The Ship That Never Was

Impressed by the informative & fun tour guiding on Sarah Island, Natalie & I attended the Round Earth Company’s staging of the play “The Ship That Never Was” that evening in Strahan.

Written by Richard Davey & staged every evening at 5:30pm, it is Australia’s longest running play. The play has been performed nightly since 1993!

The Ship That Never Was.

Photo sourced from Wikipedia article on Round Earth Company & is released under GNU FDL.  Photographer is Tirin aka Takver.

The play details the bizarre but true story of a great escape from Sarah Island by the last ten convicts aboard the last ship to be built on the island, The Frederick.

The convicts finished the construction of the ship under the watch of a shipwright & few guards.  The convicts took control of The Frederick but instead of sailing her to Port Arthur as intended, they headed to Chile! High seas, storms, gales and inexperienced sailors…

The Frederick made it to Chile where, the convicts lived as free men for some years, until four were recaptured by the British and sent back to Van Diemens Land to face charges of piracy, mutiny and the theft of a ship…will they hang?

Will they hang? Well, that’s left up to the audience to decide.

It’s an interactive performance with audience members playing various roles on stage. Natalie was selected (along with many others from the audience) to play a role on stage.  She was a drunken captain, killed in action, blood pumping everywhere!  It was great entertainment, hilariously funny and worth the price of the ticket.