By Derek Schlennstedt
A family of four from The Patch who followed in the footsteps of Burke and Wills are performing their self-written show that tells the untold story of the tragic Burke and Wills expedition.
In what’s considered one of Australia’s most renowned colonial tragedies, Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills left Melbourne in 1860 to travel to the Gulf of Carpentaria.
A tale of true grit and survival, its legend is well-known to Australians; but few know the story of the expedition’s sole survivor John King.
Though, that sole survivor’s fascinating story is now being told in husband and wife Simon and Tina Storey’s self-penned play performed by the entire family.
Having retraced the expedition of Burke and Wills as a family in May this year, there are few others more qualified to re-enact the famous expedition north.
“We kept coming back to Burke and Wills because everyone knows the story and the names, but hardly anyone knows about the story of John King,” Simon said.
“The more we read about it, the more we thought we need to give this person a voice.”
Simon, Tina and their 14-year-old daughter Amelie all act in the play, while their nine-year-old son Sam works as the stage manager.
The performance follows Simon who plays the ghost of John King and their daughter who plays a teenager that doesn’t want to learn about history, but slowly gets drawn into the story.
“It’s the untold story of the race to the gulf through the ghost of John King.”
“It’s really been a family project, we all helped.”
For four months, the family followed in Burke and Wills’ footsteps, visiting famous locations and performing their play to different schools along the way.
It was this experience that helped the family and the play evolve and grow, so much so that by the end of their trip, a new scene had to be introduced into the final performance.
“Once you get out to that environment and see where they walked, see where they spent all that time at Cooper Creek … when I then do the story on stage you can see all of that- we did actually add an extra scene, because we felt it had to be in there.”
“To drive through where Burke, Wills and Grey actually walked was an incredible experience.”
Now after travelling interstate and playing all around the Australian Outback, the Storeys have returned home to perform the play at Burrinja on Sunday 14 October at 4.30pm.
Using a mix of storytelling and theatre, audiences will re-live every moment of the epic expedition, from its ambitious beginning to its tragic end at Cooper Creek.
For more information on the play, visit, http://www.thestoreyplayers.com/
