March 1997; (p. C5)

— Review of Up the Road John Harding , 1991 single work drama ; Ned Kelly : A Play Douglas Stewart , 1942 single work drama
Life in Three Acts Brian Hoad , 1989 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 10 October 1989; (p. 111-112)

— Review of Shellcove Road Alex Buzo , 1988 single work drama ; Daylight Saving Nick Enright , 1989 single work drama ; Ned Kelly : A Play Douglas Stewart , 1942 single work drama
Going Home to Love and Loss Helen Thomson , 1997 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 10 March 1997; (p. C5)

— Review of Up the Road John Harding , 1991 single work drama ; Ned Kelly : A Play Douglas Stewart , 1942 single work drama
Sundry Shows Cauboy , 1944 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 18 October vol. 65 no. 3375 1944; (p. 2)

— Review of Ned Kelly : A Play Douglas Stewart , 1942 single work drama
The Kelly Gang George Farwell , 1946 single work review
— Appears in: The Australasian Book News and Library Journal , October vol. 1 no. 4 1946; (p. 123-124)

— Review of Ned Kelly : A Play Douglas Stewart , 1942 single work drama
[Review] Ned Kelly : A Play Alan Tory , 1947 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian Observer , 3 May 1947; (p. 10)

— Review of Ned Kelly : A Play Douglas Stewart , 1942 single work drama
y separately published work icon Companion to Douglas Stewart : Ned Kelly Max Lawson , Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1965 Z1201680 1965 single work criticism
Douglas Stewart: Poet, Playwright and Critic Owen W. Reid , 1963 single work criticism
— Appears in: Tasmanian Education , 15 November vol. 15 no. 1963; (p. 243-248)
Dramatic Punt on Old Tote John McCallum , 2013 single work column
— Appears in: The Australian , 8 March 2013; (p. 13)
Song and Verse of the Old Southern Road Valerie Thompson , 1994 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , March vol. 54 no. 1 1994; (p. 75-85)
Radio Drama : The Australian Experience Rodney Pybus , 1981 1981 single work criticism
— Appears in: Radio Drama 1981; (p. 244-259)
Last amended 28 May 2024 13:59:25
Subjects:
  • Bush,
  • Jerilderie, Tocumwal - Jerilderie area, Riverina - Murray area, New South Wales,
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