On June 9, 1951, Ben Chifley returns to his home in Bathurst, New South Wales to write a speech to deliver at the ALP Conference in Sydney the following day.
"Chifley is one of those great stories of massive disadvantage being overcome by discipline, intellect and a good deal of personal coldness, which is easily explicable by the fact that his mother let him go and he didn't see her for 10 years," Ellis said.
Ellis said "I didn't realise till then that the natural state of the Labor Party is one of six cats in a sack in the river.
But every now and then you get a great charismatic elucidating presence like Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke who can hold the cats in the sack in some kind of communion.
Ellis was surprised, claiming "The Ensemble's not exactly apolitical but it's very American — Neil Simon and Arthur Miller — and you don't see it do any original Australian plays that are not Henry Szeps discussing the joys of parenthood.