The Palace Letters

“If you can’t access the history, you can’t write the history! You can’t know what our story really is!” Beloved stage and screen star Georgie Parker leads this riveting portrayal of historian Jenny Hocking’s fight to uncover the truth about Gough Whitlam’s dismissal, tracing a web of intrigue that leads all the way to Buckingham Palace. In 1975, Australia faced its most serious constitutional crisis. In 2020 – thanks to Hocking – we finally gained access to long-suppressed correspondence from those turbulent days and weeks, revealing what was said in the corridors of power on two continents. At the heart of Hocking’s landmark legal battle to have the papers released is the question of what the Queen knew of the Governor General's intentions and when – and what it means for Australian independence. Playwright Melanie Tait ( The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race ) has crafted a dynamite and witty political thriller that moves between past and present, capturing the events and febrile atmosphere of The Dismissal. Parker and a gifted ensemble – including Jonathan Biggins ( The Gospel According to Paul ) as Gough Whitlam – bring these turbulent events to vivid life. The Sydney Opera House is the perfect venue for this pulse-pounding new work about an iconic event in Australia’s history, an original Sydney Theatre Company commission directed by Priscilla Jackman ( RBG: Of Many, One ).