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Based on Jack Hibberd's popular comedic play and set in the small rural Victorian township of Dimboola, the story takes place in the three days leading up to the marriage of locals Maureen Delaney and Morrie McAdam. Although the film adaptation contains much that is in the original play, it also allows the narrative to move beyond the confines of the single stage setting. Framed around a visiting English journalist who has arrived in the town to study the ways of the 'natives,' the story offers up a variety of images and situations that allow the apparently dim-witted Aussies blokes to do typically ratbag and oddball things with and to each other, usually while knocking back another 'tinnie' or trying to crack onto a sheila.
The dramatic action sees, for example, Morrie undergo the rigours of the shearing-shed bucks party. Amid the booze, obscenities, and fist fights arrives Angelique, a stripper who'll do more than just strip--if the price is right! Complications arise when Dangles, the best man, delivers incriminating photographs of Morrie and Angelique to Maureen, and the mayhem worsens when Morrie's mother reveals that the future bride and groom could actually be first cousins because of a pre-marital fling!
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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[Essay] : Dimboola
2013
single work
essay
— Appears in: Reading Australia 2013-;'Dimboola‘s title is a great start to the play that was first performed in 1969. It belongs nowhere but in Australia. At the same time, not many people can claim to have lived there or to know someone from Dimboola. Indigenous? Maybe. And where is Dimboola? You drive through it on your way to somewhere else. It’s in Victoria, out where all the roads are signposted ‘so many km to Melbourne’.' (Introduction)
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'Dimboola's' No Worries, Mate
1979
single work
review
— Appears in: Nation Review , 31 May 1979; (p. 582)
— Review of Dimboola 1979 single work film/TV -
Untitled
1979
single work
review
— Appears in: Theatre Australia , vol. 4 no. 1 1979; (p. 43)
— Review of Dimboola 1979 single work film/TV -
Stage Hit Doesn't Work on Screen
1979
single work
review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 26 June vol. 100 no. 5166 1979; (p. 69-70)
— Review of Dimboola 1979 single work film/TV -
Dimboola Steps into the Movies
1977
single work
— Appears in: The Age , 24 December 1977; (p. 16)
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Stage Hit Doesn't Work on Screen
1979
single work
review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 26 June vol. 100 no. 5166 1979; (p. 69-70)
— Review of Dimboola 1979 single work film/TV -
Untitled
1979
single work
review
— Appears in: Theatre Australia , vol. 4 no. 1 1979; (p. 43)
— Review of Dimboola 1979 single work film/TV -
'Dimboola's' No Worries, Mate
1979
single work
review
— Appears in: Nation Review , 31 May 1979; (p. 582)
— Review of Dimboola 1979 single work film/TV -
Dimboola Steps into the Movies
1977
single work
— Appears in: The Age , 24 December 1977; (p. 16) -
[Essay] : Dimboola
2013
single work
essay
— Appears in: Reading Australia 2013-;'Dimboola‘s title is a great start to the play that was first performed in 1969. It belongs nowhere but in Australia. At the same time, not many people can claim to have lived there or to know someone from Dimboola. Indigenous? Maybe. And where is Dimboola? You drive through it on your way to somewhere else. It’s in Victoria, out where all the roads are signposted ‘so many km to Melbourne’.' (Introduction)