AustLit

Set in the 'back country of New South Wales... the plot hangs on the doings of a small group of people at Happy Valley. Jack Melton and Jim Fernleigh have taken up a selection near to the farm of their old friend Joe Moreland, and their close and wonderful mateship is a matter of local pride.' Jack and Jim's good fortune begins to change, however, after the return to the Moreland homestead of Joe's beautiful and accomplished nineteen year old daughter, Nellie, who the two young men last saw when they were children in Sydney. Nellie is not in father's home two hours when Jim declares his passion for her. Although his proposal is accepted later that evening, the villainess squatter, Ralph Seymour, also attempts to woo the young woman with stories of wealth and luxury (even though he already has a wife). Nellie's response is to take to him with a stockwhip. When Seymour insults Nellie, Jack steps in and attempts to put the villain in his place, Seymour pulls out a knife with murderous intent. Jim saves his mate, however, by shooting Seymour dead. Although seemingly a case of justifiable homicide, Jim is nevertheless 'cheerfully' arrested by Sergeant Haynes, who also has it in for him, and he is put into the local goal awaiting trial. His stay in prison is brief, however, as he escapes with the help of his mate Jack. The rest of the story sees Jim attempting to avoid re-capture and finally make a dash to Melbourne to place money, at 20-1 odds, on a race at Ascot (Argus 6 February 1911, p9 ; Age 6 February 1911, p11).

The comedy aspects are said to have been numerous, with Bert Bailey (as Dolf Darling) providing much of the humour. 'There is a freshness and spontaneity about Mr Bailey's comedy,' records the Argus, 'that never fails to take his audience by storm with his opening sentences. The comic element in the drama rarely flags, and Mr Duggan has dipped his pen freely in laughter. Absurd love passages between Dolf and Jessie Moreland, practical jokes played on the police, Dolf's breezy slanging of his employer, the ludicrous eagerness of the blacktracker, Gunyah, lighten the production from curtain to curtain' (Argus 6 February 1911, p9)

The Argus also reports that Duggan had succeeded in concealing the outcome of his plot until a late stage, thereby maintaining a keen interest. As melodrama's go, writes the paper's theatre critic, My Mate has not more than its share of improbabilities, and it contains much that is convincing, and a great deal that is frankly hilarious. The staging is very good, the most effective scene being the granite gorge, where Joe swings at the end of a stockwhip across a chasm 2,000 ft deep to safety, and the blacktracker seeking to follow him is dashed to death. All the accessories of Australian bush life are well depicted in the settings' (Argus 6 February 1911, p9). The Age critic was similarly impressed with Duggan's stage craft, writing: ''Mr Duggan has considerable ingenuity in inventing telling situations. His dialogue is on the whole brighter than that of the foreign made play. His comic relief, moreover, is usually worthy of the name; in fact it is often - as in the al fresco open air scene between Mr Bailey and Mr Wilson in the second act - distinctly good' The critic's only negative response was that Duggan had covered the same old ground: 'We have again the selector, the squatter, the boundary rider and the policeman, not to mention the drunken trooper and the black tracker... [and] on the feminine side we have again the squatter's daughter, under a new name it is true, but without any specially new characteristics... We have met them all before, not once but half a dozen times, and it is a mistake to suppose, as Mr Duggan seems to do, that they are the only types that possess dramatic interest in the continent' (6 February 1911, p11).

Synopsis of scenery : Act 1; Sc 1. Exterior of Joe Moreland's Homestead, Happy Valley ; The Power of Love ; Act 2; Sc 1. The Mate's Selection ; The Guardian Angel ; A Mate's Self-sacrifice ; The Arrest ; Sc 2. Interior of the Police Station, Happy Valley ; Sc 3. The Prison Yard ; Jack's Clever Disguise ; Jim's Escape ; Act 3; Sc 1. Exterior of Police Station, Happy Valley ; Sc 2. The Barn and Hayloft at Moreland's ; The Tightening of the Noose ; Sc 3. The Bush ; Jim's Attempt to Foil the Blacktracker ; Sc 4. The Giant's Elbow, Granite Gorge ; The Novel Stockwhip Sensation ; Jim's Swing to Freedom ; Gunyah's Swing to Death ; Act 4; Sc1. Interior of Joe Moreland's House ; The Ascot £1,000 ; 'Loving Hearts United in Joy and Happiness.'