The One Day Of The Year – Playscripts

‘Why not a play about the essential hollowness of the Anzac Day maunderings’

Undoubtedly one of Australia’s favourite plays, ‘The One Day Of The Year’ explores the universal theme of father-son conflict against the background of the beery haze and the heady nostalgic sentimentality of Anzac Day. It is a play to make us question a standard institution – Anzac Day, the sacred cow among Australian annual celebrations – but it is the likeability and genuineness of the characters that give the play its memorable qualities: Alf the nobody who becomes a somebody on this day of days; Mum, the anchor of the family; Hughie, their son, with all the uncertainties and rebelliousness of youth; and Wacka, the Anzac, with his simple, healing wisdom.