AustLit

Review of the performance of Captain Swift, given the previous evening at the Brisbane Opera House by Charles Warner's Royal Dramatic Company. This was claimed as the first performance of the play in Brisbane. A detailed list of the cast appeared in the theatre advertisements section of Brisbane Courier on 1 June 1889, p.2.

The Brisbane Courier reviewer was clearly impressed by Captain Swift, and informed readers that although the play was not set in Australia, it was drawn from Australian life, here pointing to Chambers' intimate knowledge of life in the bush, and his experience in Queensland as a station hand and gold miner. However these claims were subsequently refuted by Haddon Chambers' brother, in a letter which was published in the Brisbane Courier on 20 June 1889, p.6, in which he stated that Haddon Chambers had in fact never been to Queensland, that he had spent most of his life in Australia in Sydney, and that he had very little experience of life in the bush.