AustLit

'What frightened the author, director and cast on the opening night of the first production of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll in 1955 was that they were offering up a play that was unashamedly spoken in Australian language and accent. Set in an Australian house. Populated by Australian people.' (Introduction)

'A daughter is missing...a mother fears the worst...a policewoman tries to console the mother.

'She was last seen at a bar with friends...friends the mother didn't even know existed. Has the daughter been abducted or murdered?

'Has she disappeared of her own free will?'

Source: ABC Radio National's Airplay website, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/airplay/
Sighted: 21/07/2010

'A play about people on all sides of the legal system. Lawyers and criminals, victims and defenders. A retired judge. Two married lawyers. A murderer. A widow. A girl on an assault charge. An ambitious young barrister. Thrown together, each of them struggle with the idea of 'mercy'. What does it mean to be merciful? In an age of law'n'order auctions, who decides where mercy will fall? This play argues timeless questions in a vivid contemporary world. Director Bruce Myles: "What I love watching is good people struggle and damaged people reach for hope.'

Source: www.fortyfivedownstairs.com (Sighted 28/10/2009).

'"Our Beautiful Daughter" is Michael Gurr's first play written specifically for radio. It explores a relationship between two parents and their daughter as they face change and separation and - for one of them - death. Gurr's script shifts between the spoken and unspoken, between what these family members choose to reveal to one another, and what they prefer to conceal. "Our Beautiful Daughter" is a sensitive and often comic portrayal of the tensions between individual lives and the family.'

Source: ABC Radio National website, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/
Sighted: 28/07/2008

'As a playwright and activist, Michael Gurr has been a close observer of Australian politics and culture for more than twenty years. Days Like These is his personal account of a writer's evolution against the backdrop of a changing nation: a clear-eyed, often darkly humorous riff on how the times have come to be so out of joint.' - Back cover.

Julia oversees a benevolent foundation established by her husband. Among its beneficiaries she funded art through Leon, a senior detective of art forgery, science through Joe, a medical researcher and literature through Charlie, the young writer. Julia is acutely aware of human frailty and is generous in her need to right wrongs – and now she has the power to change the world. She listens, she observes, but she wants to do something more.