AustLit

'Patrick White's one-act play "Peter Plover's Party" was written in the late thirties and first performed on 12 September 1937 in London along with another of his skits in the Arts Theatre Club review, "Copyright Reserved." It was also performed around the same time at a charity gala in a London hotel.1 Broadcaster and author, Herbert Farjeon, having liked the play when he saw it, bought it for a West End show he was organising entitled "Nine Sharp." The show opened at the Little Theatre on 26 January 1938 with the Australian actor Cyril Ritchard playing Peter Plover. "Nine Sharp" ran for more than a year with over four hundred performances.4 Its success was important for White. Having one sketch performed in a West End show did not mean he had made it as a writer. However, as he wrote to a friend the day after the opening performance, he was "a little further on the way.' (Author's abstract)