Cirrus@Austlit

In her 2001 doctoral dissertation, Ailsa McPherson writes: 'Like Red Riding Hood [Williamson and Musgrove's 1899 Christmas pantomime], Scott's adaptation was prepared prior to the defeats of Black Week, and the [Sydney Morning] Herald considered the play [had been] written in "anticipation of what seemed likely..." (p. 259-60). She goes on to note that Scott's play also portrayed Kruger as an enemy to be mocked rather than demonised. This created problems for the drama because it could not easily be accommodated in either a melodrama or in military actuality. McPherson writes: 'A villain in melodrama [has] to embody the threat of evil, as the antithesis of good. A sly, comedic figure did not conform to that stereotypical role. [Furthermore] at the time of playing, this figure was also at odds with the image associated with the leader of a country whose forces had, in reality, inflicted three heavy defeats on the Imperial army' (p.260).