A Dickins' Christmas

Meet Jack Gruel, artistic director of a theatre company in Melbourne in the 1950s. This Scrooge of the stage is the torch bearer of Australia's cultural cringe and he runs the company with a fist of tram steel.

"The actors come last in the company, naturally. This humble but brave group is cowed by the endless tours to Gippsland...Pygmalion in Bairnsdale, She Stoops to Conquer in Walhalla and How Green Was My Valley at the Yallourn open-cut.

"But there is hope. In the odd moment not spent re-working Welsh farces and Scottish comedies for the Melbourne stage, Gruel's humble assistant and resident playwright is trying to pen the first Australian play. This seems a futile gesture until Jack Gruel is visited by three awesome spirits, whose mission is to convince him that the Australian voice must be heard on stage.

A Dickins' Christmas takes as its inspiration from A Christmas Carol (by Charles Dickens) and its story of human redemption. It is a joyful, hilarious tribute to the Australian actors and playwrights who were, for so long, the underdogs of our stage."