[3][4][5] Set in Sydney, Ben Clayburn is a real estate agent whose two children are grown up and settled.
The basic idea had possibilities but the writer needs to learn about his craft, especially the art of creating characters through the dialogue.
"[9] The Sydney Morning Herald said "For stupefying banality of idea and sentiment it would have been hard to surpass Chris Gardner's homiletic Private Island", saying "the remorseless predictability of the play's action and dialogue must have ended even the most sympathetic viewer's attempt to accept it as other than a moralistic charade.
Reviewing that production the Sydney Morning Herald said "the players overcame the limitations of script to involve the listener" adding Gardner "wrote from confused values.
Dad was held to the treadmill by his son's forgery which left the old man with no choice" arguing that if the writer had "snipped away the sub-plots and cut the thing to a halfhour comment on how people meet the arrows of fate, she would have a play.