In the Guardian’s new series, Future plays, writers introduce extracts from their scripts. The series starts with the long journey behind a historical prison drama
Some time ago, I was asked what my new play was about. “Sheep on fire in penal Australia,” I drily replied. “Good title,” I was told. So I kept it.
I had been introduced to Robert Hughes’s book The Fatal Shore. I was particularly struck by the story of Norfolk Island. Situated some 870 miles from mainland Australia, Norfolk had been utilised as a tiny penitentiary specifically designed as a deterrent for incorrigible Irish political prisoners. It was a ne plus ultra in the colonies, an oubliette within an oubliette.
