BUNYIP BARONS AUGUST 2026

Liverpool Powerhouse Theatre

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  Bunyip Barons
Presented by LPAE and in association with  Upstage Productions  &  Liverpool Powerhouse
●Friday 14th August, 11am & 7:30pm
●Saturday 15th August, 2pm & 7:30pm

Liverpool Powerhouse

Synopsis: Louisa Anne Meredith, 27-year-old poet, author, botanist, and social commentator, arrives in Sydney in October 1839 to start a new life in her husband’s country. She is writing her latest book “Notes and Sketches of New South Wales” and is eager to interview as many of the locals as possible. She is invited to a “Welcome to Australia Party,” hosted by the fictional “Coy” family – seemingly the perfect subjects and setting for her book – but she soon discovers that not all is as it seems. During a chance encounter with Wallace Hopkins, former servant of the Coys and escaped convict, Louisa is made privy to a series of troubling scandals currently plaguing the colony. Her Victorian sensibilities are thrown into turmoil when she is asked to publish incriminating documents that could have her hosts prosecuted and the scandal ended.The play explores the peculiarities of colonial Australian life through the eyes of Louisa Anne Meredith whose observations are still as relevant today as they were 180 years ago. Louisa herself is a fascinating, paradoxical character whose memory and achievements we hope to celebrate in this play and spark a renewed interest in the stories, events, and people who came before us.